{"id":1327,"date":"2018-11-06T17:20:14","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T17:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1327"},"modified":"2018-11-06T17:20:14","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T17:20:14","slug":"forced-psychiatric-hospitalization-cannot-become-new-means-of-silencing-dissent-in-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1327","title":{"rendered":"Forced Psychiatric Hospitalization Cannot Become New Means of Silencing Dissent in Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Teachers\u2019 Rights Activist, Held Against His Will at Psychiatric Hospital in Iran and Forcibly Given Medications, Must Be Released Immediately<\/p><\/div>\n

November 6, 2018\u2014The Iranian government should immediately release teachers\u2019 rights activist\u00a0Hashem Khastar\u00a0from the psychiatric facility where he has been forcibly and unlawfully held, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said in a statement today.<\/p>\n

In addition, CHRI condemns the arrest on November 5, of Khastar\u2019s wife, Sedigheh Maleki, and their two sons, Jahed Khastar and Ahmad Khastar, in addition to the other protesters who were with them, in front of the hospital where Khastar is being unlawfully held. While they were released at the end of the day, these arrests were a transparent means of intimidation to shut down protest over Khastar\u2019s forced admittance into the psychiatric hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iranian authorities are using imprisonment in a psychiatric facility in order to silence a civil rights activist, and arresting family members or anyone else that dares to protest this abuse of power to enforce this silence,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of CHRI. \u201cThis is right out of the playbook of the worst abuses by authoritarian powers.\u201d<\/p>\n

By arresting the prominent activist, forcibly admitting him to a psychiatric facility and administering medication against his will, Iranian officials have committed a blatant act of arbitrary detention and torture and violated the right to health, which requires free and informed consent to any medical care, CHRI said in its statement.<\/p>\n

Forced Hospitalization and \u201cTreatment\u201d Is Arbitrary Detention and Torture<\/strong><\/p>\n

What has transpired against Khastar is legally defined as \u201carbitrary detention\u201d and a violation of\u00a0Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights\u00a0(ICCPR), to which Iran is a signatory, which states \u201cNo one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention.\u201d As\u00a0remarked by the UN Human Rights Committee, the body interpreting the covenant, \u201cany form of physical restriction not allowing the person to leave the facility is considered detention and the fact that the facility is a medical center does not change this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The authorities have also violated\u00a0Article 7 of the ICCPR, which states, \u201cNo one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if an individual has mental health issues, in accordance with\u00a0Article 14 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities\u00a0(CRPD),\u00a0a disability in and of itself cannot justify the deprivation of liberty.\u00a0Article 15 of the CRPD\u00a0also prohibits any medical or scientific tests on people without their consent, which they consider to be acts of torture and degrading, inhuman treatment.<\/p>\n

In addition, according to the\u00a0CRPD\u2019s Article 25\u00a0and\u00a0Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, (ICESCR), as interpreted by the relevant UN Committee, providing medical care must be on the basis of free and informed consent and prescribing any medication or procedure without such informed consent is a blatant and serious violation of human rights.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0Iran\u2019s domestic rules on medical procedure, the only exceptions to the principle of consent concern children and individuals whose decisions are made by legal guardians. Even in emergency situations, the consent of the individual or his family is required as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s\u00a0Guidelines for Special Situations in Rehabilitation and Treatment Centers for Psychiatric Patients\u00a0stipulate that if a person with acute mental health conditions has not been declared \u201cincapacitated\u201d by medical or judicial authorities, her\/his personal consent is necessary to carry out any medical treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are deeply concerned that the forcible admission of individuals into psychiatric facilities will become the norm in dealing with civil activists and critics of the state, giving the Iranian authorities yet another means to ignore judicial procedure and unlawfully arrest and detain critics of the state,\u201d Ghaemi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe urge international human rights mechanisms, including the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Iran to forcefully condemn this action and demand the immediate release of Khastar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khastar\u2019s Arrest for Peaceful Activism and Forced Hospitalization<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Sedigheh Maleki, who spoke about her husband\u2019s forced admittance into the psychiatric hospital before she herself was arrested, the retired teachers\u2019 rights advocate was arrested in Mashhad, in the northeast province of Khorasan Razavi on October 23 by plain-clothed individuals who did not reveal their identity or present a warrant. They forcibly put Khastar in an ambulance and admitted him to the\u00a0Ibn-e Sina and\u00a0 Psychiatry Hospital\u00a0against his will.<\/p>\n

Despite his resistance and objections, Khastar was tied to a bed, given a number of injections, had blood withdrawn and was administered unknown tests.<\/p>\n

According to his family, his close friend and colleague,\u00a0Javad La\u2019l-Mohammadi, and the Iranian Teachers\u2019 Trade Association (ITTA), who issued a\u00a0statement, Khastar has never had any psychiatric issues and there have never been any questions about his full mental health.<\/p>\n

Since his arrest, he has been visited once by two of his relatives for 10 minutes in the presence of a security agent.<\/p>\n

None of the judicial, security or military officials have responded to inquiries by Khastar\u2019s family or taken responsibility for his forced arrest. Meanwhile, hospital staff have said they cannot give information without a written permission from the prosecutor of Mashhad, Gholamali Sadeghi.<\/p>\n

Khastar was arrested ten days after teachers in several cities in Iran participated in a\u00a0peaceful sit-in\u00a0to demand educational reforms and the release of imprisoned teachers\u2019 rights activists.<\/p>\n

Arrest of Family Members<\/strong><\/p>\n

The arrest of Khastar\u2019s family members, meanwhile, is a continuation of the authorities\u2019 use of pressure, harassment and detainment of family members as a means to intimidate and silence criticism of unlawful and politically motivated arrests, CHRI added.<\/p>\n

An eyewitness at the gathering at the hospital where Khastar\u2019s family members were arrested, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told CHRI that the police blocked streets leading to the hospital prior to the arrests of the family members and other protesters.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Monday [November 5, 2018] I went toward the hospital along with a few friends and colleagues but there were a lot of security forces stationed there\u2014Intelligence Ministry agents in plain clothes and policemen. They were stationed in a square near the hospital, blocking the street leading to it. Mr. Khastar\u2019s wife and their sons were quickly taken into custody along with several protesters,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n

Those arrested include Khastar\u2019s academic colleagues Hadi Lotfinia and Mohammad Yazdi as well as eight others whose names have not been released.<\/p>\n

In interviews about her husband\u2019s illegal hospitalization prior to her arrest, Sedigheh Maleki had said she had been warned that if she continued to talk to the media she would face prosecution.<\/p>\n

The detainees were first transferred to a local police station and later taken away by security forces to an unknown location, according to the source.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rally and arguments with the police went on until five-thirty in the afternoon. They took the detainees to the Shafa Police Station and when we went to ask about their situation, the guard at the gate would not let us inside. We then talked to the station officer and he told us that the security agents came and took the detainees but didn\u2019t say where. They told us to come back tomorrow for more information.\u201d<\/p>\n

CHRI has learned that Khastar\u2019s wife and their two sons, along with all the other detained protesters, were released at 10:00 p.m. Tehran-time on November 5.<\/p>\n

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

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

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November 6, 2018\u2014The Iranian government should immediately release teachers\u2019 rights activist\u00a0Hashem Khastar\u00a0from the psychiatric facility where he has been forcibly and unlawfully held, the Center for Human Rights in Iran<\/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":[435,430,436,434,432,431,433],"class_list":["post-1327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-ahmad-khastar","tag-hadi-lotfinia","tag-hashem-khastar","tag-jahed-khastar","tag-javad-lal-mohammadi","tag-mohammad-yazdi","tag-sedigheh-maleki"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327","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=1327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1328,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions\/1328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}