A Daily Overview of Human Rights Violations in Iran for January 5, 2019

The following is an overview of human rights violations in Iran on January 5th, 2019 based on the information compiled and verified by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).

(1) Four protests were organized nationwide on January 5, 2019. Residents of Sistan and Baluchestan province, residents of Rabat county in West Azerbaijan province, Customers of Iran Khodro, SAIPA, SAIPA Citroen, and Bahman Motor companies organized protests to request their demands. In addition, another protest gone violent in Sarbaz county after a few protesters were wounded by the police shots. The protesters were angry about repeated confiscation of their vehicles by the police.

(2) A school bus had an accident in Tehran in which four teenage students
Mehdi Azizi, Reza Sajjadi, Mohammad Sadegh Najafi, and Ali Shayesteh Mehr, and a 45-year-old man, Seyed Mohsen Mirshojaei were injured. They have been transferred to a local hospital.

(3) More than 142 thousand children have been deprived from public education this year. The majority of these children are boys and are in the provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, Tehran, Razavi Khorasan, Kerman,and Khuzestan. .

(4) Abbas Lesani, Azerbaijani Turkic minority rights activist, was arrested today and his whereabouts is unknown. He was tried in absentia and sentenced to 10 months imprisonment earlier. He was charged with ‘propaganda against the state’.

(5) Four Baha’i citizens in Isfahan have been arrested for unknown reasons. Mohsen Mehregani, Manouchehr Rahmani, Farzad Homayouni, and Sohrab Naghipour. They had been arrested before and released on bail.

(6) Alireza Tavakoli, a detained cyber activist, ended his hunger strike after prison authorities promise his demands will be met and his fellow inmates requested him to end his strike due to his deteriorating health. He was protesting the lack of medical care in prison. He was transferred to quarantine due to his contagious illness, but the prison officials denied transferring him to hospital.

(7) Asal Mohammadi, a labor activist, was released on bail. She was arrested at her home, on November 22 charged with supporting workers’ protests in Iran. She is a student pharmacist at Islamic Azad University Pharmaceutical Science.

(8) Hasan Beit Abdollah, a prisoner in the Masjed Soleyman prison, was beaten and has been tied to a pole in open air since Thursday. He was reportedly in an argument with the prison officials. He is accused of Enmity with God (Moharebeh).

(9) Shirzad Karimi who was arrested by the Sepah Intelligence forces two months ago and his whereabouts was unknown, was transferred to Urmia prison on Thursday. He is accused of ‘acting against national security’ and ‘cooperation with opposition groups’.

(11) Farhad Mohammadi, a lawyer and secretary of the National Unity Party in Kurdistan, has been arrested by security forces. He was summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence office and was transferred to the Intelligence Detention Centre in Sanandaj.

(12) 320 seasonal workers of Aq Darreh gold mine in West Azerbaijan province were laid off. Also, the workers of Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Mill have two months of unpaid wages.

(13) 34 student associations invited the minister of intelligence, Mahmoud Alavi, to debate with Esmail Bakhshi. He is a detained trade unionist who was released on bail, and wrote about physical and psychological abuse, interrogation, and torture in prison.

(14) A prisoner who was accused of murdering his wife was sentenced to death in Tehran. Another prisoner charged with murder in Borujerd was saved from gallows by victim’s family’s consent. 12 prisoners have been saved from execution in North Khorasan province during the last year.

(15) The Forensic Medicine Organization announced that 12,261 people died in traffic accidents in the last eight months. This shows an increase of 0.9 percent from last year. Most of the accidents happened in Fars, Tehran and Isfahan provinces.

(16) After 18 months of forced closure of Baha’i-owned businesses in Urmia, the closure order has been lifted. The bussiness-owners names are as following: Firooz Latifi, Erfan Samandari، Arman Norouzi, Elham Abdi, Ali Latifi, Naser Panahi, Mr. Dargahi, Mohammadali Derakhti, Vahhab Moghaddam, Navid Morghi, Siavash and Siamak Abdi, Fardin and Fereydoun Aghsani,  Einollah Ghodsi, Changiz Shahmohammadi, Sasan Karimi, Bonyan Maghsoudi, Ghorban and Shahab Najafzadeh, Keykavous Dargahi, and Mr. Suleimani. Baha’i citizens are having difficulty running their businesses in Iran.