An exiled Iranian Arab rights activist has revealed that three minority Arab dissidents executed by Iran’s Islamist authorities last month showed signs of torture before their death sentences were carried out. In a Wednesday interview with VOA Persian from London, researcher Karim Dahimi said dissidents Jasem Heidary, Ali Khasraji and Hossein Silawi had bruises when relatives were given a brief chance to see the men shortly before their Feb. 28 executions at Sepidar prison in the southwestern city of Ahvaz.
A trial to present new charges against a British-Iranian woman detained for five years in Iran convened Sunday, her supporters said, casting uncertainty over her future following her release from prison. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe appeared in court to face charges of “spreading propaganda against the regime,” said Richard Ratcliffe, who has outspokenly campaigned for his wife’s release. Iranian authorities had introduced the new indictment months ago, but adjourned the trial until Zaghari-Ratcliffe completed her 5-year sentence on widely refuted spying charges last week.
Leaders of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) called on the UN to intervene and release two women whose families have been the targets of violence and death by the Iranian regime. According to the NCRI, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRG) forcibly removed political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared from the women’s ward of Evin Prison, where she has been for the past 12 years, and transferred her to the Semnan Prison. Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI President-elect, said that despite protests from other prisoners, IRG and prison guards physically dragged Akbari Monfared from her cell.
French tourist Benjamin Briere, who was arrested in Iran 10 months ago, faces charges of “spying and propaganda against the system”, one of his lawyers told Reuters on Monday, at a time of heightened tension between Tehran and the West. The revelation comes as the United States and European parties to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, including France, are trying to restore the pact that was abandoned in 2018 by then-U.S. President Donald Trump. U.S. President Joe Biden has offered to join European countries in talks to revive the accord, but Tehran says first Washington should lift sanctions that were imposed in 2018 by Trump.
Iranian officials have reportedly ordered teachers to identify children belonging to the Baha’i minority in order to convert them to Islam. Leaked documents from the northern city of Sari, in Mazandaran province, show authorities plan to step up “strict controls” of Baha’is, already one of the world’s most persecuted religious minorities, including “rigorously” controlling their “public and private meetings.”
Iranian authorities have arrested multiple music producers connected to a California-based Iranian pop singer, his management company and Iranian media said Thursday, in Tehran’s latest effort to halt what it deems decadent Western behavior. The arrests come as Iranian social media has been awash with criticism of popular underground Iranian singer, “Sasy,” or Sasan Heidari Yafteh’s, new music video. Called “Tehran Tokyo,” the video features actresses, including an American porn star, gyrating in kimonos and short bodycon dresses atop cars and inside bars. The clip racked up 18 million views within a week.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has revealed details of her five years of torture in the Iranian prison system to independent investigators for the first time. She said she had been subjected to abuse including sensory and sleep deprivation, stress positions, and prolonged isolation, handcuffing, chaining and blindfolding. Doctors diagnosed “serious and chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression and obsessive compulsive disorder” after an evaluation conducted by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims.
A Revolutionary Court in Iran has sentenced four followers of the Baha’i faith to a total of 12 years in prison. The 28th Branch of the Tehran Revolutionary Court has sentenced Mona Mehrabi, Elham Kerempisheh, Afsaneh Yadegar Ardestani and Ehsanollah Yadegar Ardestani to a total of 12 years of prison. The four men and women were tried in absentia in 2019 and sentenced to a total of 20 years. The sentence was later reduced to 3 years of prison for each person. The four Bahai citizens were charged with “membership in illegal organizations which are threats to national security.”
On March 12, marine police opened fire on a group of fuel traders in the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan, killing two Baluch locals. In response to this crime, residents of the Kuhestak town flooded onto the streets and clashed with oppressive forces. Authorities once again targeted protesters with live ammunition, leaving at least one person injured. Security forces’ violence prompted and fueled locals’ ire. They expanded their protests in various parts of this town and set some police patrol boats ablaze.
On March 1, 2021, a group of civil rights activists appeared before the Judiciary Services Office in Tehran to file a suit against those who order or enforce solitary confinement in Iran’s detention centers and prisons, bringing to the fore public discussion in Iran of a longstanding practice that the UN has labeled torture. The practice of placing detainees in prolonged solitary confinement is widespread in Iran. It is routinely used during the interrogation stage to isolate detainees and to weaken them psychologically in order to extract information and false “confessions.”
Iran’s judicial system has a long, documented history of sentencing detainees held on politically motivated charges to “exile”—prolonged banishment to a remote, underdeveloped town or city far from the detainee’s residence—after the completion of a prison sentence. The sentence is intended to isolate prisoners as well as prevent them from interacting with their friends, family, and giving interviews to news outlets, or expressing themselves on social media, which they are usually banned from using.
This week marked 14 years since retired FBI Special Agent Bob Levinson vanished almost without a trace on Iran’s Kish Island, and one year since his family finally accepted U.S. assessments that he died in captivity — but they still haven’t been able to adequately say goodbye to the beloved husband, father and grandfather. “We haven’t been able to hold a funeral for my dad,” Levinson’s daughter, Sarah Moriarty, told ABC News.
Last year, the Iranian people continued to witness the most violations of their rights by the Iranian regime. In his report to the 46th session of the UN Human Rights Council, Mr. Javaid Rehman, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, expressed concern and called on the Human Rights Council to pay special attention to human rights violations in Iran. Mr. Rehman based his report on news, and information available to him because the regime has not yet accepted his requests for a trip to Iran.
بیانیه نزدیک به ۶۵۰ نفر از مخالفان جمهوری اسلامی از طیفهای مختلف، بحثهای زیادی برانگیخته است. مخالفانی که میگویند باید حول محور یک شعار متحد شد: نه به جمهوری اسلامی! این بیانیه را علاوه بر دهها فعال سیاسی، شمار متعددی از چهرههای شناخته شده فرهنگی، هنری و ورزشی هم امضا کرده اند. از شاهزاده رضا پهلوی گرفته تا آرامش دوستدار و شهبال شب پره. هدف این بیانیه تشکیل جنبشی بزرگ و فراگیر ذکر شده، برای پاک کردن ایران از به گفته آنها فقر و نکبت رژیم سیاه جمهوری اسلامی. فرین عاصمی گزارش میدهد!
در روزهای اخیر فشار بر زندانیان سیاسی در ایران شدت گرفته است. محمد نوریزاد در اعتراض به وضعیتش خودزنی کرده و گفته که اعتصاب غذا و دارو خواهد کرد. اسماعیل عبدی فعال صنفی معلمان هم امروز از زندان اوین تهران به زندان رجایی شهر کرج منتقل شد. پیشتر سپیده قلیان و مریم اکبری منفرد هم، به ترتیب، به زندانهای بوشهر و سمنان تبعید شدند. پرهام قبادی در گزارشش، با همسران اسماعیل عبدی و محمد نوریزاد صحبت کرده است.
انتشار سندی که نشان میدهد مقامات محلی شهر ساری در استان مازندران مصوبهای رسمی را مبنی بر «کنترلهای دقیق» بهائیان شهر «در جهت چگونگی تحرکات آنان» و اقداماتی در جهت «چگونگی نگاه به دانشآموزان بهائی» به منظور «جذب آنان به دین اسلام» صادر کردهاند، واکنش سازمان «جامعۀ جهانی بهائی» و فعالان حقوق بشر را به دنبال داشته است. در این سند که نسخهای از آن نیز برای صدای آمریکا ارسال شده، آمده است که جلسه کمیسیون «اقوام، فرق و مذاهب شهرستان ساری» در تاریخ ۳۱ شهریور ماه در فرمانداری شهرستان ساری با حضور برخی از مقامات دولتی برگزار و بررسی آخرین وضعیت دراویش و شهروندان بهایی استان مازندران در دستور کار این جلسه قرار گرفته است.