HRANA News Agency – The nine women hunger striking in Evin Prison say that guards confiscated their belongings. Amnesty International has issued statement on.
The Iranian authorities must protect all detainees and prisoners from harassment and degrading treatment, Amnesty International said today, after nine female political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, started a hunger strike in response to alleged abuse by prison guards.
The women, who are all held in Tehran’s Evin Prison include activists and journalists. They say they were subjected to humiliating and degrading body searches by female guards from the Prison Security Section who subsequently confiscated some of their personal belongings on Tuesday Continue reading “Amnesty – Iran: Female detainees begin hunger strike after degrading treatment”
HRANA News Agency – A shop worker convicted of a drugs-related charge was among 10 men put to death in Iran on Monday morning, despite calls on the country’s authorities by Amnesty International, UN human rights experts and others to halt their executions.
Saeed Sedeghi was permitted a “final meeting” with his mother at Evin Prison on Sunday, when judicial officials announced that his death sentence would be carried out early on Monday.
“Saeed Sedeghi and the nine other men executed today are the latest in Iran’s state killing spree, which has seen more than 360 individuals executed this year – the majority of them convicted drugs offenders. Such executions inflict needless suffering on Iranian families and are misguided, ineffectual and an affront to human rights,” said Ann Harrison, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International. Continue reading “Amnesty: Iran executes 10 men despite international pleas”
HRANA News Agency – United Nations: Human rights activists in Iran are subjected to beatings with batons, mock hangings, rape, sleep deprivation, and threats that family members will be raped or killed, about 670 people were executed in Iran in 2011, 223 People in First Five Months of 2012. the UN rights investigator said in a report released on Thursday.
The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, said in a report to the UN General Assembly that Iranian authorities undermined press freedoms, watched some journalists constantly and detained and persecuted others unfairly.
“The authorities recently banned domestic news outlets from reporting on the impact of economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Shaheed said.
Shaheed said Iranian authorities executed at least 223 people in the first six months of this year, most of them for drug-related offenses. A large number of those executed were convicted at unfair trials. Continue reading “Ahmed Shaheed’s third report: Rights activists beaten, raped/ About 670 people were executed in Iran in 2011, 223 in First Five Months of 2012”
HRANA News Agency – The spokesperson of Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the Commission, issued the following statement today:
“The High Representative is deeply concerned about reports that the execution of Iranian prisoner Gholamreza Khosravi Savadjani may be imminent. She appeals for clemency and urges that the sentence be commuted. His death sentence contravenes Iran’s international obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The EU holds a strong and principled position against the death penalty. The High Representative restates her call on Iran to halt all pending executions and to introduce a moratorium on the death penalty.”
HRANA News Agency – GENEVA — The UN human rights agency on Tuesday voiced deep concern over the arrest and imprisonment of a number of prominent human rights and political activists, lawyers and journalists in Iran over the past two weeks.
“This appears to reflect a further severe clampdown on critical voices in the country,” Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva.
“Lawyers, human rights defenders and independent media make a key contribution in democratic societies and must be allowed to carry out their work without facing intimidation, harassment, arrest and prosecution,” he insisted. Continue reading “The U.N. human rights deeply worried of Iran’s cracking down on human rights activists, lawyers and journalists”
HRANA News Agency – This is a ‘generalized’ letter to send to the authorities around the world to urge Iranian governors to stop executions of Gholamreza Khosravi Savadjani and other prisoners sentenced to death in Iran.
Subject: Save Gholamreza Khosravi and other prisoners sentenced to death in Iran
To Whom it may concern;
“I beg you, calling on the Iranian authorities, not to execute Gholamreza Khosravi Savadjani, or anyone else sentenced to death and remind them that under international law, the death penalty can only be carried out for “the most serious crimes” which must be “intentional crimes with lethal or other extremely grave consequences. “ Continue reading “E-mail sending Action: Please help save Gholamreza Khosravi and other prisoners sentenced to death in Iran”
HRANA News Agency – (Beirut) – Proposed amendments to Iran’s penal code would violate the rights of accused people and criminal defendants, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Iranian authorities should suspend enactment of the proposed amendments and undertake a major overhaul of the country’s abusive penal laws.
The 48-page report, “Codifying Repression: An Assessment of Iran’s New Penal Code,” says that many problematic provisions of the current penal code remain unaddressed in the proposed amendments. Some of the amendments would weaken further the rights of criminal defendants and convicts and allow judges wide discretion to issue punishments that violate the rights of the accused. Lawmakers and judiciary officials have cited the amendments as a serious attempt to comply with Iran’s international human rights obligations. Continue reading “HRW: Proposed Penal Code Deeply Flawed in Iran”
HRANA News Agency –Iranian businessman Mazyar Ebrahimi and 11 others have been held incommunicado since their arrest in June 2012. On 6 August the five women and seven men appeared on Iranian state television “confessing” to the killing of five Iranian nuclear scientists and academics since 2010. Amnesty International fears they could face the death penalty.
On 12 June Mazyar Ebrahimi, founder of a cinema and television production company in Iraqi Kurdistan, was arrested in Tehran by Ministry of Intelligence security forces for “reasons of national security”. His family have not been informed of his whereabouts since and their requests for contact have been refused. Mazyar Ebrahimi has not been allowed a lawyer of his choosing since his arrest because his case is still “under investigation”. Continue reading “Amnesty: IRAN TV “Confessions” breach suspects’ rights”
HRANA News Agency – Writer Arzhang Davoodi, who is facing fresh charges after being imprisoned in Iran for nearly nine years, must be released immediately and unconditionally, Amnesty International said.
Arzhang Davoodi, 60, who has been imprisoned since October 2003, faces a court hearing before Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran on 28 August on a new charge of “enmity against God” (moharebeh), which carries a possible death sentence.
The new charge is believed to be linked to his peaceful political activism and writings, including the release of an audio recording in which he called for “freedom and democracy”. Continue reading “Amnesty: Iran must immediately release prisoner of conscience Arzhang Davoodi”
HRANA News Agency – Amnesty International; An Iranian man, Gholamreza Khosravi Savajani, is scheduled to be executed on 10 September, on the charge of “enmity against God” (moharebeh) for his alleged support of a banned Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).
Continue reading “Amnesty’s Urgent Action – IRAN: Gholamreza Khosravi is scheduled to be executed on 10 September”
