Month: March 2019

Britain says it will grant “diplomatic protection” to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a U.K.-Iranian dual citizen imprisoned in Tehran since 2016, citing “unacceptable treatment” during her three years of detention. “I have today decided that the U.K. will take a step that is extremely unusual and exercise diplomatic protection,” Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said in a statement on March 7. “This represents formal recognition by the British government that her treatment fails to meet Iran’s obligations under international law and elevates it to a formal state-to-state issue.” Hunt added, however, that it…

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In 2018, the pressure upon and suppression of human rights activists in Iran intensified through detention, threats and imprisonment. Iranian authorities view human rights defenders as threats to the security of the state.   The report on the condition of Iranian human rights defenders in 2018 coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in February 1979. We have chosen the second half of February for publication of the report because it marks the start of the darkest era in modern Iranian history with regards to the persecution of…

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