Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- Several Ahwazi Arab residents of Susangerd, Dasht-e Azadegan (in the province of Khuzestan, southwestern Iran) were detained by security forces and transferred to an unknown location on September 19, 2018 after reportedly chanting protests during a Shiite religious ceremony.
An informed source told HRANA that security forces responded to a number of protesters who were chanting slogans against the regime’s policies and economic failures during local mourning ceremonies in observance of Muharram. Two of the arrested individuals have been identified as Ahma Sovidi and Fayez Afravi. The identities of their comrades have yet to be confirmed.
According to HRANA’s annual report, between March 2017 and March 2018, 6883 people were arrested in Iran for political reasons or for expressing their beliefs. 1281 of these were individual arrests (i.e. independent of coordinated raids or the crackdown of unified protests).
These include 66 media users, 14 environmental activists, 222 adherents to religious minorities (in addition to the Dervishes arrested during the Tehran Golestan Haftom incident in February 2017), 114 women’s rights activists, and 60 workers and labour activists.
Category: Freedom of Expression
Media Activist Hassan Shemshadi Caught in Bureaucratic Pitfalls
Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) – In a September 18, 2018 session of the Computer Crimes Investigation Court, journalist and media activist Hassan Shemshadi was read charges on a case file for which he had already been summoned and charged twice.
Shemshadi’s ordeal with his current case file began when he was summoned to the Judicial Office of the Province of Sistan and Baluchistan for a social media post in which he stated that villagers on the outskirts of Zabul, in the throes of their poverty, were resorting to the consumption of cat and crow meat.
According to Shemshadi, this was his third summons in the last six months for the same complaint, and it indicated that his arrest warrant would be issued if he did not appear in the Computer Crimes Investigation Court within the next five days.
As indicated, Shemshadi appeared at the Computer Crimes Investigation Court of Tehran where a prosecution assistant told him that Zahedan Investigation Court had issued permission to “process his charges.”
“When I saw the case file number, I realized it was the same case file for which I had gone to Zahedan two months ago–the bail decision was even issued for it,” He said. “But the prosecution assistant said, ‘since I have not received anything to that effect from them, I’m bound by the law to arraign you. And you’re going to have to defend yourself.’”
Insisting that the same charges had already been processed two months ago, he was permitted to take up his complaint with the head of Investigation Court. “I explained the situation and offered him a copy of my numbered correspondence so he could check the system and see if I’m telling the truth or not.
Shemshadi said that the head of Investigation Court did just that, prepared a printout, signed it, sealed it, and sent it off to the court branch. “The prosecution assistant lady saw the printout and told me, ‘all set now! Good day!””
Hassan Shemshadi was born on October 23, 1969 in Khorramabad. He has collaborated with such networks as Radio and Television Broadcasting of Ghom, Khorram Abad, Central News Agency. He has also done reporting work in Syria and Iraq.
Against doctor’s orders, authorities take Arash Sadeghi back to prison after surgery
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Arash Sadeghi, a human rights activist imprisoned in Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj, underwent a critical operation on September 12th for malignant bone cancer at Imam Khomeini hospital and was returned to prison just three days later, against the orders of his doctor.
According to an informed source, an individual introducing himself a judicial official insisted on the early transfer against the clear orders of doctors.
Sadeghi’s doctor had instructed that he be hospitalized under close medical supervision for at least 25 days following a very difficult surgery, said the source. According to the source, the doctor explained that Arash needs to stay in the hospital as he requires a medical team in case of stroke, infection, or severe fever. Furthermore, the medical team needs the 25 days to determine whether a patient will require chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or additional surgery.”
A source with information about Sadeghi’s condition told HRANA that specialists had determined Sadeghi needed to be hospitalized three days prior to his surgery, due to an irregular heartbeat and severe weakness, so Sadeghi could be prepared for the intensive surgery through proper nutrition and vitamin injections.
The surgical department had contacted the prison several times on September 8th, asking for Sadeghi’s transfer. Prison officials claimed, however, that the prosecution office had not issued the necessary permits for his early hospitalization. Just one day remaining until his surgery, the authorities finally transferred Sadeghi to the hospital on September 11th.
The source added that there was a heavy presence of plainclothes agents, whose organizational affiliation was unclear, in the cancer department of the hospital since early Tuesday, before Arash arrived.
Sadeghi’s surgery time had been given to another patient due to his late transfer, however, the doctor responsible for Sadeghi reportedly managed to secure an operating table. Sadeghi underwent a 7.5-hour operation, beginning on the morning of Wednesday, September 12th. Doctors removed a bone tumor from his right arm and collarbone, and samples were collected from areas suspected of metastasis, such as his rib cage and underarm. Bone taken from his pelvis was mixed with platelets and special [injectable] cement to replace the removed sections of his arm bone.
The source said that agents imposed restrictions on Sadeghi from the moment the surgery ended, thus complicating his recovery process. They prevented his stay in the recovery room as required by post-surgery procedure.
“While he was still unconscious, they handcuffed and shackled his left hand and leg, and blockaded the area around his bed, a move that prevented his doctor’s required constant checkups, and which was protested by his doctor,” the source said.
According to the source, Sadeghi suffered from wounds similar to bedsores from having to lie on his back due to handcuffs on one hand and operation bandages on the other.
Sadeghi was allowed to use the bathroom only three times a day, accompanied by three agents each time. The inhumane conditions and the restrictions imposed on Sadeghi provoked negative reactions from the hospital staff, and in several cases led to verbal altercations between them and the security agents.
Arash Sadeghi was not allowed any visitors during his stay at the hospital. His wife, Golrokh Iraee, remains imprisoned at Evin Prison serving a six year sentence.
Author and Humorist Kiyumars Marzban Detained
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – On August 26, 2018, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence forces arrested author and satirist Kiyumars Marzban in his home, confiscating several personal items including his mobile phone and laptop.
Last year, Marzban, 26, came back to Iran after eight years abroad to visit his ailing grandmother. While he entered the country without event, Branch 1 of the Evin Prosecutor’s Interrogation office opened up a case file and arranged for his arrest within his first year back home.
While Marzban alleges he never traveled to the U.S., a state-affiliated news site has accused him of “Networking in Iran” on contract with American partners. The same news site accuses Marzban, who also teaches art, of entering Iran with the intent to sensationalize and divide the community with his classes. As of the date of this report, no further information was available about the reasons for Marzban’s arrest.
Human Rights Watch revealed in a press release that he has not been allowed to visit his family yet.
Kiyumars Marzban began his career with filmmaking in 2005. By 2009 he had produced eight short films and left Iran to develop his portfolio in Malaysia. Shortly afterward, via Facebook, he launched the world’s premier Persian-language comedy podcast, called “Radio Sangetab” (Sangtab, the name of a village in northern Iran, is also a cooking method using hot stones). His works include “Kham Bodam Pokhte Shodam Balke Pasandideh Shodam” (I was raw, I became ripe and rather pleasant) and “Aziz Jan” (Dear darling).
Reformist Ex-deputy Minister Summoned for Interrogation
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Mostafa Tajzadeh, a leading reformist politician who was previously imprisoned on political grounds for seven years, has been summoned by Branch 4 of the interrogation office of the city of Qazvin, 90 miles northwest of Tehran.
Tajzadeh is a leading member of a group known as the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization (MIRO), as well as a central council member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF). Both organizations have been banned by the Iranian authorities.
On September 18th, Tajzadeh published a note on social media attributing the summons to a speech he had made in the house of Ayatollah Ghavami.
“The note says that I have five days to present myself, otherwise I am to be arrested,” his note said.
Tajzadeh complained about being summoned in the same year that Iran’s Supreme Leader issued new year’s vow not to arrest citizens exercising their freedom of speech.
“It will soon be known who this summons order came from,” Tajzadeh wrote.
After Tajzadeh’s September 15th speech, he reported that the Intelligence Department of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps summoned a number of those in attendance.
Tajzadeh, who was a deputy interior minister during the self-proclaimed reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami, was previously arrested amid widespread protests known as the Green Movement that broke out across Iran after the 2009 presidential election. Convicted of both “gathering and collusion aimed at disrupting national security” and “propaganda against the regime,” he was sentenced to six years in prison by Judge Salavati in Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. An appeals court later confirmed the sentence.
While in prison, he wrote critical letters addressed to Iran’s Supreme Leader, which put him on the radar of the IRGC. This culminated in an additional charge of “propaganda against the regime,” for which he was convicted and subsequently sentenced to a year in prison by Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court, presided by Judge Moghiseh. He served a total of seven years in prison before his June 4, 2016 release.
Tajzadeh was also summoned to court last December, pursuant to complaints from Tehran prosecutors.
Civil Rights Activist Mohammad Davari Arraigned
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- Mohammad Davari, a civil rights activist from Yasouj in the province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyerahmad, was read his charges in Branch 4 of the Investigation and Prosecution office on September 19th, after presenting himself in response to a summons he received last week.
After a round of questioning, judicial authorities issued a charge of “disseminating propaganda against the regime” and released him on bail pending completion of the investigation.
A source close to Davari’s family confirmed the news to HRANA, adding that the plaintiff in the case is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Unit and that the judge admitted into evidence Davari’s “notes on cyberspace” and his promotion of books “against the regime and the Islamic Revolution.”
Contrary to the judge’s implication, Davari contests that his notes only touched on such subjects as the Tehran-Yasouj plane crash, labor conditions, and the environmental conditions in his home province. The books in question, published by Davari with the permission of the Ministry of Culture and Guidance, were about women’s rights, culture, and art.
Davari was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence forces on August 10, 2018. During his custody and until his August 27th release on a 200 million toman (approximately $20,000 USD) bond, he was denied medical care.
He was previously detained on March 5, 2018, for taking part in widespread popular protests in Iran. He was released ten days later on a 50 million toman (approximately $10,000 USD) bail.
Born in Dehdasht, about 90 miles west of Yasouj, Davari is a master’s student of political science who faced temporary detention on a prior occasion for pulling down a banner bearing the photo of late politician Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Imprisoned Civil Rights Activist Farhad Meysami Reaches 50th day on Hunger Strike
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Farhad Meysami has not had a single meal, or any food at all, for 50 days and counting, as his health condition continues to deteriorate.
A civil rights activist imprisoned in Tehran’s Evin Prison, Meysami announced his hunger strike August 1st, one day after his arrest by Iranian authorities, in protest of their refusal of the attorney of his choosing. Despite the decline of his health during the hunger strike, authorities have yet to send him to a hospital.
HRANA reported on Meysami’s weight loss and poor physical state on September 8th.
Mohammad Moghimi–lawyer of fellow Evin prisoner Reza Khandan, and incidentally, the attorney Meysami would have appointed if given the choice–said his client called him from Evin to report that Meysami’s strike had put him in mortal danger, and that he needed a transfer to the hospital right away.
Moghimi said that authorities’ denial of Meysami’s attorney of choice puts them in conflict with Iranian law. Once initial interrogations are over, each prisoner has a right to a lawyer of his or her choosing, according to Moghimi’s reading of Article 48 of Iranian penal code.
Meysami was arrested in his personal study on July 31st. He was originally charged with “gathering and collusion aimed at disrupting national security,”; “propaganda against the regime”; and “insulting hijab, a necessary and sacred element of Islam.”
On September 3rd, however, Branch 7 of the Evin prosecutor’s interrogation department claimed that charges have since changed, with the last one replaced with “spreading corruption and prostitution.”
Meysami, who suffers from ulcerative colitis, has said that during his hunger strike he will take only the medication that treats this condition, as he has taken for the past 18 years. Meysami has previously said that he would break his hunger strike only if his friend and fellow inmate Reza Khandan, who was arrested after Meysami’s hunger strike began, is released unconditionally.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both asked for Meysami’s release.
Intensified Muharram Rituals Becoming Unbearable for Residents
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Muharram in Iran has so far delivered on its annual promise of month-long public dirges and processionals in honor of the 3rd Shiite Imam Hossein, who died in battle in the 7th century AD. Filling side streets and alleyways with self-flagellation, drumbeats, and wailing, observers of this religious holiday have more recently come to serve the additional purpose of encroaching on religious minority groups.
If noise pollution, traffic jams, and road blockades don’t seem major issues on their face, religious-minority citizens and eyewitness reports describe Muharram as a month-long “psychological persecution” that has enjoyed a history of strong government sponsorship, especially in non-Shiite locales [1].
Ararat, Tehran resident and member of a religious minority he preferred not to name, told HRANA that the eve of Muharram this year turned “ghastly” when the ceremonies reached his home on Ejarehdar Street and jolted his pregnant wife from her sleep.
“Suddenly, the windows started to tremble from the incessant drumming. You cannot imagine how she was woken up, and how she was shaking,” Ararat said. “Worried that something could have happened to the baby, we decided to go to the hospital.”
Making their way through streets clogged with parades, the route to the hospital that night was a long one.
“We moved in with my wife’s parents in Jajroud [north of Iran]. We were worried something terrible could happen, so we escaped for the safety of our baby.”
The Muharram rituals, according to Ararat, were bearable until a few years ago. Over the past decade, due in part to the failing economy, religious hubs have multiplied in tandem with a decreased public interest in worship. To address waning public participation, Ararat said, congregations have purchased audio equipment to broadcast their Muharram lamentations across greater distances.
“Most congregations consist of only a dozen people with flags and drums, slapping their chests or engaging in self-flagellation,” Ararat said. “They are led by a van carrying loudspeakers blasting the monodies [melodic laments].”
Revelations last year that the city of Tehran had given $14 million USD (55 billion IRR) to religious congregations caused such a stir among Iranians that the current mayor and city council have made clear that such funding would not be available this year. According to HRANA reports and eyewitness accounts, however, the disproportionate national and municipal budgets allocated to associations funding Muharram rituals has already mobilized the practice of such rites into a deliberate and systematic violation of religious minority rights.
Through its construction projects alone, city administrators seem to harbor a wish to maintain Shiite presence in neighborhoods where very few of them live. As one Isfahan tourist put it, Christian, Jewish, and other minority localities look deceivingly like the most Shiite-dominated areas of the city. Shiite congregations dot the map of Tehran’s Felestin (Palestine) neighborhood, which is home to many Jewish residents; the Villa neighborhood in Tehran, predominantly inhabited by Christian Armenians, is home to three Shiite mourning congregations; and several Shiite religious associations are housed in Tabriz’s Barnava district, as well as in the Christian-Armenian neighborhoods of Julfa and Isfahan’s Sangtarashha quarter.
As eyewitnesses attest to a growing fervor in sectarian rituals this year, and as religious-minority neighborhoods become host to some of the largest, most cacophonous dirges in the city, the slight against minority residents is twofold: their local taxes are not only being funneled away from projects that would otherwise benefit them, they are also being pooled into the government’s ideological propaganda campaign. Not to mention the noise.
“You cannot believe the horrendous conditions of our street,” said Ararat, who lives on an arterial sidestreet of Tehran’s Imam Hussein Square, one of many feeder streets into a larger collective mourning ceremony that brings loudly-wailing passersby, at all hours of the day and night, to the square. “I tried to reason with the parade administrators, but they told us it was all for Imam Hussein. They claimed there was nothing we could do, and advised us to stay up these nights to reap our benefits in the afterlife!”
An atheist Tabriz resident told HRANA that in order to escape the 24/7 stream of noise this year, he retreated to a vacation home and took a 10-day leave from work.
“Perhaps those who are religious won’t believe me, but I can’t stand even a second of monodies and chest slapping. We have seen enough of this on TV, at school, and at our universities. Every year, the number of congregations [that carry out these activities] increases. It is as though, by virtue of not being Muslim Shiites, we have no rights, and we do not even exist.”
Government backing of these observances not only violates the rights of religious minorities acknowledged in the Constitution–namely Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians–but also infringes on the rights stipulated in constitutional articles 19 [2] and 20 [3] pertaining to all Iranian citizens, including Baha’is, Dervishes, Yareshan, Mandayis, and others not expressly protected by law.
[1] Heya’at, religious associations or congregations, are formed via municipal permit process prior to Muharram, the Islamic month in lunar calendar marked by rituals commemorating Imam Hossein. The rituals include the broadcast of loud monodies broadcast through loudspeakers and processions held in the streets, where participants clad in black walk the streets while slapping their chests and chanting.
[2] Article 19: The people of Iran enjoy equal rights, regardless of the tribe or ethnic group to which they belong. Color, race, language, and other such considerations shall not be grounds for special privileges.
[3] Article 20: Members of the nation, whether men or women, are equally protected by the law. They enjoy all the human, political, economic, social, and cultural rights that are in compliance with the Islamic criteria.
Anemic Political Prisoner Denied Medical Treatment on 10th Day of Hunger Strike
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – On the shore of the Caspian Sea in the city of Tonekabon, authorities at Nashtaroud Prison are still withholding medical care from political prisoner Mahin-Taj Ahmadpour, who has now been on hunger strike for ten days.
Sentenced to 10 months in prison for her participation in the January protests, Ahmadpour has been on hunger strike since September 10th, in protest of her restricted access to both medical care and the prison telephone.
Her strike is also a revolt against prison authorities who, as a form of coercion or harassment, reportedly threatened to open new charges against her.
An informed source told HRANA that prison officials have displayed apathy toward Ahmadpour’s anxiety about her condition. “On Thursday, September 13th, Ms. Ahmadpour felt sick and asked prison authorities for a transfer to an outside hospital, or to allow her family to bring medications to her, but the authorities ignored her pleas,” the source said.
Concerned at her frail state and steep drop in blood pressure, Ahmadpour’s ward mates brought her to authorities again in hopes of obtaining her treatment. A few hours later, the ward mates learned she had instead been transferred to solitary confinement.
“They said that she would be held there until she broke her hunger strike,” the source said. “She was sent back to the ward last night, without having been treated, and still on strike.”
Per her treatment plan for anemia, Ahmadpour should receive seven units of blood every month. An informed told HRANA that monthly blood infusions were also recommended for her as a preventative measure against leukemia. Despite her diagnosis and supporting medical documentation, however, prison authorities are adamant about denying her requests for a medical transfer.
Mahin-Taj Ahmadpour is a 46-year-old resident of Tonekabon. A peddler by trade, she was arrested along with 14 other residents during widespread rallies that took place in January 2018 across Iran, known as the January Protests. The Revolutionary Court of Tonekabon sentenced eight of these arrestees to 28 months’ imprisonment, divided among the defendants. Branch 101 of Criminal Court No. 2 of Tonekabon, presided over by Judge Ebrahimi, also sentenced six of the arrestees to 24 collective months of prison time.
Ahmadpour was first sentenced May 2, 2018, in Branch 101 of Tonekabon Criminal Court No. 2 to serve a six-month prison sentence on a charge of “disrupting the public peace through participation in an illegal gathering.” On August 11, 2018, Tunekabon’s Revolutionary Court compounded the sentence with four months’ imprisonment for “propaganda against the regime.” As evidence against her, the court cited a combination of law enforcement reports and images and video taken during the January protests in Tonekabon.
HRANA previously reported on Ms. Mahin-Taj Ahmadpour’s third day of hunger strike in Nashtaroud Prison.
Journalist Motahereh Shafiei Walks away from Appeal with Suspended Sentence
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – The former sentence of Motahereh Shafiei, editor of the politics beat of the Arman newspaper in Iran, was appealed to a six-month suspended prison term Monday, September 17th, Ensaf News reports.
Shafiei was previously tried and sentenced to six months in prison, plus a two-year ban on both media-related and political activity, by Judge Salavati in Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court.
As of the date of this report, there are no details available on her charges or the reason behind her conviction. She is among a group of reformist journalists arrested in 2012 by the Ministry of Intelligence during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency.
Fars News Agency, an organization with close ties to the Iranian security establishment, reported in 2012 that these journalists were being investigated for “their contacts with foreign media.”