Fourth Human Rights Lawyer Slapped With National Security Charges in Iranتبدیل قرار کفالت به بازداشت و سنگین‌تر شدن اتهام دو وکیل دادگستری

AUGUST 24, 2018

Arash Keykhosravi, a lawyer representing the family of an Iranian Canadian man who recently died under suspicious circumstances in state custody, has been slapped with national security charges, making him the fourth defense attorney detained under this pretense in Iran in less than a year.

Former moderate lawmaker Ghasem Sholeh Sa’di is facing the same charges for attending a lawful political rally along with Keykhosravi in August 2018. Their detention orders have also been extended for a month without eligibility for bail.

“The prosecutor upped the charge from ‘disruption of public order’ to ‘assembly and collusion against national security’ even though it’s unrelated to what they did, which was attend a peaceful public gathering that didn’t harm national security the slightest bit,” attorney Payam Derafshan told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on August 21, 2018.

Iranian Journalist Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Criticizing Ultra-Conservative Cleric in a Tweetصدور حکم ۱۰ سال زندان برای محمدحسین میراسماعیلی به اتهام توهین به معصومان و مسوولان

AUGUST 24, 2018

Amir Mohammad Hossein Miresmaili, a former journalist and satirist for the Jahan Sana’at (Industry World) newspaper in Iran, has been sentenced to a decade in prison after allegedly disparaging a Shia imam in a tweet aimed at criticizing an ultra-conservative cleric in Iran.

Branch 1060 of the Government Workers Court in Tehran handed down the sentence on August 19, 2018. Miresmaili was also banned from media activities for two years as well as prohibited from traveling abroad for two years.

“There are many objections to the ruling against my client,” his lawyer Hossein Ahmadiniaz told the state-funded Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA).

Journalist Recounts “Inhumane” Living Conditions at Iran’s Great Tehran Penitentiaryمشاهده عینی نادر فتوره‌چی روزنامه‌نگار از حضور یک روزه در زندان فشافویه: زندانی ضد انسانی و ضد بشری، در ردیف جهنم

AUGUST 25, 2018

An Iranian journalist who was detained at Iran’s Great Tehran Penitentiary (GTP) has written about the jail’s “inhumane” conditions, stating in a Facebook post that day to day life there is “beyond the limits of human tolerance.”

“The sign above the entrance to the prison in Fashafouyeh says, ‘Great Tehran Penitentiary,’ but the fact is that psychological and physical pressures on the prisoners are so intense that you essentially don’t have the opportunity to ‘contemplate and repent,’” wrote Nader Fatourehchi on August 21, 2018.

With an official capacity of 15,000 inmates, the GTP, located in Tehran Province’s Fashafouyeh district, 20 miles southeast of Tehran, is the largest detention facility in the country. It was built in 2015 primarily for holding suspects and inmates convicted of drug-related offenses, but the judiciary has also used it to incarcerate dissidents and anti-state protesters.

Iran's forgotten persecuted Christian minorityفراموش شده ایران، اقلیت مسیحی را مورد آزار و اذیت قرار داده است

An Iranian woman walks past a mural depicting members of Basij paramilitary force, portraying Iranians' solidarity against their enemies, painted on the wall of a government building at the Felestin (Palestine) Sq. in downtown Tehran  (AP)

August 26, 2018

Iranian Christians are in dire straits in the Islamic Republic because of a new wave of regime repression that has largely not registered in the media due to the country’s economic free fall and popular uprising by a people fed up with the tyrannical nature of the regime.

The mullahs have launched a cut-throat campaign to silence their opponents, and on top of their list are Iran’s persecuted Christians – an ancient people of the land the regime stigmatizes as a gateway to the West.

Iran: Rights Defender Faces New ChargesVerdict Shows Criminalization of Rights Activismایران: مدافعان حقوق بشر در مواجهه با اتهامات جدیدحکم نشان‌دهنده‌ی جرم‌انگاری فعالیت حقوق بشری است

Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and Farhad Meysami, a human rights defender, protest the suspension of  Sotoudeh's law license in front of the Tehran bar association in Tehran, February 2015. 

 © Private 2015

August 17, 2018

(Beirut) – A prominent human rights lawyer arrested in June 2018 to serve a previously unrevealed prison sentence faces new charges, apparently solely due to her human rights work, Human Rights Watch said today. The recent release of a verdict against Nasrin Sotoudeh in an earlier court case also reveals the grave degree the Iranian judiciary is criminalizing human rights activism.

Sotoudeh is one of a number of human rights advocates targeted in a government crackdown since the beginning of 2018. On June 13, authorities arrested Sotoudeh to serve a five-year sentence issued against her in absentia on September 3, 2016. She was arrested shortly after she filed a case on behalf of a woman who was arrested for removing her headscarf. The authorities had neither previously informed Sotoudeh about nor publicly announced the 2016 conviction or sentence. Her lawyer told Human Rights Watch on August 16 that she was told after her arrest that the authorities have opened two new cases against Sotoudeh for her human rights work.

19 University Students in Iran Issued Long Prison Sentences as One More is Tried in Tehranوکیل پریسا رفیعی: «امیدوارم با رفع سوء‌تفاهمات موکلم از تمامی اتهامات تبرئه شود»

Iranian students clash with riot police during an anti-government protest around the University of Tehran, Iran, 30 December 2017. Media reported that illegal protest against the government is going on in most of the cities in Iran. Protests were held in at least nine cities, including Tehran, against the economic and foreign policy of President Hassan Rouhani’s government.

AUGUST 17, 2018

At least 17 students from universities in Tehran and two others from Tabriz have been issued harsh prison sentences ranging from one to 12 years in preliminary rulings by the Revolutionary Court system for attending protests earlier this year.

In the latest case, University of Tehran student activist Parisa Rafiei was tried at Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Mashallah Ahmadzadeh on national security charges on August 13, 2018.

“My client explained in court that she is simply a student activist working within the boundaries of the laws of the Islamic Republic,” Rafiei’s defense attorney, Saeed Khalili, said in a note published by Ensaf News on August 13. 

Kurdish Death Row Prisoner Transferred to Different Prison, Raising Fears He Could be Executedنگرانی خانواده و وکلای رامین حسین‌پناهی از انتقال شبانه او به زندان رجایی‌شهر کرج

AUGUST 16, 2018

A Kurdish man who has been sentenced to death in Iran despite serious concerns about how his case was handled has been transferred hundreds of miles to a prison near Tehran for unknown reasons, raising fears he could soon be executed.

“His family is worried because it is not clear if he has been transferred to receive treatment or if they want to carry out his execution,” Osman Mozayyan, one of Ramin Hossein Panahi’s lawyers, told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on August 14, 2018.

“But what is clear is that… the sentence against him was issued by a court in Sanandaj and legally that is where he should be incarcerated. I and two other lawyers are pursuing the matter,” he added.