Year: 2022

UN human rights experts* today expressed serious concerns about a violent crackdown against civil society in Iran, including members of workers’ unions and teachers arrested for protesting against their low salaries and poor working conditions, and urged those responsible for using excessive force to be held to account through comprehensive and independent investigations. “We are alarmed at the recent escalation of allegedly arbitrary arrests of teachers, labour rights defenders and union leaders, lawyers, human rights defenders and other civil society actors,” the experts said. In the past year, the Iranian…

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Former female cellmates of a group of wildlife conservationists who’ve been unjustly imprisoned in Iran since January 2018 penned the following letter as a tribute to their nature-loving friends on the occasion World Environment Day, June 5, 2022. The letter was initially written in Persian and provided to the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) along with the English version printed below. The signatories—formerly imprisoned in Iran on trumped-up charges with two of the conservationists, Sepideh Kashani and Niloufar Bayani—recognize the group, as well as their colleague Kavous Seyed-Emami,…

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Iranian authorities should revoke the death sentence against Iranian-born Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali, said the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner in a statement published today. Read the complete statement by spokesperson Liz Throssell below. Click here to learn more about Djalali’s case. We are deeply alarmed by the imminent execution in the Islamic Republic of Iran of Swedish-Iranian doctor and academic Ahmedreza Djalali and urgently call on the Iranian authorities to halt the execution and revoke his death sentence. Iranian authorities announced yesterday that while the execution currently…

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At least five protesters are dead amid a violent state crackdown on street demonstrations in Iran, while the authorities have blocked internet access in protest hot zones, pressured domestic media not to cover the protests, and arrested growing numbers of protesters and activists. Yet the protesters are refusing to back down; street demonstrations, currently in their second week, were reported in at least 20 cities across Iran at the time of this writing. “The Iranian people are in the streets to protest living costs and air grievances against their repressive…

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