An Iranian court sentenced British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to another year in jail, just weeks after she finished a prior five-year sentence, a decision Britain called “inhumane”. When Zaghari-Ratcliffe was freed from house arrest last month at the end of a sentence for seeking to overthrow Iran’s government, her family had hoped she could go home to London. But she was immediately ordered back into court to face new charges of propaganda against Iran’s ruling system.
Iran has shown resolute determination over its desire to rob its Baha’i population of all citizenship rights. Having just marked the year 1400 in the Iranian calendar and 178 of the Baha’i calendar (March 20), let’s take a snapshot of the situation. Iran’s human rights violations against Baha’is have been distinctly state-driven, multifaceted, and severe. Though the Baha’i Faith has never been included amongst the recognized religions in Iran, non-recognition and discrimination yielded a formal policy of hostility against its members with the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Two lawmakers have written to President Biden urging him to place human rights, and holding human rights abusers accountable, at the center of his Iran policy — just as a resolution backing a secular and democratic Iran has picked up majority support in the House. The resolution, introduced by Reps. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., and Brad Sherman, D-Calif., backs “the Iranian people’s desire for a democratic, secular, and nonnuclear Republic of Iran” and condemns “violations of human rights and state-sponsored terrorism by the Iranian Government.”
Boris Johnson criticized Iran after British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to another year in jail on charges of propaganda. Zaghari-Ratcliffe completed a five-year sentence in Tehran in March, after being accused of plotting against the state. A court has now given her another one-year jail term and a one-year ban on leaving Iran, the BBC reported. Johnson said his government would “redouble our efforts” to get her home with her husband and young daughter in London.
The announcement that detained British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe will spend another year behind bars in Iran has been met with fury and accusations that Tehran is treating her as a bargaining chip. Mother-of-one Zaghari-Ratcliffe had just finished a five-year jail term on charges of spying, which she vehemently denied, when she was sentenced to an additional year in prison on propaganda charges. Her lawyer said the charges relate to her involvement in a demonstration in London more than 10 years ago, and giving an interview to the BBC’s Persian-language service.
A German-Iranian human rights activist held in Iran on vague security-related charges has had her first hearing at a Revolutionary Court, her daughter and human rights groups said. Nahid Taghavi, 66, was arrested in Tehran in October while on a family visit and spent nearly five months in solitary confinement in the capital’s notorious Evin prison, in a case rights groups say amounts to politically motivated hostage taking. “Today was the first hearing of #NahidTaghavi. Another trial day is scheduled, date unknown,” her daughter Mariam Claren wrote on Twitter on April 28.
World powers negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program should present a joint stance against Iran’s cruel and unlawful practice of jailing dual nationals to use as bargaining chips, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) urged ahead of more show trials of dual nationals scheduled for April 28, 2021. “No government should be allowed to play with human lives as political pawns, yet that’s what the Iranian government has been doing with dual nationals for years,” said CHRI Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi.
The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the UK is working with the United States to free dual-nationals detained in Iran, after news emerged that a Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has received another jail term. The lawyer of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national held in Iran since 2016 and effectively under house arrest since March, said Monday she had been sentenced to a one-year discretionary jail term and banned from leaving the country. Hojjat Kermani told Emtedad news website that judges had issued the sentence for a fresh case launched last year before she completed a five-year term.
Women’s rights groups are scrutinizing the United Nations (UN) following the election of Iran to a women’s rights committee within the intergovernmental organization. “We consider the election of the extremely misogynistic regime of Iran as an insult to all Iranian women, the main victims of this regime during the last four decades,” the Association of Iranian Women in France said in a statement, alongside support from their counterparts in Italy and Sweden. “We call on governments, institutions and associations to condemn this decision.”
The audio file of an interview with Mohammad Javad Zarif, and the foreign minister’s revelations, has shaken the governing system in Iran, almost like the Watergate scandal in the United States a half century ago. A review of recent events, however, suggests that this is the tip of an iceberg. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei − who Iranian authorities and politicians refer to as ‘fasl al-khitab,’ the one who has the final say by refuting the wrong − has always exhorted officials and politicians to resolve differences and not let Iran’s enemies exploit discord. Less than two weeks ago, the latest issue of Khat-te Hezbollah, the weekly publication of Khamenei’s office, highlighted under the headline “The Final Word” parts of the leader’s speeches on the nuclear issue, including his exhortation on February 22 not to allow “two contradictory voices.”
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has denounced Iran’s nomination to the UN women’s committee, citing the country’s “deplorable women’s rights records.” Last week, Iran was elected by 54 UN member states to the Commission on the Status of Women, a New York-based body aimed at promoting gender equality and female empowerment. On its website, HRW lists a plethora of regressive Iranian laws that disproportionately target women.
Zayanderud river in Iran has dried up, thanks to the government’s policies, negatively affecting the ecosystem and the lives of local people. Due to this, farmers in Isfahan have held protests in recent days to demand their water rights; the latest of many. A farmer, identified as Seyed Morteza, told Mehr News that provincial officials have said water will be distributed in May, although nothing is known about the time, duration, or volume of the water supply. He said: “We should prepare the land to cultivate. We must provide suitable seeds and fertilizer, but no one is responsible for us. We are left undecided and have no income with these economic conditions.”
Last week, the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women. The commission defines itself as “the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.” Beginning next year, for four years, this entity will include one of the world’s most brutal violators of women’s rights. The commission will have in its ranks a country where the testimony of a woman in a criminal trial is valued as half that of a man’s, and “the monetary compensation awarded to a female victim’s family upon her death is half that owed to the family of a male victim,” said Freedom House in its 2021 Freedom in the World report…
According to Amnesty International’s annual report, Iran ranked second in the world last year in terms of the highest number of executions in the world. However, proportional to its population Iran had the highest number of executions and execution of women in the world. During Rouhani’s 7 years of presidency, Iran executed more than 4,300 people, of whom 109 were women and at least 38 were juvenile. Presently, in only in 20 countries in the world, the death sentence is issued and carried out to punish the criminals, and 177 abolished death penalty.
The sudden death of Mohammad Hejazi, the former deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, in April represents another blow to the regime’s praetorian guard, following the U.S. strike which killed Qassem Soleimani last year. In a condolence message, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Hejazi undertook “great” and “influential” responsibilities in the IRGC. The ascension of his replacement, Mohammad Reza Fallahzadeh, elevates a commander with battlefield and operational experience in the Levant.
حجت کرمانی، حقوقدان و وکیل دادگستری گفت که نازنین زاغری به اتهام «فعالیت تبلیغی علیه نظام» به یک سال حبس تعزیری و یک سال ممنوعیت خروج از کشور محکوم شده است. دادگاه رسیدگی به دومین پرونده نازنین زاغری رتکلیف، شهروند ایرانی بریتانیایی، روز ۲۴ اسفند و یک هفته پس از پایان محکومیت پنجساله در پرونده اول او برگزار شده بود. کیفرخواست جدید در مهرماه ۱۳۹۶ از سوی سازمان اطلاعات سپاه و هنگامی صادر شده که خانم زاغری در حال گذراندن دوره محکومیتش در زندان اوین تهران بود.
برادر رامین حسینپناهی، زندانی سیاسی کُرد که در سال ۹۷ در ایران اعدام شد، در رابطه با اعلام خبر ممنوع الخروج شدن پدر و مادر سالخورده خود، میگوید که نهادهای امنیتی و دستگاه حاکم بر ایران سالها است سعی میکنند خانواده او را به زانو در بیاورند. امجد حسینپناهی، برادر رامین حسینپناهی، با اشاره به این که اعمال فشار علیه خانواده او توسط نهادهای امنیتی تازگی ندارد، به صدای آمریکا گفت: «بیش از ۱۵ سال است که فشار مداوم نهادهای امنیتی در کردستان علیه خانواده من جریان دارد. وی با اشاره به جان باختن دو برادرش، گفت: «آخرین نمونهاش رامین حسین پناهی، فعال سرشناس کُرد، بود که متاسفانه در ۱۷شهریور ۹۷ اعدام شد … تاکنون جنازه را به ما پس ندادهاند و کماکان فشار علیه پدر و مادر پیرم در جریان است.