Monthly Report – An Overview of the Human Rights Situation in Iran in November-December, 2015

HRANA News Agency – The Department of Statistics and Publications of the Human Rights Activists Association of Iran has published the following monthly report on the human rights situation in Iran during the period of November-December, 2015 (Persian calendar month of Azar, 1394). This report cannot perfectly and comprehensively reflect the details of human rights concerns in Iran for obvious reasons including the existing governmental limitations and ban on the free exchange of information. It should be noted that in addition to the monthly reports, the Department of Statistics and Publications of the Human Rights Activists Association of Iran publishes a comprehensive and analytical annual report at the end of each year.

An Analytical Overview on the Human Rights Situation in Iran Nov-Dec, 2015

Execution

The systematic violation of human rights in Iran continued in the month of Azar of the Persian calendar year, 1394 (Nov-Dec, 2015). This month ended with the executions of 48 individuals in the provinces of Sistan-Balouchestan, Alborz, Kerman, West Azerbaijan, Golestan, Qazvin, Hormazgan, Fars, Semnan demonstrating a significant increase in the number of executions with respect to previous month.

One of the most controversial and noted human rights violations report was the execution of four individuals in Qazvin, Minab, Zahedan, Bandar-Abas, and Karaj. These people were secretly executed in prisons. Also, another controversial report in this month was the execution of a Sunni child.

Forgiveness and Pardon

In contrast to the number of executions, there were 30 cases of pardon and forgiveness in this month when the families of victims exonerated the criminals. These reports indicate that there is a noticeable tendency amongst the people of Iran who prefer to forgive and avoid executions. Two women prisoners, in an extraordinary selfless act, donated money for the release of their fellow prisoner.

Religious and Ethnic Minorities

The violations of the religious and ethnic minorities rights continued in this month. The most significant of these cases were the arrest of two individuals in the city of Iranshar; imprisoning three civil rights activists in the city of Khoy; and the arrest of two individuals in Kordestan. The violations of Baha’i citizens continued in this month including the arrest of a few Baha’is, however the number of these reports decreased when compared to previous months (which could be also due to lack of proper media coverage or limited access to information).

Regarding the violations of Sunni minorities’ rights, there were several reports including seven years imprisonment verdict for a Sunni citizen; the arrest of a Sunni clergy in Mazandaran; a very controversial report on the destruction of Mendeian cemetery in Susangerd.

Children

Regarding children’s rights, there was a couple of reports, the most notable of which were the death of female student after being beaten at school; suicide of a 15 years old student after being dismissed from school; corporal punishment of the students at school in the city of Aligoudarz; rejecting the death insurance payment to the families of two students, who died after the fire incident in the school of Shina-abad; the reports about more than 100,000 children being deprived of education in the Sistan-Balouchestan province.

Women

In the category of women rights, there were several reports of assaults against Iranian women who have been continuously suppressed and deprived of their rights. Some of the most notable reports in this category were a young female beaten to death by her husband; the ban on female singers to sing the national anthem; the Friday Prayers Imam of Isfahan criticizing appointment of female governors in the country; arresting women because of their clothes.

Labor rights

In this month, there were several reports related to the labors’ rights movements or violations of labor rights including summoning one labors’ rights activist to the court; demonstration of five hundreds retired workers of the Steel Complex of Isfahan; lay off of seven employees of the Cement Factory of Loushan because of demanding their employment benefits.   Moreover, 15 workers died due to fatal work incident, indicating continual violations of labors rights in Iran.

Unions

In the field of trade union and union rights, the governor of Qom in a controversial speech denied organizing hawkers businesses and ordered to deal with them.

Health and Environment

In the field of health and environmental protection, there were few reports mainly involving Influenza pandemic in Iran resulting in the death of 60 individuals which also resulted in the closure of the schools for two days in the city of Kerman.

Specific Attention to the Violation of Human Rights

In this section of this monthly report, we highlight the most controversial and publicly sensitive cases of violations of human rights in Iran. It is obvious that more attention does not necessarily indicate the magnitude of the violations of human rights in that specific category.

Some of the most noted reports in this month include preventing people to attend the anniversary of Frouhar couple who were killed by the agents of ministry of Intelligence; sentencing Jason Rezayeen; a young man committed suicide in the Metro station of Tehran-Pars; circumcising a young girl in the city of Boukan who was hospitalized after the procedure; the  call on saving the life of  a juvenile criminal; the court order for Atena Farghdani and Mohammad Moghimi; the chief of Cyber Police of Tehran’s  reproach about the Telegram; the offending physician joking about the incident of opening child’s chin stitches because of his parents financial situation.

 

The least underlined human rights violations

In contrast to the reports indicated in the previous section, many human rights reports received little or no attention from social media, bloggers, Internet activists, who are considered key contributors of the public opinion. It should be note that this unintentional or intentional negligence has resulted in further spread of human rights violations in Iran.

The least noted violation of human rights report is execution of five prisoners in the Rajayee-Shahr prison; execution of five prisoners in Minab; public execution in Semnan; lack of access to drinking water in 1300 villages in the province of Sistan and Baouchestan. Also, the following reports did not receive proper attention: Physical punishment in Aligoudarz; the possibility of the execution of a Sunni child offender.

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