Prisoners of Conscience

UN expert urges Iran to end US hiker's solitary confinement

Fri Aug 13, 2010

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100813/wl_mideast_afp/iranushikerspoliticsshourd

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – A UN expert on torture has appealed to Tehran to end the solitary confinement of Sarah Shourd, one of the three US hikers detained without trial for more than a year in Iran, her mother said Friday.

Nora Shourd told AFP that she was informed two days ago that the urgent appeal from Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, was forwarded to Iranian authorities through the Geneva-based UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights.

"He (Nowak) is waiting for their response," she said in a telephone interview from Pine City, Minnesota, recalling that her 31-year-old daughter has a pre-cancerous cervical condition, a lump in her breast and suffers from depression.

She said she turned to Nowak after receiving an unexpected call from her daughter complaining that she was still in solitary confinement and had been denied medical care since five months ago.

She said Sarah's case amounted to psychological torture based on her solitary confinement and denial of medical care.

"Sarah's treatment is cruel, inhuman and degrading and Iran has been deaf to all my appeals, including the results of the only medical tests Sarah had five months ago," Shourd added.

Earlier this month, Shourd and the mothers of the two other detained hikers -- Shane Bauer, 27, and Josh Fattal, 27 -- accused Iranian authorities of using their children as bargaining chips.

They said Tehran has no evidence to back up new claims that the three Americans had threatened Iranian security.

"If Iran believes it has any reason to charge our children, it should do so without delay and give them a fair trial in a public court of law," the mothers said.

The three US hikers were arrested by Iranian troops on July 31, 2009 after they reportedly strayed into Iran from across the border with Iraqi Kurdistan where they were vacationing.

Late last month, US President Barack Obama called on Iran to "immediately release" the three hikers, saying they had never worked for the US government and had committed "absolutely no crime."

A letter by Mahdieh Golroo from prison on her wedding anniversary:

They smell your breath…making sure you never said I love youThey smell your heart. It’s a stranger world. (from a poem by Ahmad Shamloo) They smell your breath! Perhaps Shamloo never thought that this poem of his became a real testament to 32 days of solitary and three months of imprisonment.

While I was been interrogated at one moment this line of his poem went through my mind and I asked the interrogator: “what’s the reason for Vahid’s arrest?” and as abrasive as ever, he replied: “since we knew how close you two were and we knew your relationship, we knew that while he is in prison, it would be easier for us to make you talk”. At that moment I felt like they have smelled my breath and they have found out about the love we had grown in the back room of our house. But love is not like inheritance money to stay secret in the back of your pockets. I want to bring this love out in the open.

It doesn’t matter what people say. One must write transparently, whether you write of love or of justice. The language is so clear that even if the stupid people read it 100 times, they still won’t be able to understand. This feeling stayed with me until today, our anniversary and I use this occasion as an excuse to write about it.

My dear with the memories of ward 209 we can now say that we were able to love each other at the biggest enemy den and we can say that we were alive. And now, three months after the last time I saw you without these rusty glasses and here is another document to prove their ‘justice and compassion’. But just like injustice was able to come over us, justice will also overcome some day. And this is the result of the efforts of our generation who was born in the dark years of war and years later fell in love. This love tells us not to lose hope because good years are waiting around the corner. But my dear love through the nine months I have spent without you, our lives were tried and my songs echoed through each prison bar and each wall.

Here, everywhere you look you see separation. My days of my 25th year pass in a corner while being imprisoned. The days are lost and the bitterness grows on my tongue. My freedom looks faded and I have lost a lot and I have not even gained little and I have been sacrificed by things I cannot have. They say that in prison evenings are heavy and nights squeeze one’s soul. If you see sorrow in my eyes, it doesn’t belong to me. My sorrow is no more than the sorrow that lives outside these walls where injustices had made it unbearable. Here it’s only being away from your that makes me cringe. Here nobody can love anyone as much as they love their freedom…but I can…

I know that doubts turn into a big weight on your shoulders and your hope will be lost in defeat. But it’s at the very same moment that you have to remember that fighting for a better life brings us ‘alive’. It does not just bring us ‘living’. If you had not saved yourself from everyday routines and had you not thrown yourself out there, you would have turned into a spring well in a mountain where aside from the sheep and the shepherds no one would have come for a visit. You would have been a spring well who would have no visitors but the old wolves. But now our lives have turned into a sea where the water never reeks of staleness. Today there is a big distance between us and I am afraid you will think that I have chosen my rights over our love but your love was part of my right that has been denied to me along with all my other rights. And at this point I am full of desire for you and pregnant with big changes to come.

“A bit of patiance…and the dawn is near”

Violation of Women’s Rights

Shiva Nazar Ahari’s Lawyer Concerned About Her Verdict on the Charge of Moharebeh

17th August 2010

http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2010/08/nazar-ahari-lawyer-concerned/

Shiva Nazar Ahari’s lawyer, Mohammad Sharif, has expressed concern about his client’s upcoming trial considering the heavy charge of moharebeh (enmity with God) in her case. “Shiva Nazar Ahari’s case is being reviewed in the same branch that reviewed Badrolssadat Mofidi’s case. I believe the ruling in Ms. Mofidi’s case to be illegal and therefore am seriously concerned about the court’s potential ruling, considering the fact that my client’s initial charge is moharebeh,” he told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

According to Sharif, one of his concerns is that even though the presiding judge for Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Courts is a known judge, another judge appeared at Ms. Mofidi’s trial. “My client has been informed of three charges. One of her charges is moharebeh, enmity with God, the subject of Article 186. The other charge is assembly and collusion to commit a crime, the subject of Article 610. Her final charge is propagating against the regime, based on Article 500,” said Sharif. “I have read Shiva Nazar Ahari’s case file.  I have written my defense bill and have submitted it,” he added.

Nazar Ahari’s mother, Shahrzad Kariman, told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that she is unaware of the charges. Regarding whether her daughter was informed of her charges, Kariman said, “Maybe they have served Dr. Sharif, but I don’t know anything about it. The moharebeh charge was conveyed in June 2009, but we didn’t think it was in this case. When Dr. Sharif read the case for the 23 May court session, we realized that when she had first been arrested in 2009, one of the four charges the judge had written in her case was moharebeh. When she was re-arrested on 20 December 2009, moharebeh was not one of her charges.”

“Shiva is in a state of limbo. Her court date was announced so late. They were going to move the date forward, but nothing has happened yet. The situation in the Women’s Ward is dire. Most days there is no water. The situation with hygiene is terrible. The situation with food is extremely bad,” said Kariman. Quoting the lawyer, she described Nazar Ahari’s imprisonment as illegal. “She has been in this limbo for nine months. According to Dr. Sharif, Shiva has been illegally detained for the past three months, because a temporary detention can only be extended up to six months. Continuing a suspect’s detention beyond six months requires a court ruling which Shiva’s case doesn’t have,” she said.

Shiva Nazar Ahari is a human rights activist and editor of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters website. She was arrested on 14 June 2009 in her office. After spending 102 days in detention, she was released on 23 September 2009 on $200,000 bail. She spent 33 days of her detention in solitary confinement. She was arrested for the second time on 20 December 2009, and has remained in prison without furlough and without any explanation from authorities about the reasons for her imprisonment. The second session of her trial is said to be scheduled for 4 September 2010.

Badrolssadat Mofidi is Secretary General of the Iranian Journalists Association who was recently sentenced to six years’ imprisonment and five years’ deprivation from press activities by Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Courts.

Stoning to death

EDITORIAL: The stoners of Iran 

Tortured view of justice from a brutal regime

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a habit of throwing rocks at its perceived enemies, but the Mullahs in Tehran are slowly learning that the civilized world will not countenance the practice. Iranian officials last week commuted the sentence of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani , a 43-year-old woman who had been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. But all is not well yet.

When news of Mrs. Ashtiani's sentence began reaching the outside world in recent weeks, it prompted an international outcry.

‘Death by stoning is always cruel and inhuman, and it is especially abhorrent in cases where judges rely on their own hunches instead of evidence to proclaim a defendant guilty,' said Nadya Khalife of Human Rights Watch last week.

Democratic Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, condemned Iran 's execution method as 'appalling' and 'barbaric-‘.

The Web is replete with videos of stonings in Iran that show women buried up to their necks and pelted with stones hefty enough to inflict injury but not large enough to kill. Victims often die in slow agony.

Human rights organizations now fear that authorities will simply take an alternate tack and hang Mrs. Ashtiani instead. Chillingly, Iranian television broadcast a blurry interview with the woman on Wednesday in which she purportedly confessed to adultery and a new charge of complicity in

the murder of her husband. But her lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, said the confession had been extracted through torture. Mr. Mostafaei himself was forced to flee Iran earlier this month and seek asylum in Norway after learning that his vociferous defense of Mrs. Ashtiani was about to result in his arrest.

New York-based Human Rights Watch expressed 'grave concerns' Friday that the televised confession signals that her execution is imminent-.

Amnesty International also denounced the broadcast: 'It appears that Iran's authorities have orchestrated this 'confession,' following the call for a judicial review,' said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director at Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa program.

The organization said it is aware of at least 10 other people - seven women and three men - under a death sentence by stoning. Last year, at least three people sentenced to death by stoning were in fact hung.

Stoning was integrated into Iran's legal system in 1983 with the adoption of the Islamic Penal Code. An official moratorium was placed on the practice in 2002 but judges have continued to issue the sentence. The Iranian parliament has been considering a revision of the code that would exclude stoning but it has yet to be ratified.

Iran is discovering that few outside the Middle East favor the Mullahs' attempt to drag humanity back to an earlier era in human history, before justice was tempered by forgiveness-.

Only the benighted would willingly return to a world devoid of compassion for human frailty embodied by the wise words, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone’.

It is long past time for Iran to remove the barbaric practice of stoning from its legal code, once and for all. (The Washington Times – Aug. 16, 2010)

150 people stoned in Iran in last 30 years

The website of French daily Le Figaro wrote that a number of cultural and literary personalities and Nobel laureates protested Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani’s stoning sentence saying that in the last 30 years, 150 stoning sentences were carried out in Iran. The French daily also said that there are currently three men and eight women in Iran who have been sentenced to death by stoning. (Radio Farda website – Aug. 17, 2010) 

Execution

More than 70 prisoners, including minors, executed in Mashhad in matter of days

There are reports that in the past few days, more than 70 prisoners in Mashhad Prison were suddenly executed.

According to reports from Mashhad, some of these people were arrested on drug related charges and were not sentenced to death and some of them were even sentenced to pay a fine. But suddenly a judicial order was issued for their execution.

It is still not clear why this order was issued but there are speculations that this has been carried out upon orders of security and intelligence institutions.

Before this in a similar case in this city in the beginning of the reign of the 9^th government (Ahmadinejad government) when a top security agent was linked to drug trafficking gangs, more than 60 people who were related to this case were suddenly executed. A number of them were relatives of security forces.

According to reports, a number of the recently arrested prisoners were under 18 years old or arrested as minors. (Nedaye Sabze Azadi Website – Aug. 14, 2010)

Report on mass executions in Mashhad

http://www.iranpressnews.com/source/081341.htm

According to information from a prisoner of conscience in the Vakil Abad Prison in Mashhad, 64 people were executed on August 11 or 12, 2010 (in one day) in this prison. Most of them were charged with trafficking narcotics and similar crimes. Thirty others will be executed in the next two days. (Iran Press News – Aug. 15, 2010)

Amnesty International - According to her mother, the charges brought against Shiva Nazar Ahari during her most recent arrest include "causing unease in the public mind through writing on the CHRR's website and other websites" and "acting against national security by participating in [anti-government] demonstrations on 4 November 2009 and 7 December 2009". Shiva denies these allegations. She has said that since her arrest she has spent much of the time in solitary confinement which she described as a "cage-like" cell, where she cannot move her arms or legs. She has limited access to her family, and no access to her lawyers. If she is convicted of the charges held against her, she will face a lengthy prison term, or possibly the death sentence. The judge has the descretion to decide if her 'offence' is serious enough to amount to "enmity against God".Take Action

Please write to the Head of the Judiciary:

Call for Shiva Nazar Ahari to be released immediately and unconditionally as she is a prisoner of conscience, held solely for peacefully exercising her rights to freedom and expression and association;

Urge the Iranian authorities to ensure that while imprisoned, Shiva Nazar Ahari is granted access to her family, her family and adequate medical care;

Remind the Iranian authorities that collecting and publicizing information about human rights violations is a right guaranteed under Article 19(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a state party, which includes "the freedom to speak, receive and impart information ... regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of ... choice".Write To

Head of the Judiciary

Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani

Office of the Head of the Judiciary

Pasteur Street, Vali Asr Avenue, south of Serah-e Jomhouri

Tehran, 1316814737

Islamic Republic of Iran

Email: info@dadiran.ir or bia.judi@yahoo.com

Your Excellency

More Background

Shiva Nazar Ahari had been arrested several times before her arrest on 20 December 2009. On 14 June 2009 she was held for three months before being released on bail. She was also detained in connection with her student and human rights activities in 2002 and 2004; for which she received a one-year prison sentence in 2005, suspended for five years.

CHRR campaigns against a wide range of human rights violations, including those affecting women, children, prisoners and workers. It has come under particular attack since the June 2009 election. Despite denials from CHRR members, the Tehran Prosecutor has accused the group of having links to the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, a banned group. Any collaboration with the CHRR is a considered a crime and while some members have fled the country in fear of their safety, at least eight members have been arbitrarily arrested since the end of November 2009.

Föreningen för Demokrati och Mänskliga Rättigheter i Iran

Human Right activist Shiva Nazar-Ahari has been Charged as “Mohareb”(enmity with God) !!

2010-08-19 22:43

More than 70 prisoners, including minors, executed in Mashhad in matter of days

There are reports that in the past few days, more than 70 prisoners in Mashhad Prison were suddenly executed.

According to reports from Mashhad, some of these people were arrested on drug related charges and were not sentenced to death and some of them were even sentenced to pay a fine. But suddenly a judicial order was issued for their execution.

It is still not clear why this order was issued but there are speculations that this has been carried out upon orders of security and intelligence institutions.

Before this in a similar case in this city in the beginning of the reign of the 9^th government (Ahmadinejad government) when a top security agent was linked to drug trafficking gangs, more than 60 people who were related to this case were suddenly executed. A number of them were relatives of security forces.

According to reports, a number of the recently arrested prisoners were under 18 years old or arrested as minors. (Nedaye Sabze Azadi Website – Aug. 14, 2010)

Report on mass executions in Mashhad 

http://www.iranpressnews.com/source/081341.htm

According to information from a prisoner of conscience in the Vakil Abad Prison in Mashhad, 64 people were executed on August 11 or 12, 2010 (in one day) in this prison. Most of them were charged with trafficking narcotics and similar crimes. Thirty others will be executed in the next two days. (Iran Press News – Aug. 15, 2010)

Five hunger strikers threatened with 6 months of solitary

http://www.hra-news6.info/1389-01-27-05-27-21/3364-1.html

Five hunger striking political prisoners in Evin Prison were transferred to court in Evin Prison from their solitary cells in cellblock 240 and were threatened that they would be kept in solitary for 6 months.

Prison officials threatened Kouhyar Goudarzi, Bahman Ahmadi Amouyi, Keivan Samimi, Qolamhossein Arshi and Ali Malihi to six months of solitary even as the maximum solitary time in cellblock under the supervision of the Prison Organizations is 20 days.

These five political prisoners have also been threatened that they will be barred from telephone calls and visitation rights with their families in the next six months. (Human Rights Activists in Iran – Aug. 14, 2010)

Political prisoner sentenced to 3 years of prison

http://www.hra-news6.info/00/3362-1.html

The 54^th branch of the Review Court presided over by Judge Movahed upheld the 3 year prison sentence for Amir Hossein Kazemi.

This sentence was upheld only one week after it was referred to the Review Court and the judge did not allow Kazemi’s lawyers to be present in the court to present their defense.

The initial court for this political prisoner only lasted 10 minutes and despite the issuing of the initial and final sentence he is still kept in cellblock 209 in Evin Prison deprived of the right to contact his family.

According to informed sources, there is no evidence in his case proving his charges and his sentence was written and confirmed by security agents.

The judge seeing to his case has not accepted his request for a leave from prison. (Human Rights Activist in Iran – Aug. 14, 2010)

Young Kurd man disappears after arrest by security forces 3 months ago

Khebat Mohamamdzadeh from the Garmash Village in Sanandaj who was abducted about 3 moths ago from his home has completely disappeared and no judicial or security institution is willing to accept the responsibility for his arrest and detention. This is while three months ago in the widespread strike of the people of Kurdistan in protest to the execution of political prisoner Farzad Kamangar and other political prisoners, security forces stormed the home of Khebat Mohamamdzadeh in the Garmash Village and after conducting a search, took Khebat away with them.

There is no news on the whereabouts of Khebat and his family and relatives are seriously concerned for the safety of this 19 year old man. His family has constantly gone to various institutions but in these three months, they have not received any answers from security and judicial institutions. (Roshangari Website – Aug. 14, 2010)

Kurd political prisoner in danger of death

http://www.hra-news6.info/1389-01-27-05-27-21/3365-1.html

Kurd political prisoner Rahim Rash who was transferred from the Orumieh RGC Intelligence Prison to Mahabad Prison has still not ended his hunger strike.

One of his sons who had a short visit with him four days ago said that his father was in ‘very critical condition’ and was visited by the prison doctor on that same day.

“The last time, my father continued his hunger strike to the point that doctors said he would die in three days and they were forced to release him. After his release, his health did not return to its normal state for several months”, his son said.

His family has said that their father will not end his hunger strike until they release him and therefore they are extremely concerned for his health.

This civil rights activist was arrested on July 19, 2010 and went on a hunger strike the day after his arrest. (Committee of Human Rights Reporters – Aug. 14, 2010)

Girls forced to wear chador in Kazroun

http://www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8905240215

The head of the Education Office in the town of Kazroun in the Fars Province said that the official uniform for female junior high and high schools students will be the chador (head to toe black covering) from the beginning of the new academic year…

“The new order for wearing the chador as the official uniform in junior high and high schools has been announced and will be carried out from September, the beginning of the new academic year”, he said. (Fars state-run News Agency – Aug. 15, 2010)

Footballer expelled from team for eating in Ramadan

http://isna.ir/ISNA/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-1593817&Lang=P

Ali Karimi, a player in Tehran’s Steal Azin Club was expelled from this club for not following the rules and regulations.

This club wrote in its official website that ‘the Steal Azin Club is obligated to act upon its religious and legal duties to announce that Ali Karimi, a player in this club, has been expelled for not following regulations and disrespecting sanctities and eating in public (in Ramadan) in practice”. (ISNA state-run news agency – Aug. 15, 2010)