Category: News

Golrokh Iraee Calls Citizens to the Defense of Persecuted Activist Soheil Arabi

Posted on by Sara
Freedom of Expression, Prisoners
Evin Prison, Exile, golrokh iraee, Golrokh Iraei, Golrokh Irayee, Nastaran Naimi, Soheil Arabi, Women's Ward of Evin Prison

Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) – Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, a civil rights activist imprisoned at Evin, has written an open letter in response to the recent re-sentencing of Soheil Arabi, a prisoner of conscience in Great Tehran Penitentiary who has been held without furlough since November 7, 2013.

On new charges of “propaganda against the regime” and “disturbing the public mind,” Tehran Revolutionary Court Branch 26 sentenced Arabi to three more years of imprisonment and three years of exile on September 22, 2018. Cited as evidence against him were voice files he allegedly sent from inside the prison, in which he can be heard comparing Evin to a torture chamber.

In her letter, Iraee accuses authorities of using the exile sentence to banish dissidents like Arabi from public memory.

Golrokh Iraee pictured here with husband and fellow prisoner of conscience Arash Sadeghi

While behind bars on separate charges in June of this year, Arabi was issued a six-month prison sentence by Judge Moghiseh on charges of “blasphemy” and “propaganda against the regime.” The charges stemmed from a case file opened up against Arabi and his ex-spouse Nastaran Naimi, who was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for “blasphemy” and “aiding and abetting.”

Iraee’s letter warns the Iranian public that apathy towards the extension of Arabi’s detainment would be ignoring symptoms of a malaise for which all Iranian citizens are responsible.

The full text of her letter, translated into English by HRANA, is below:

“He has been behind bars for years without having committed a crime. He is held captive by a vengeful system that has no tolerance for dissenting views, that stifles them instead in bondage, with physical and mental tortures.

Soheil Arabi was first detained on a misunderstanding that devolved into a blasphemy charge. After spending years behind bars and nearing the end of a sentence that tore his family apart (after the immoral and inhumane pressures they submitted him to, to break his spirit), yet another case file emerges, yet another prison sentence is leveled against him. After compounding his suffering with a ban on visits from his daughter, they now want to do with him what they did with Arjang Davoudi and Gholamreza Kalbi: exile him to the middle of nowhere, remove him from public memory, and let his existence perish into the abyss.

After the hunger strikes and beatings he endured in prison, Soheil’s condition is worrisome indeed. It is fitting that we be reminded, after commemorating the World Day against the Death Penalty, of Soheil’s initial execution sentence. He was made to suffer for a long time under the threat of execution, and the [long-term] imprisonment to which his death penalty was commuted, yet we are still witnessing concerted efforts to annihilate him with continued torture and new case files extending his imprisonment.

This method of eliminating activists, protesters, and dissenters may be the current status quo of the judicial system, but it is critical we consider these actions as the red flags that they are, and that we increase public sensitivity and attract the attention of international organizations so that we can put a stop to the annihilation of political and ideological activists. Abandoning them in this state renders us guilty of spreading the disease of our judicial system, and condoning the repetition of such crimes.

Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, Women’s Ward of Evin Prison, October 2018.

***

Golrokh Iraee was arrested along with her husband on September 6, 2014. She was first held at an IRGC safe house for two days and then spent 20 days in the solitary cells of Evin’s Section 2A, which is under IRGC jurisdiction, before being released on a bail of 800 million rials. On October 24, 2016, the IRGC arrested Iraee again, without a warrant. Her husband Arash Sadeghi, who was sentenced to 19 years in prison, is currently in Karaj’s Rajai Shahr Prison and has undergone operations for cancer. Iraee was sentenced to six years in prison, which was reduced to 2.5 years based on amnesty and Article 134 of the Islamic Penal Code. She was convicted of “insulting the sacred” and “gathering and collusion against the regime.”

More than 50 Special Forces Attack Ward 12 of Urmia Central Prison

Posted on by Sara
Prisoners
Ahmad Tamooi, Hamid Rahimi, Hassan Rastegari, Kamal Hassan Ramezan, Kamran Darvishi, Osman Mostafapour, Prisoner abuse, Touraj Ismaili, Urmia Central Prison

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – In the latest of a long string of power abuses at Urmia Central Prison, more than 50 special forces responded to prisoner objections with severe beatings, breaking prisoners’ bones, and sending a number of them to solitary confinement on the night of October 15th.

A close source told HRANA that a large-scale reprisal was set into motion when three prisoners went to the guard’s office to check in on their wardmate Hamid Rahimi, who had been beaten there by four personnel and transferred to solitary confinement after a verbal altercation with staff. Rahimi is from Ward 12, designated for political prisoners.

Once arrived, the wardmates — identified as Kamal Hassan Ramazan, Ahmad Tamooie, and Osman Mostafapour — were met with their own violent beatings. Authorities started in on Tamooie, while additional prisoners, on orders from personnel members “Eskandar” and “Rezaie,” assaulted all three with a sharp object. Prisoner Touraj Esmaili was also beaten in the attack.

Authorities reportedly looked on as the attackers cut Esmaili, broke Ramezan’s nose, and busted the teeth of Tamooie, who has since gone on hunger strike to protest the assault.

When authorities were met with outcry over the assaults, they moved to disperse the victims and their comrades among different wards; when that measure, too, was met with resistance, prison authorities sent for reinforcements.

Prison guards and dozens of special forces stormed Ward 12 armed with batons, tasers, and tear gas, laying into Ramezan, Tamoo’i, Mostafapoor, and two more Ward-12 bystanders, Hassan Rastegari and Kamran Darvishi. The latter two were then transferred to solitary confinement; Rastegari has since been returned to Ward 12. “Hassan Rastegari was badly bruised all over,” the source said, adding that additional prisoners had attacked the men on orders from prison authorities.

Shortly thereafter, authorities established a perimeter around Ward 12. Crowded around the ward’s door were all those in charge of the prison, its investigations and protection unit, and Intelligence Security of West Azerbaijan Province. Inside the ward, dozens of special forces took up watch, while still more stood armed guard roof.

The special forces dispersed a few hours later, with the exception of a few that remained in the main prison hall.

Kamal Hassan Ramezan is on death row for political charges. Ahmad Tamooie is serving a 15-year sentence, and Osman Mostafapour is serving a 35-year sentence. As of the date of this report, the health statuses of the assaulted prisoners have yet to be confirmed.

Iran’s Prison Bureau stipulates that prisoner and prison-cell inspections must be carried out with respect to prisoners’ safety, i.e. to uncover and confiscate contraband items such as weapons and narcotics. Increasingly common, however, are inspections that lead to insults or destruction of prisoner property, and political detainees have proven to be popular targets. HRANA previously reported on the September 18th storming of Ward 12 by special forces, where guards pilfered and destroyed the prisoners’ personal belongings, including food they had purchased themselves.

Compounding harassment and pilfering at Urmia Central Prison is its authorities’ liberal use of corporal punishment. On October 8, 2018, prisoner Morteza Zohrali’s right arm was broken in a beating by prison officials; On September 23rd, Youth Ward inmate Javad “Arash” Shirzad was sent to an outside hospital for treatment of a concussion sustained at the hands of “Bayramzadeh,” the prison’s internal director; in July, Saeed Seyed Abbasi was beaten and sent to solitary confinement without treatment of his injuries, all for arriving late to the prison yard for recreation time; and in May, according to HRANA reports, prisoner Saeed Nouri, a former IRGC lieutenant, was beaten by two personnel in the internal director’s office.

Authorities Intimidate National Front of Iran into Cancelling Meeting

Posted on by Sara
Freedom of Expression
freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, national front of iran

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Before it could assemble for the first time in 12 months, the National Front of Iran again had to cancel a meeting due to threats of detainment from security forces, who have been impeding the group’s gatherings for the past three years.

The political group had intended to hold leadership elections on Monday, October 15th in the home of one of its members. A close source told HRANA that the elections were scheduled to fill the position of late central council chairman Adib Boroumand.

The National Front of Iran is a nationalist political organization that has faced restrictions to its activities since it was founded in 1949.

Activist Mohammad Najafi Charged with Visiting the Family of Ramin Hossein Panahi

Posted on by Sara
Freedom of Expression
Mohammad Najafi, Ramin Hossein Panahi, Vahid Heydari

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Attorney and human rights activist Mohammad Najafi was charged with “spreading lies with intent to disrupt the public mind” after travelling to Iran’s Kurdish region to meet with the family of Ramin Hossein Panahi, a political prisoner who was recently executed.

Najafi confirmed to HRANA that he was read his charges in Branch 1 of Shazand’s General and Revolutionary Investigation Court on October 14th, pursuant to a summons he received the day before.

Though Shazand Criminal Court No. 2 recently opted not to suspend Najafi’s internet activity, he said more charges would be forthcoming against him for content he posted online.

Najafi was previously detained for inquiring into the death of civilian Vahid Heydari, who died in Police Detention Center No. 12 amid the January protests. Najafi challenged Iranian judicial authorities who had claimed Heydari was a drug dealer that committed suicide while in custody. Najafi’s interviews with Heydari’s loved ones suggest that Heydari was a street peddler with no criminal record, whose autopsy report showed none of the typical markers of suicide, but did indicate head injuries consistent with blunt-force trauma.

When news of Najafi’s situation reached Tehran MP Mahmoud Sadeghi, he accused security forces of fabricating the grounds for his case, and defended Najafi by saying he had only gone as far as clearing Heydari’s name of a drug-dealing charge.

Najafi was detained in July 2018 along with 10 others who participated with him in the January protests in Shazand. The group was charged with “disturbing the public peace and spreading lies with intent to disrupt the public mind.” Judge Mohammad Reza Abdollahi of Criminal Court No. 2 Branch 102 of Arak, the provincial capital of Markazi Province, convicted and sentenced the group to three years of imprisonment and 74 lashes each.

The sentence is currently being appealed in hearings that began October 3rd in Markazi Province Appellate Court Branch 1.

Shazand is located in Markazi Province, central Iran.

Inside Account of Zanyar Moradi, Loghman Moradi and Ramin Hossein Panahi’s Final Days

Posted on by Sara
Executions, Prisoners
Ramin Hossein Panahi, zanyar and loghman, zanyar and loghman moradi, Zanyar Moradi

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- New details on the executions of Kurdish political prisoners Zanyar Moradi, Loghman Moradi, and Ramin Hossein Panahi has been brought forward by a staff member at the Iranian Prisons Organizations who asked to remain anonymous.

Moradi, Moradi, and Hossein Panahi were hanged September 8th and buried in undisclosed locations without prior notice to their families or attorneys, throwing the international human rights community into an uproar over the Iranian judicial system’s chronic fits of caprice.

According to HRANA’s source, the three young men were battered before their transfer to the gallows; and per the observations of the source’s colleagues, Hossein Panahi, in particular, looked terribly ill.

“Zanyar Moradi and Loghman Moradi caught sight of Ramin Hossein Panahi while they were being transferred in handcuffs and shackles for execution,” the source explained. “When they saw [Hossein Panahi] was only half-conscious and spoke up in his defense, prison staff including Gholamreza Ziaie, Maghsoud Zolfali, and Nader Bagheri lay into them.”

The source explained that Loghman and Zanyar’s loved ones were distressed on September 7th when the men were sent to quarantine, which, while ominous, ran counter to the pre-execution protocol of sending the condemned to solitary confinement.

“The lawyers and families of these two prisoners were not sure whether they were scheduled to be executed,” the source said, adding that they were killed six hours after their family’s final visit at 10 a.m. on the 8th. “Even Rajai Shahr Health Services Administrator Hassan Ghobadi, who was present during their last visit, would not confirm that their execution was imminent.”

According to HRANA’s source, the men’s hangings were atypical even for the Iranian prison system. Their gallows were mounted outside the designated execution quarters, known as “the silo;” it happened not at dawn, per Iranian custom, but at midnight; and the prison’s computer system shows no record of what were to be their very last movements on earth, i.e. their transfers. “We had heard that an execution had been carried out,” the personnel explained, “[but] since security officials took over the execution, even we don’t know exactly where that execution happened.”

Indeed, the details play out like a grim procedural: the Judiciary announced that the executions were carried out in “Tehran,” while a source close to the Moradi families confirmed to HRANA that Zanyar and Loghman’s bodies bore notes reading “executed in Rajai Shahr.” A visible presence on the night of the hangings was a Marivan Friday Prayer Imam notorious for his ties to the Iranian security apparatus, whose son had allegedly been murdered.

“I heard through my colleagues that the prisoners wanted to string the noose around their neck with their own hands,” the personnel said. “There was a scuffle when officials refused this request; Zanyar Moradi even claimed that Hassan Ghobadi had promised him that right.”

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Two Days of Teacher Strikes Knock at Reform’s Door

Posted on by admin-hr
Labor and Guilds
CCTSI, educator strikes, teacher strikes

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- Last week’s plea from the Coordinating Council of Teachers Syndicates in Iran (CCTSI) brought together the voices of learners, educators, and ideologues in a second day of strikes against privatization, minority-language discrimination, judicial persecution of teacher-activists, and educator salaries grazing the poverty line.

In a statement last week, the CCTSI censured the Ministry of Education for its compensation system, decrying the status quo as detrimental to both educational quality and the livelihood of teachers. In the same statement, educational staff across the country were summoned to fill the administrative offices of their local schools with sit-in protests on October 14th and October 15th [the first two days of the Iranian work week]. CCTSI also urged prospective strikers to sensitize students to civic action by explaining the motives for the sit-in ahead of time.

“On behalf of workers in the education system both active and retired, CCTSI has exhausted available paths for bettering our current conditions,” the statement read, concluding their defiant call to strike with an entreaty not to penalize its participants.

Iranian teachers staged sit-ins both yesterday and today, October 15th across the provinces of Fars, Razavi Khorasan, North Khorasan, Kermanshah, Kurdistan, Ilam, East and West Azerbaijan, Mazandaran, Tehran, Isfahan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, Hamedan, Qazvin, Bushehr, Alborz, Lorestan, and Khuzestan.

Strikers held placards emblazoned with their hopes for reform: “Free Imprisoned Teachers,” “No to Discrimination”, “Keep Education Public,” “The Right to Mother-Tongue Instruction,” “Implement Teacher Ranking.”

Teachers and pedagogical staff were reportedly joined in solidarity today and yesterday by students in the social science departments of Tehran and Allameh Tabataba’i University, as well as school-age students of Karaj, Ahvaz, and Qom.

Narges Mohammadi, deputy head of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, issued a message in support of the strikers: “No one should be persecuted for organizing legal and non-violent strikes. As a civil activist and advocate, I back the national teachers’ strike and demand the release of the striking teachers.”

Tehran MP Mahmoud Sadeghi published a note on Monday supporting the teachers’ right to strike, and Member of Parliamentary Education Committee Member Davood Mohammadi publicly acknowledged that teachers in recent years have been challenged with increasing economic hardship, saying “they can not meet demands of their families.”

Meanwhile, further from the action, a number of imprisoned teachers could only attend strikes in spirit, and authorities are drawing up charges against detained CCTSI Chairman Mohammadreza Ramezanzadeh. To be sure, the CCTSI call — heartening though it was — has yet to be answered at the policy level.

Labor Activist Zanyar Dabbaghian Still in Custody One Week Later

Posted on by admin-hr
Labor and Guilds
Labor activist, labor activist in iran, labor activists in iran, Sanandaj, Zanyar Dabbaghian

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – It has been one week since six security agents stormed the home of labor activist and Sanandaj resident Zanyar Dabbaghian, arresting him and transferring him to an undisclosed location.

Without providing a reason for his arrest, security agents reportedly searched Dabbaghian’s home on October 8th and confiscated some of his family’s belongings, including their mobile phones. Despite persistent inquiries, Dabbaghian’s family remains in the dark about his fate.

Dabbaghian was previously arrested and interrogated by intelligence forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He is employed at a plastic factory in Sanandaj-e Do Industrial Estate.

Sanandaj is the capital of Kurdistan Province.

Amid Parade Attack Investigations, Ahvaz Authorities Arrest More Citizens

Posted on by admin-hr
Ethnic Minorities
ahvaz, ahvaz parade attack, Ahwaz, Ahwaz Parade Attack, ahwazi arab, Ali al-Hay (Hayyai), Aref Ghazalavi, Fadhil Shemousi, Jassim Croshat, Kazem Ghazalavi, mass arrests in iran, Mohammad Omuri, Naim Heydari, Shakir Savari

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- Dozens of citizens were rounded up October 13th and 15th in the Malashieh and Kouy-e Alavi neighborhoods of Ahvaz, the capital of southwestern border province of Khuzestan now known as the site of a violent shooting on a military parade on September 22nd of this year.
HRANA has identified nine more Ahwazi Arab arrestees, who join the 44 already arrested as of September 27th: Mohammad Omuri, 26, Naim Heydari, 24, Aref Ghazalavi, Kazem Ghazalavi, Ali al-Hay (Hayyai), Shakir Savari, Shakir Savari, and Fadhil Shemousi, arrested Saturday, and Jassim Croshat, 45, a mechanic from Kouye Alavi in Ahvaz, who was arrested Monday, October 15th.

Zahra Majd Sequestered for Opinions of her Dissident Spouse

Posted on by Sara
Freedom of Expression
Mohammad Hedayati, Special Clerical Court, Special Court for the Clerics, Zahra Majd

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- Upon her arrival to Iran via the Isfahan airport on Thursday, October 11th, security forces arrested Zahra Majd — wife of Mohammad Hedayati, a critic of Iran’s ruling clergy — along with her children, ages three and five.

The children were put in the care of relatives late that night, Hedayati said, and Majd was transferred to an undisclosed location in Tehran the next morning.

The Secretary-General of the Traditional Cleric’s Association of America, Hedayati is a vocal dissident of the Iranian regime who lives in the United States with Zahra and their two children.

Hedayati confirmed the news of his family’s arrest to HRANA, adding that Majd and their children had previously traveled to Iran for family visits without running into any trouble.

“Last week, our three-year-old daughter was hospitalized for six days in the United States because she fell into critical condition from diabetes,” Hedayati said. “She was hospitalized again this morning, after being arrested with her mother, because she missed the insulin she needs to get after each meal.”

Majd was initially told she was being arrested on a personal civil case, Hedayati said, until it was revealed that her detainment was ordered by Iran’s Special Clerical Court. “The condition of her release is that I go to Iran and present myself to this Court,” Hedayati explained.

According to Hedayati, Zahra was scheduled for transfer to the Clerical Court on Saturday, October 13th at 9 a.m.

The Special Clerical Court has been trying cases involving the clergy, as well as graduates of Iran’s Islamic seminaries, since its establishment at the time of the Iranian Revolution. HRANA previously published a report marking the 40th anniversary of this judicial institution.

Clashing Zahedan Prisoners Beaten, Forcefully Undressed

Posted on by Sara
Prisoners
prison overcrowding, prison overpopulation, Prisoner abuse, Zahedan Prison, Zahedan Youth Ward

Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) – On Friday, October 12th, fights that broke out amid the stifling conditions of Zahedan Prison landed 29 prisoners in quarantine. The next day, quarantined prisoners were taken to the prison yard, forcefully undressed, beaten by prison guards, and left outside until morning.

According to one of the prisoner’s relatives, tensions had reached a breaking point in Zahedan’s Youth Ward, also known as Ward 1, which has a capacity of 140 but currently houses 350.

The source added that 17 youth were injured in the scuffle, and authorities cut the phone lines to Ward 1 immediately after the incident.

The overpopulation of Iranian prisons a systemic issue exacerbated by authorities’ laxity in addressing requests for furlough and sentence reductions, even for lawfully eligible prisoners. Meetings intended to review requests for commutation and conditional release are routinely postponed.