120 Academics and Activists Join UN in Calling on Iran to Free Princeton Scholar Xiyue Wang۱۲۰ چهره دانشگاهی و فعال حقوق بشر از سازمان ملل خواستند تا از ایران بخواهد شی‌وانگ را آزاد کند

OCTOBER 3, 2018

A group of 120 academics and human rights activists of Iranian origin have called on Iran to free imprisoned American scholar Xiyue Wang, who was arrested in Tehran by agents of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry during the summer of 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison on unsubstantiated espionage charges a year later. The signatories, including prominent Iranian scholars and the Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi, made the call in a letter addressed to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which recently found that there “no legal basis” for Wang’s arrest and detention and called for his immediate release.

*The letter has been published below in both English and Farsi in its original form with no modifications apart from including the full hyperlinks.

A United Nations Working Group Exposes Iran’s Extortion Policy

September 27, 2018

Dear members of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention,

We the undersigned, a group of Iranian academics and human rights activists residing outside the country, wish to thank the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention for investigating the imprisonment of Mr. Xiyue Wang in Iran and concluding that there is “no legal basis for his arrest and detention.” The New York Times covers the story with more details.

Young Woman Put to Death in Iran for Crime Committed as Juvenileایران اعدام افرادی که زیر سن قانونی مرتکب جرم می‌شود را متوقف کند و به محروم کردن متهمان از دادرسی عادلانه پایان دهد

Zeinab Sekaanvand is Fifth Known Juvenile Offender Executed in Past Year

OCTOBER 2, 2018

October 2, 2018 – The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) condemns the execution of Zeinab Sekaanvand Lankarani who was charged with murder as a juvenile and hanged in violation of all international laws and standards, and calls on the Iranian judiciary to immediately halt the executions of all juvenile offenders.

“Iran claims it doesn’t execute juveniles but it isn’t fooling anyone by arresting minors and waiting until they’re adults to hang them,” said CHRI’s Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi.

“Zeinab Sekaanvand was married off at 15, jailed at 17 and later executed for the charge of murder despite evidence that she had been forced to confess to the crime under torture,” Ghaemi added.

Iran Executions: Man Hanged at Qazvin Central Prisonاعدام یک زندانی در زندان مرکزی قزوین

October 6, 2018

Iran Human Rights; October 6, 2018: A prisoner was executed on October 2, at Qazvin Central Prison on murder charges. 

According to IHR sources, on the morning of Tuesday, October 2, Hamed Valizadeh was hanged at Qazvin Central Prison (also called Chubin Dar). He was from Abhar city and was 38 years old at the time of the execution. 

Hamed was arrested in January 2014 for murdering a person and convicted to qisas (retribution in kind) at Qazvin public court. According to the IHR sources he was involved in an honour killing case. 

The Iranian media outlets have not published news related to the aforementioned execution so far.

According to Iran Human Rights annual report on the death penalty, 240 of the 517 execution sentences in 2017 were implemented due to murder charges. There is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in issuing a death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and intent.

Bachelet urges Iran to stop executing juvenile offendersکمیسر عالی حقوق بشر سازمان ملل از ایران خواست تا به اعدام نوجوانان پایان دهد

October 5, 2018

GENEVA (5 October 2018) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Friday condemned the execution in Iran this week of Zeinab Sekaanvand Lokran, a juvenile offender. Ms. Sekaanvand was convicted of murdering her husband in 2012, when she was 17 years old, but her claims that she was coerced into confessing to the killing, and that she had been a victim of domestic violence, were reportedly not adequately examined during her trial.

UN Human Rights Chief Condemns Iran's Execution Of Woman Convicted As Teenager

Zeinab Sekaanvand in undated photo

October 06, 2018

The UN human rights chief is condemning Iran's execution of a woman convicted of murdering her husband five years ago when she was 17 years old.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said on October 5 that Zeinab Sekaanvand Lokran had insisted she was coerced into confessing to the 2012 murder and she was beaten by police after her arrest.

Ayatollah's solution to sexual harassment and assault is to wear a hijab

October 7th, 2018

By Melissa Etehad Los Angeles Times

On the first anniversary of the global #MeToo movement, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared a solution for Western women facing sexual harassment: wear a hijab.

His statement comes during growing unrest over the law that mandates that Iranian women wear the hijab, or headscarf, in public. In recent weeks, the Iranian government has arrested several activists who have protested the law.

Iran’s Deteriorating Human Rights Situation and Trump Administration Policies

Barbara Slavin, Dokhi Fassihian, Hadi Ghaemi, and Sussan Tahmasebi (Atlantic Council)

SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

BY MASOUD MOSTAJABI

Iran’s human rights record continues to deteriorate but there are effective ways to advocate for improvement that include making demands as specific as possible and enlisting broad multilateral support.

These were the main conclusions of a September 13 panel on the topic organized by the Atlantic Council’s Future of Iran Initiative.

The system imposed in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution seeks a return to conservative social values through rigid interpretations of Islamic law. From women losing rights previously enshrined in a 1975 Family Protection Act, to intimidation and repression of civil society at large by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Judiciary, Iran has violated a wide spectrum of ethnic, social, and religious rights.