{"id":1288,"date":"2018-08-09T16:36:04","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T16:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1288"},"modified":"2018-08-15T16:44:01","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T16:44:01","slug":"state-tv-of-iran-must-end-its-use-of-families-to-discredit-journalists-dissenters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1288","title":{"rendered":"State TV of Iran Must End Its Use of Families to Discredit Journalists, Dissenters"},"content":{"rendered":"

State Broadcasts of Family Members Used to Silence Activists<\/p><\/div>\n

(New York, August 9, 2018) \u2013 Iranian authorities should immediately stop harassing and threatening the families of activists and journalists as a means to silence dissent and criticism, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) and Justice for Iran (JFI) said in a joint statement today.<\/span><\/p>\n

On July 27, Iranian state TV\u2019s \u201c20:30\u201d program featured an\u00a0interview with Mina Alinejad, the sister of Iranian activist Masih Alinejad, in which she publicly denounced her sister for her advocacy against Iran\u2019s compulsory hijab laws. During the interview, Mina Alinejad said she was appearing on TV of her own free will, but Masih has said in an\u00a0Instagram post\u00a0and a\u00a0New York Times op-ed\u00a0on July 31 that Iranian authorities have pressured her family to denounce her on state television.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe longstanding use of Iran\u2019s state media to force activists\u2019 families to appear unwillingly to denounce their relatives shows the level the authorities will stoop to silence state critics,\u201d said\u00a0Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.<\/span><\/p>\n

Masih Alinejad founded the campaign \u201cMy Stealthy Freedom\u201d in 2014, which advocates against women being forced to wear the compulsory hijab in public in Iran. The enforcement of a compulsory dress code for women in Iran violates their rights to private life, personal autonomy, and freedom of expression, as well as to freedom of religion, thought, and conscience. It is also a form of gender-based discrimination prohibited under international law.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are serious concerns that this broadcast is just the latest example of authorities using one of their well-established tactics to pressure and threaten family members of Alinejad, who is based outside Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

In March 2018, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) filed a complaint at the United Nations Human Rights Council against Iranian authorities for their campaign of harassment against BBC Persian staff. The harassment included the arrest and intimidation of employees\u2019 family members based in Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

The BBC Persian service is based in London and does not have an office in Iran. A\u00a0BBC public statement detailed examples of harassment\u00a0that family members of staff have received in Iran; in one instance, the press statement said, \u201ca senior producer\u2019s elderly mother was called in for questioning in Tehran by one of the many intelligence agencies. She was told that her son could have a car accident in London if he continued working for the BBC.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA government that preys on the bonds of family in order to lash out at its critics is a government that has no respect for the rights of its citizens \u2013 or common decency,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s government-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) has a\u00a0long history of parading Iran\u2019s critics and their family members on national TV, where they are forced to make so-called \u201cconfessions\u201d or public statements meant to discredit them and their causes. Human rights groups have documented several instances in which dissidents, activists, and journalists were featured in pseudo-documentary videos intended to \u201cprove\u201d their \u201cguilt,\u201d though they apparently did not appear willingly.<\/span><\/p>\n

On February 13, a few days after the suspicious \u201csuicide\u201d in detention of prominent environmentalist\u00a0Kavous Seyed Emami,\u00a0IRIB\u2019s 20:30\u00a0program claimed\u00a0that he was a spy \u2013 an allegation for which his family has since filed a defamation\u00a0lawsuit against IRIB. The program featured a video-recorded statement by Kavous\u2019s brother saying that he had seen the body and believed that he had committed suicide. The family has said authorities coerced the brother into recording the video when they raided his house a few days earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n

On July 9,\u00a0Iranian\u00a0state television broadcasted\u00a0apologies by several women, including\u00a0Maedeh Hojabri, a teenager\u00a0briefly detained in May for posting videos of themselves dancing on their personal Instagram accounts.<\/span><\/p>\n

In December 2015, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rejected a complaint by two IRIB officials against the European Union\u2019s decision to include them on its human rights sanctions list. The ECJ placed them on the list in 2013, after Press TV, an English and French channel affiliated with IRIB, broadcasted a series of forced confessions by detainees who had been tortured.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Court ruled that under their leadership, IRIB and Press TV had both repeatedly and closely collaborated with the Iranian security apparatus and Revolutionary Court prosecutors to coerce confessions from prisoners of conscience and then broadcasted them under the pretext of interviews conducted with the approval of the prisoners.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs the European Court of Justice emphasizes in its ruling against the IRIB chiefs, collaboration with the security apparatus in producing pseudo-documentary videos, and broadcasting coercive confessions are serious human rights violations,\u201d said Shadi Sadr, executive director of Justice for Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

Signatories:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Hadi Ghaemi, Executive Director<\/span>
\nCenter for Human Rights in Iran<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East Director<\/span>
\nHuman Rights Watch<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Shadi Sadr, Executive Director<\/span>
\nJustice for Iran<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

For more information, please contact:<\/strong><\/span>
\nIn Washington, DC, for Human Rights Watch, Tara Sepehri Far (English, Farsi): +1-617-893-0395 (mobile); or\u00a0seperht@hrw.org. Twitter: @sepehrifar<\/span>
\nIn New York, for the Center for Human Rights in Iran, Hadi Ghaemi (English, Farsi) +1-917-669-5996 (mobile); or\u00a0hadighaemi@iranhuamnrights.org<\/span>
\nIn London, for Justice for Iran Shadi Sadr (English, Farsi):\u00a0+44-770-704-9084 (mobile?); or\u00a0shadis@jfingo.org<\/span><\/p>\n

For interviews, contact:<\/span>
\nHadi Ghaemi<\/span>
\n+1-917-669-5996<\/span>
\nhadighaemi@iranhumanrights.org<\/span><\/p>\n

Visit our website:\u00a0www.iranhumanrights.org<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(New York, August 9, 2018) \u2013 Iranian authorities should immediately stop harassing and threatening the families of activists and journalists as a means to silence dissent and criticism, Human Rights<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1289,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions\/1289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}