Archive for Human Rights

Special Report: Sunni Clerics in the Crosshairs of Islamic Republic Repression

Religious Leaders of Minority Communities Are Arrested, Imprisoned, Defrocked for Supporting Protesters

August 15, 2023 – Religious leaders of the Sunni Muslim communities in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province and in the Kurdish provinces of the country are being increasingly targeted by Islamic Republic authorities for persecution, arrest, and imprisonment because of their peaceful criticism of the state’s violent repression.

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Saman Yasin: Latest Victim of Iran’s Use of Forced Psychiatric Care to Punish Political Prisoners

July 24, 2023 – The forced psychiatric hospitalization of jailed rapper Saman Yasin in Iran shortly after he demanded due process and justice for his case highlights the Iranian government’s continued weaponization of medical treatment in order to suppress dissent, in flagrant violation of international and Iranian law.

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Iran: State’s “Investigation” of Bar Association Aims to Crush Dissent

Iranian Officials Commit Rights Violations with Impunity While Parliament Votes to Further Persecute Human Rights Defenders

June 28, 2023 – Bolstering a state campaign aimed at crushing dissent, the Iranian Parliament has voted to “investigate” the Iranian Bar Association in a bid to further persecute human rights lawyers who serve as the last remaining lifeline for defendants facing politically motivated charges in the judicial system.

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More Executions of Protesters in Iran Imminent after Sham Trials

Prosecution of Three Young Men Relied on Torture, Forced “Confessions”

Defendant: “They kept beating me to make me tell their version of their crime on camera”

May 17, 2023 – Three young men—Saeed Yaghoubi, 37, Saleh Mirhashemi, 36, and Majid Kazemi, 30— who were arrested amid the nationwide protests in November 2022 in Iran, tortured into making “confessions,” and sentenced to death in January 2023 after a four-day trial without a jury in Iran’s Revolutionary Court system, are now at imminent risk of being executed.

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Human Rights Lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh’s Husband Ordered to Report to Prison

February 14, 2023 – The human rights activist Reza Khandan, who is the husband of the prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, has been summoned to report to prison within 30 days to begin serving a six-year sentence (five years mandatory) that was issued in 2019, according to his lawyer, Mohammad Moghimi.

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Iran Protests: At Least 44 Defense Attorneys Arrested Since September

Crackdown Aimed at Destroying Any Chance of Fair Trials for Protesters

Detainees Forced to Use Court-Appointed Lawyers

January 10, 2023 – While the Islamic Republic has been gunning down and executing street protesters, it has also been arresting defense attorneys—at least 44 since September—to block their ability to seek justice for arbitrarily arrested activists and street protesters, according to research by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

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26-Year-Old Actor Sentenced to Death, More Than 100 Industry Members Detained

December 20, 2022 – The sentencing of theater actor Hossein Mohammadi to death in Iran after a show trial, and the arbitrary detentions of more than 100 film and theatre industry workers including superstar Taraneh Alidoosti, mark the latest chapter of the Islamic Republic’s deadly crackdown on dissent three months into the anti-state protests that have rocked the nation.

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Children Beaten on Streets and in State Custody, Assaulted in Schools

December 13, 2022 – Children in Iran accused of supporting the country’s protest movement are being subjected to physical and psychological torture in Iranian custody as well as in their schools, according to interviews and research conducted by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

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Young People will Continue to be Killed in Iran without International Action 

December 12, 2022 – The hanging in public of Majidreza Rahnavard, 23, in Mashhad today—the second execution of a young person in Iran without due process in less than a week—is a prelude to more state-sponsored murders of young people in the absence of a strong and coordinated international response, said the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

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At Least a Dozen Labor Leaders Arrested in Effort to Crush Strikes Islamic Republic Should Be Expelled from ILO Governing Board

November 29, 2022 – More than three months into anti-state protests across Iran that state security forces have been unable to crush despite the use of lethal force, oil workers, truckers, public transportation workers, and factory workers are joining other labor groups now waging strikes across the country.

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