Year: 2019

Continued human rights abuses in Iran, crackdowns and arrests and killings of protesters

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As human rights abuses continue in Iran, the detention of civil society, labour, student activists, and women activists and journalists continue in various Iranian cities. Thousands have been detained, hundreds killed, and dozens were missing during recent Iran protests since the third week of November 2019. Iranian regime officials have also cut off Internet networks across the country, preventing leaks of current news and events abroad. News sources report that many students, labour, media, and women’s activists have been abducted and detained in recent weeks. According to reports, on Monday,…

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Independent Human Rights Experts Sound Alarmed on Suppression in Iran

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Following the protests that began on Friday, 15 November, against the 300 percent increase in gasoline prices across Iran; the Iranian government moved to repress forcefully the people and especially the youth. The United Nations posted an article on its website titled “Independent rights experts sound alarmed at Iran protest crackdown, internet blackout”. The article said in part: “Reports of killed and maimed demonstrators, and a continuing nationwide internet shutdown in Iran’s now week-long protests are of ‘grave concern’, and the Government and authorities must ensure rights of expression and…

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Uprising Against Iran’s Mullahs

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Tens of thousands of people have been taking to the streets in Iran since last Friday demonstrating against the regime. The reason: While the Islamist regime funds terrorism throughout the Middle East, it oppresses its own people and exploits the people. The mullahs’ security forces and militias respond to the protests with brute force – and shut down the Internet to cover up the violence. In dozens of cities, demonstrators have been attacking government buildings, state-owned banks, state-owned firms, and the regime’s so-called seminaries, where they activate their reactionary ideology,…

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Three Women Killed by Security Forces in Iran Protests

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Three women have been killed by suppressive forces in Mahshahr and Shiraz during the ongoing Iran protests. On Tuesday, a young female student was shot at from a state security force helicopter in Shiraz, and on Monday, two women were killed by agents wielding heavy machineguns in Mahshahr. This brings the total number of women killed by regime agents during the ongoing protests to at least six. There were at least 16 people killed, 150 arrested, and a large number wounded in Mahshahr on Monday, as anti-riot forces using heavy machineguns…

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Iran’s Baha’i Problem

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The Islamic Republic of Iran is facing a big problem. As a matter of fact, the problem is so big that the Iranian leadership and State media cannot stop talking about it. They are very very upset, suffering from high levels of stress and anxiety. This problem is so big that it has unified the otherwise divided hardliners and pragmatists who now speak with one voice in the name of all that is holy and sacred. If you guessed that the problem is the highest per capita rate of executions…

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Iran introduces 2,000 new morality police units in response to women’s hijab protests

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Iran has introduced 2,000 new morality police units in reaction to what officials call an “increasing defiance” of the compulsory wearing of hijabs. The units, called “resistance groups for verbal and practical response to bad-hijabi women”, were launched recently in the northern province of Gilan as part of a pilot scheme. They are each made up of six women who have the power to arrest and detain those they deem to be flouting the country’s strict veiling laws. The move comes amid a growing backlash by women in the Islamic…

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Iran To Block Social Media In Case Of War With U.S.

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Iran would block its citizens’ access to social media if war were to break out with the U.S., the head of the country’s Passive Defense Organization has said. In a speech on Sunday, May 26, brigadier-general Gholamreza Jalali of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said, the U.S. “uses social media for media and psychological operations to influence Iranians’ minds.” He added that Washington has the opportunity to exercise soft power in exploiting both Iran’s lack of a defensive national intranet and its weakened economy, using “social media for placing its…

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Amnesty: Proposed Iranian Law Restricting Access to Lawyer Would Be Crushing Blow for Justice

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A contemptible amendment to the Iran’s code of criminal procedure could effectively strip detainees who are facing punishments such as the death penalty, life imprisonment and amputation, of the right to access a lawyer while they are under investigation, Amnesty International announced on Thursday, May 16. An analysis of the bill published by the organization Thursday details how, if passed, the amended law would permit the prosecution to immediately deprive individuals arrested on “national security” and certain other serious criminal charges of access to a lawyer for 20 days, which…

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Journalists Condemn Arrest of Reformist Reporter Ahead of World Press Freedom Day

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Marzieh Amiri, a reporter for the reformist Shargh newspaper, has been in Evin Prison’s Ward 209 under the control of the Intelligence Ministry since she was arrested while covering a Labor Day protest in Tehran on May 1, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned. Amiri was detained after she went to a detention center on Vozara St. to inquire about workers’ rights activists who’d been arrested at a rally near Iran’s Parliament, according to tweets by Shargh reporters. Judicial authorities have not commented on the reason…

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Memo to Zarif: Stop Taking Dual Nationals as Hostages

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Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s statement today that he has the “authority” to exchange Iranian-Americans imprisoned in Iran with the US is a glaring admission that these prisoners are being held as political hostages. “If ever there was a question that imprisoned dual nationals in Iran are being used as political pawns, Zarif publicly admitted today that his government has taken these people as hostages,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). “The foreign minister spoke as though he was trying to make a…

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