Lack of Medical Care, Denied Family Visitation, Substandard Food, among Conditions in Ward

June 20, 2016—Political prisoners held in the Women’s Ward at Iran’s Evin Prison are routinely denied medical care and hospitalization, face severely restricted or denied visitation rights even with their young children, are deprived of regular telephone contact with their families, and are not provided adequate nutrition, according to a report released today by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

Read the full report here (PDF, HTML)

Download the report here.

These conditions, detailed in accounts by current and former inmates of the Ward, violate Iran’s State Prison Procedures and its international obligations regarding prisoner treatment. The Campaign calls on the Iranian Judiciary, which has authority over Iran’s prisons, to immediately review these inmates’ cases and address the unlawful conditions in the Ward.

“These women, who have done nothing more than peacefully express views or beliefs that the Government of Iran disagrees with, never should have been imprisoned to begin with,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Campaign, “and now they also suffer inhumane conditions that leave these women with permanently broken health.”

There are known to be at least 25 inmates at Evin’s Women’s Ward at present—all prosecuted without due process and convicted in sham trials for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and belief.

Key Findings:

• The prison infirmary is without medical specialists and frequently dispenses the wrong medication.
• Transfers to hospital for urgently needed treatment are routinely delayed or denied.
• Prison rations do not provide an adequate diet, forcing prisoners to buy substandard and expensive food at the prison store.
• Visits with family—even between inmates who are mothers and their young children—are severely restricted and sometimes denied.
• No telephones are provided in the Ward.
• At times during the winter inmates have been deprived of heat.
• Prisoners are repetitively strip-searched and handled abusively by female guards.

These women have been put behind bars for sentences ranging from one to twenty years for “crimes” such as protesting the death penalty, speaking out for women’s rights, posting criticism of government policy on social media, believing in the Baha’i faith, and defending other political prisoners.

Because they are political prisoners, they endure harsher conditions than other prisoners: they are not provided telephone privileges to call family which prisoners in other wards are provided, visits—even between inmates and their young children—are frequently restricted or, as punishment, denied, and they are routinely refused furlough, the temporary leave afforded to most inmates in Iran.

Excerpts from the prisoners’ accounts from Inside the Women’s Ward:

“Sanitary and health conditions are a disaster. The infirmary has dispensed wrong medications with total impunity.”

“The process for transferring patients to outside medical facilities can take nine months to a year, depending on how critical their condition is. Even then the officials often break their promises….”

“There’s no telephone there. Mothers are always very worried.”

“When we were in prison we were very careful not to organize any group protests that would affect the mothers because they were the first ones to get punished by cutting visits with their kids. It was a cruel way of silencing the Women’s Ward.”

 “It’s been about a year now that red meat and dairy products have been eliminated from prison rations.”

“We had an electric heater that had been purchased with money collected from the prisoners themselves. You couldn’t survive Evin Prison’s winter without them. This year, the authorities have given those heaters to the guards and the prisoners are shivering from the cold.”

The report presents extensive excerpts from Iran’s State Prison Procedures, showing these conditions violate Iran’s own laws. According to the prisoner testimony contained in the report, the inmates repeatedly reported the conditions in the Ward to Iran’s Judiciary, but the Judiciary, headed by by Sadegh Amoli Larijani, has taken no action.

Since 2005, no United Nations or other international monitoring body has been allowed to visit the Women’s Ward at Evin Prison—or indeed any ward at Evin Prison.

“Inside the Women’s Ward reveals the cruel and unlawful deprivations these brave women suffer because peaceful dissent is treated as a crime in Iran,” said Ghaemi.

ICHRI– When Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif recently tried to side-step questions about the country’s abysmal human rights record, he yet again exposed his government’s inability—or reluctance—to face the issue even though President Hassan Rouhani came to power in 2013 promising to improve it. 

At a press conference in Norway on June 13, 2016, Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam, the co-founder and spokesman of Iran Human Rights, tried to put Zarif on the hot seat: 

“You mentioned that in the last election many young people voted for Mr. Rouhani because they wanted the raemoval of sanctions and engagement [with other countries]. But among the main reasons youth voted were  [Rouhani’s] promises to improve human rights and release political prisoners. Now, about three years later, we see that unfortunately the situation of human rights has not improved. In some cases, it has even gotten worse, like with the death penalty. Last year probably saw the highest number of annual executions in more than 30 years. So, when it comes to civil society [in Iran], the crackdown continues.”

He continued: “The human rights defender Narges Mohammadi was sentenced to 16 years in prison, 10 years for simply establishing an anti-death penalty campaign, which was peaceful. Arash Sadeghi was meanwhile sentenced to 19 years in prison for peaceful civil activities. When it comes to the cultural crackdown, recently the police attacked a graduation party of some young students, boys and girls, and they were lashed 99 times because they were partying together. So, my questions to you are:

1) When will human rights be improved now that the engagement [with other countries] has started and the nuclear deal has been achieved?

2) How stable and secure is a state that cannot tolerate peaceful civil activities or even a bunch of students partying together?

Zarif shot back: “Actually, I think the people of Iran, who went to the polls to vote for members of Parliament only two months ago [February 2016], have shown that at least back home in Iran they are happier than you are here looking from a distance… So, I hope that you can change your glasses and look at Iran again.”

There is, however, no evidence to suggest that people’s participation in elections indicates their approval of their government’s human rights record. The Islamic Republic cannot justify the continuing crackdown on civil rights activists, religious minorities and journalists, and the mistreatment of women as second-class citizens by citing the high voter turnout in its recent elections.

As the front man of Iran’s foreign policy, Zarif can help reform his country’s human rights record from his perch in the international arena. He can listen to criticism from human rights organizations and pass it on to the relevant Iranian authorities. Instead he has consistently avoided the topic or tried to justify Iran’s deplorable record of crushing plurality and dissent.

No Problem, No Change

“We do not jail people for their opinions,” Zarif told American talk show host Charlie Rose on April 28, 2015, in response to a question about the recent wave of arrests of journalists in Iran. “The government has a plan to improve [and] enhance human rights in the country, as every government should. And I believe we have an obligation as a government to our own people to do that. But people who commit crimes, who violate the laws of the country, cannot hide behind being a journalist or being a political activist. People have to observe the law.”

A year earlier Zarif had resorted to denying even knowing about the case of prominent student leader Majid Tavakoli, who, along with many of his peers, was imprisoned for leading peaceful protests during Iran’s widely contested 2009 presidential election and has remained imprisoned during the Rouhani administration.

Zarif’s ongoing denials of Iran’s poor human rights record has earned the ire of many Iranian journalists who have been imprisoned because of their articles and opinions.

“I spent weeks under duress inside Ward 209 of Evin Prison, [where I was pressured] to take responsibility for the news articles and reports I had written,” said Siamak Ghaderhi, a journalist who was imprisoned for four years in 2010 for publishing posts critical of the government on his blogs. “Why I did I go to prison for four years, Mr. Zarif?”

Since Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, UK, US, plus Germany) signed the nuclear deal in July 2015, the Foreign Ministry, which is led by Zarif, has increasingly handled Iran’s human rights dossier in international forums—a task that was previously managed by the Judiciary.

Rights activists accordingly expressed worry that Zarif would toe the official line set by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who favors a heavily monitored and restricted society and has repeatedly warned that Iran should not submit to foreign pressure on any issue. Meanwhile, conservative extremists have publicly doubted Zarif’s ability to uphold the Islamic Republic’s values and image because they see him as being too soft on the West.

In February 2014, Iran’s state television—which is controlled by Khamenei’s supporters—complained that Zarif was increasingly assuming responsibility for handling human rights cases involving Iran in international forums, such as the UN, instead of deferring to the Judiciary (as representatives of the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had done). The report claimed that, according to a decision by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, the only body in charge of such cases is the Judiciary’s Human Rights Council. But the Foreign Ministry has continued to address these issues on the international stage, including at the nuclear talks with the P5+1 countries.

Yet the Zarif-led Foreign Ministry has not treated the issue very differently than the Judiciary. When confronted with criticism, Zarif uses the same dismissive language and accuses Western governments of using human rights as a tool to take down their opponents while turning a blind eye to abuses committed by their allies.  

In a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart in June 2015, Zarif claimed Western countries expose their double standard on human rights by responding differently to human rights issues in Iraq and Syria, and called on independent states to reject Western-backed UN resolutions on human rights. A month later he criticized the West’s “obvious” double-standards in a meeting with the Serbian foreign minister, and a few months later told his Australian counterpart that human rights should not be used as leverage against other countries.

Zarif has expressed willingness to discuss the topic with European governments, most recently in a speech at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). “I am prepared to enter talks with Europe on human right issues and have bilateral talks with [EU Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini],” he said on June 15, 2016. 

But he has so far mainly resorted to bringing up the high voter turnouts in Iran’s 2013 presidential election and 2016 parliamentary elections to deflect any substantial discussion of specific cases involving human rights. Meanwhile, simply agreeing in principle to talk about human rights with foreign governments has resulted in Iran’s conservatives accusing the Rouhani administration of capitulating to Western demands.

“If we allow a new game called ‘human rights’ to become an issue in the same exact way as the 13-year nuclear game that was played by the P5+1 nations, won’t we be betraying our principles?” opined Fatemeh Taheri in the ultra-conservative Risheh website on June 14, 2016. Taheri also reminded her readers that the supreme leader has warned the Rouhani government against engaging with the West on any topic that interferes with Iran’s internal affairs.

During his presidential campaign in 2013, Rouhani gave speeches about expanding freedoms and freeing political prisoners. But it has become clear that Iran’s foreign minister is not only deferring to the supreme leader on these issues, but also following his guidelines regarding engaging with the West on human rights. There are few other explanations for Zarif’s blatantly false and misleading statements on the topic.

A little over a week after teachers’ rights activist Rassoul Bodaghi was conditionally released from prison on April 29, 2016, he was charged with “insulting the supreme leader” and now faces up to three more years in jail.

“Bodaghi had gone to the hospital to visit [current political prisoner] Mahmoud Beheshti Langroudi [on May 8, 2016], but the soldiers would not let him, and when he protested, the soldiers severely beat him and took him into custody,” a source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. “Now they have charged him [with a political crime] in order to whitewash the beating.”

Bodaghi is being targeted by the judicial authorities who want to put the labor rights activist back in jail, added the source.

The charge was announced after Bodaghi was beaten and detained for three days after he tried to visit his former cellmate Mahmoud Beheshti Langroudi, a teacher’s union activist, in the hospital on May 8, 2016. Beheshti Langroudi had been admitted to Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran due to serious health complications resulting from a 22-day hunger strike. 

Bodaghi has been summoned to appear at Branch 1033 of the Criminal Court in Tehran on July 23, 2016. If found guilty, the 50-year-old former board member of the Iranian Teachers Association could be sentenced to up to three years in prison.

At the time of his release, Bodaghi’s lawyer, Peyman Haj-Mahmoud Attar, expressed hope that the Islamic Republic would show more tolerance towards teachers’ rights and other labor rights-focused activists.

“These activists haven’t committed any crimes. None of the accusations leveled against them are true. All they have tried to do is improve the welfare of their colleagues,” he told the Campaign on May 4, 2016.

A former high school teacher from the city of Eslamshahr in Tehran Province, Bodaghi was first arrested on September 2, 2009. He was sentenced to six years in prison and banned from social activities for five years by Judge Abolqasem Salavati of Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court on August 3, 2010 for “assembly with the intent to disrupt national security” and “propaganda against the state.”

Teachers have engaged in numerous peaceful gatherings, protests, and strikes over the past several years to bring attention to the imprisonment of their labor leaders and salaries that are below the official poverty level in Iran.

Independent unions are not permitted to function in the Islamic Republic, and labor leaders face swift prosecution and long prison sentences.

Imprisoned labor activist Jafar Azimzadeh was temporarily released on “extendable furlough” on June 30, 2016 and promised a retrial three days after judicial authorities publicly refused to look into his case following a debilitating hunger strike that left him hospitalized.

“We will not do anything for Jafar Azimzadeh and whatever the hell happens to him, we will accept the consequences,” the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office told Azimzadeh’s relatives on June 27, 2016 after they delivered a letter from the Official Medical Examiner’s office recommending urgent treatment for Azimzadeh.

Azimzadeh’s wife, Akram Rahimpour, told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran on June 27, 2016 that her husband had been on hunger strike for the past two months. “My husband is not willing to end his hunger strike. He has been hospitalized [since June 17, 2016] and the IV is the only thing keeping him alive,” she said. “He’s physically weak and the pain and bleeding in his stomach have worsened. There have also been dangerous fluctuations in his heart beat.”

Azimzadeh’s former cellmate Esmail Abdi, the secretary general of the Teachers’ Association of Iran—who was conditionally released from prison on May 14, 2016 on bail until his sentence is finalized—told the Campaign that the Official Medical Examiner had recommended medical furlough (temporary leave) for Azimzadeh so he could receive proper medical care for his urgent health problems. 

“We hope that the prosecutor will pay attention to the medical examiner’s letter and avoid a human tragedy and do the rational thing by releasing him as soon as possible and reviewing his case,” said Abdi on June 27, 2016.

Political prisoners in Iran are singled out for particularly harsh treatment, which often includes denial of medical care. 

Rahimpour said that Azimzadeh has been on hunger strike since April 29, 2016 to protest the six-year prison sentence he was handed for his peaceful protest activities in support of workers’ rights.

“Remove the charge of ‘assembly and collusion against national security’ and other security charges from my case and those of other labor activists and teachers,” wrote Azimzadeh from his cell in Evin Prison’s Ward 8 in an open letter to Deputy Labor Minister Hassan Hefdahtan on June 17.

“In the three-year lifespan of the Rouhani administration, the majority of the most effective independent labor activists and teachers have been prosecuted under national security laws and given long prison sentences,” he said. “Most of these individuals were arrested by the Intelligence Ministry under the current government and all of them were charged with ‘assembly and collusion against national security’ and faced maximum penalties in the Revolutionary Court.”

On June 27, 2016, the Free Workers Union of Iran reported that Azimzadeh had “lost consciousness for an hour this morning and there is a danger that a great tragedy could take his life.”

Azimzadeh, a 50-year-old former welder and father of two sons, was arrested on April 30, 2014 in part for his alleged assistance in coordinating the collection of more than 30,000 signatures from workers demanding the formation of the Free Workers Union of Iran and the Union of Expelled and Unemployed Workers. He was also charged for allegedly organizing labor protests and speaking to foreign media outlets.

On March 1, 2015 he was sentenced to six years in prison for “assembly and collusion against national security” and “propaganda against the state” by Judge Abolqasem Salavati of Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court. He reported to Evin Prison in Tehran on November 8, 2015 after the Appeals Court upheld the sentence.

Independent unions are not allowed to function in Iran, workers are routinely fired and risk arrest for striking, and labor leaders are prosecuted under national security charges and sentenced to long prison terms.

After eight months in detention, newspaper columnist Afarin Chitsaz was released from Evin Prison in Tehran on July 5, 2016 on 10 billion rials ($324,000 USD) bail until her appeal hearing, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has learned.

Two imprisoned reformist journalists who were apprehended on the same day as Chitsaz during a wave of arrests by the Revolutionary Guards were meanwhile temporarily released. Ehsan Mazandarani and Ehsan (Saman) Safarzaei were each granted three-day furloughs (temporary leave) to visit their families, according to the Campaign’s sources. 

Mazandarani, the editor-in-chief of the reformist Farhikhtegan daily newspaper, had been on hunger strike since May 17, 2016 to protest the resumption of his interrogations and his transfer to solitary confinement in Evin Prison’s Ward 2-A, which is controlled by the Revolutionary Guards. Mazandarani is also protesting the charges laid against him and the authorities’ refusal to free him on bail until the Appeals Court meets to rule on his seven-year prison sentence.

Mazandarani’s health has steadily deteriorated due to his hunger strike. Shortly after he was hospitalized following a heart attack, Mazandarani and his family were assaulted by a prison guard in his hospital room on June 10, 2016.

Chitsaz, Mazandarani, Safarzaei and the prominent reformist journalist Issa Saharkhiz—who was hospitalized on March 9, 2016 after being denied timely medical treatment for the effects of his successive hunger strikes—were all arrested by the Revolutionary Guards on November 2, 2015 and accused of being part of a foreign-instigated “infiltration” plot to spread propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Saharkhiz’s trial was postponed after his hospitalization. On July 3, 2016 he declared from his hospital bed that if the Judiciary continues to keep his case in limbo, he would demand to be returned to prison where he would resume his hunger strike, according to the reformist website Kaleme. He has been charged with “propaganda against the state,” “insulting the supreme leader and the judiciary chief” and “assembly and collusion against national security.”

At the time of the large wave of arrests, Revolutionary Guard-affiliated websites claimed there was a fifth “journalist” among the detainees. Months later the unnamed person was revealed as Davoud Assadi, a marketing manager at a private company in Tehran and the brother of the dissident Iranian journalist Houshang Assadi.  Houshang Assadi, who lives in exile in Paris, told the Campaign in April 2016 that Davoudi Assadi’s arrest was a “warning to me and other political activists based abroad.”

Chitsaz, who wrote for Iran, the official daily newspaper of the government of President Hassan Rouhani, was beaten during her interrogation sessions in prison. Her mother, Maryam Azadpour, told the Campaign in May 2016 that she would be filing a complaint with the Judiciary.

“They blindfolded my daughter and beat her with a water bottle to get a confession out of her,” said Azadpour. “The abuse was not carried out by the main interrogator, who was very respectful towards her. But in any case, we will pursue this matter with the case judge.”

Campaign Pledges Three Years Ago to Free Political Prisoners Now Ring Hollow

Dozens of human rights lawyers who have been imprisoned for years in Iran for defending civil rights and political prisoners, remain behind bars three years after President Hassan Rouhani came to office, despite his campaign pledge to free political prisoners.

Some have been jailed since Iran’s violent crackdown that followed the widely disputed presidential election in 2009. Among the lawyers who have been freed, many remain banned from practicing law or have been forced to leave the country. Others, such as human rights lawyer Giti Pourfazel, have resigned from their profession in dismay after years of relentless persecution from the security establishment.

Abdolfattah Soltani—currently held in Evin Prison’s Ward 350 in Tehran—co-founded the banned Defenders of Human Rights Center and represented political and civil rights activists throughout his career. He was arrested on September 10, 2011 and sentenced to 18 years in prison by Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court for “propaganda against the state,” “assembly and collusion against national security” and “earning illegitimate funds” for winning the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award in 2009, and banned from practicing law for 20 years.

An Appeals Court reduced Soltani’s prison sentence to 13 years, of which he will serve 10 years based on leniencies found in Article 134 of Iran’s New Islamic Penal Code, his family told the Campaign.

The Defenders of Human Rights Center was founded in 2001 by Soltani and lawyers Shirin Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, Mohammad Ali Dadkhah Mohammad Seifzadeh, and Mohammad Sharif. It was shut down by the authorities in Iran in 2008 but still operates from abroad as a website.

Other than Ebadi, who left Iran in 2009, all of the founding members were arrested and imprisoned. Soltani, and the center’s spokesperson, lawyer Narges Mohammadi—who was arrested in 2015 and is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence—remain imprisoned while the other members have been freed.

Soltani’s wife Masoumeh Dehghan told the Campaign that judges and lawyers have argued for her husband’s release. “Unfortunately, there has been no change in his status even though three respected judges read his case and said the sentence against him was fundamentally unlawful,” she said. “His case was sent to the Judiciary’s head office for review three years ago but nothing has been done.”

“A number of attorneys from the Iranian Bar Association have written to the Judiciary seeking my husband’s conditional freedom under Article 58 [of the New Islamic Penal Code], but nothing has been done,” she added.

According to Article 58: “…the deciding court can issue the order of conditional release for convicts sentenced to more than ten years imprisonment after half of the sentence is served, and in other cases after one-third of the sentence is served.”
While in prison, Soltani has been suffering from serious health problems: “He is not well at all. He is suffering from back and neck pain as well as severe digestive problems,” said Dehghan. “Now he has high blood pressure, too.”

“Now I’m even more concerned for his health and the authorities know he’s not well; you can tell just by looking at his appearance,” she added. “I hope they will end this injustice and release him.”

Bans and Suspensions

The prominent lawyer Mohammad Seifzadeh was released on March 10, 2016 after serving five years in prison but has not been allowed to resume his practice.

“I have been banned from practicing law for 10 years even though the law says the ban cannot last for more than two years, but they don’t follow their own laws,” Seifzadeh told the Campaign. “My office and car remain under lock and key and the Defenders of Human Rights Center is still banned. I can’t do anything under these conditions,”

Seifzadeh was arrested on April 6, 2011 as he was allegedly attempting to leave Iran. He was charged with “assembly and collusion against national security” for his role in establishing the Defenders of Human Rights Center and sentenced to nine years in prison and banned from practicing law for 10 years. His prison sentence was reduced to two years upon appeal, but he was sentenced to an additional four years in prison for signing several political statements while imprisoned.

Nasrin Sotoudeh, another prominent human rights lawyer who was imprisoned from 2010 to 2013 in a case that drew international condemnation, has returned to her practice but has been blocked from taking on political cases.

“I have accepted clients under the age of 18 who have been condemned to death,” said Sotoudeh in an interview with the Campaign. “But there’s absolutely no possibility to take on political cases. Fortunately, there are still a few lawyers who work on these cases, but other lawyers like me haven’t been able to return to our previous work.”

“I haven’t been officially banned from taking on cases tried in the Revolutionary Court, but in practice there’s an unofficial suspension. The last time my license was suspended I received unofficial word that it was only because I had inquired about the case of [political activist] Kourosh Zaim in Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court,” added Sotoudeh.

In 2010, Sotoudeh was sentenced to 11 years in prison and banned for 20 years from practicing law for “propaganda against the state” and “assembly and collusion against national security” because of her membership in the Defenders of Human Rights Center.

The Appeals Court reduced her sentence to six years in prison, and she was unexpectedly granted early conditional release in September 2013 a few days before Rouhani made his first presidential trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The Tehran prosecutor later tried to permanently revoke her law license but the Disciplinary Court for Lawyers issued a nine-month suspension instead.

Another founder of the center, Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, has not returned to his practice since his release from prison in 2013. One of his relatives told the Campaign that his law license had been reinstated but he had set aside his practice to complete his PhD at Tarbiat Modares University.

Dadkhah was arrested at his office in Tehran in July 2009 and was sentenced to nine years in prison and banned from practicing law for 10 years, but was granted early release in 2013.

Massoud Shafiee, the attorney who defended the three American hikers—Josh Fattal, Sarah Shourd and Shane Bauer—who were detained in 2009 until their release in 2011, was also suspended from practicing law and banned from traveling outside Iran.

Gonabadi Dervishes

Lawyers imprisoned for representing the Gonabadi Dervishes, a persecuted Sufi spiritual community, have also experienced severe problems since their release from jail. Initially the lawyers—Hamidreza Moradi, Mostafa Daneshjou, Amir Eslami, Reza Entesari, Afshin Karampour, Farshid Yadollahi and Omid Behrouzi—saw their licenses revoked, but Eslami, Yadollahi and Behrouzi have been able to return to their practices, the Campaign has learned.

All seven were arrested in August 2011 and charged with “spreading falsehoods,” “propaganda against the state” and “assembly and collusion against national security” in connection with their alleged administration of the Majzooban-e Noor website, which provided news about the Dervishes. The lawyers were sentenced to prison terms ranging from four to seven years each but were granted early conditional release in 2015.

List Goes On

Lawyers Negar Haeri, Sara Sabaghian, Maryan Kianersi, Maryam Karbasi and Rosa Gharachorlou were also detained or imprisoned in recent years. The latter four were arrested after returning from a visit to Turkey in November 2010 and accused of “committing security crimes and conducting un-Islamic behavior abroad.” The accusation did not lead to their formal prosecution, but Gharachorlou was disqualified from running for the Iranian Bar Association’s Board of Directors. Gharachorlou, who taught law at the Islamic Open University in Tehran, died in 2012.

Negar Haeri was the defense attorney for her father Hamid Haeri, a political prisoner held in Rajaee Shahr Prison in the city of Karaj who was initially sentenced to death for being a Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) sympathizer, but who had his punishment reduced to 15 years in prison.

In 2009 Negar Haeri was suspended from practicing law for 10 years for representing a “monafeq” (hypocrite)—a derogatory term for members of the MEK, a banned group that advocates regime change in Iran. Two years later she was detained for nearly four months for her alleged sympathies with the MEK.

In May 2014 Haeri was arrested again and given a one-year prison sentence that was suspended for five years. (Former political prisoners freed on suspended prison sentences are monitored carefully and promptly returned to prison if caught engaging in political activities.) The following month, in June 2014, she was taken into custody and held for nearly nine months for granting interviews to foreign media. In May 2015, Haeri was arrested a fourth time and released on bail a week later.

Attorney Javid Houtan Kiyan (Kian) represented Sakineh Mohammadi, who, in a widely publicized case, was initially sentenced to death by stoning for allegedly practicing adultery. Kiyan was arrested in November 2010 at his office in the city of Tabriz, in northwest Iran, along with two German reporters who were trying to interview Mohammadi.

The Revolutionary Court in Tabriz sentenced him to seven years in prison and banned him from practicing law for five years. He was also sentenced to four years in prison in a separate trial in Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. The Appeals Court reduced his combined sentence to six years in prison and he was eventually granted conditional release in June 2013, but his license to practice law was suspended.

Mohammad Oliaei-Fard, Mohammad Mostafaee, Mahnaz Parakand and Shadi Sadr are among the formerly imprisoned lawyers who emigrated following their release.

High Number of False Arrests Would Require Large Payout

More than a year after Iran’s new Code of Criminal Procedure went into effect, the Judiciary is resisting implementing Article 255, which grants individuals the right to sue the government and seek damages for false arrests.

According to Article 258, the National Criminal Compensation Commission (NCCC)—consisting of the chief justice of the Supreme Court, or one of his deputies, as well as two other judges appointed by the judiciary chief—is responsible for ruling on such cases, but the Judiciary has not approved the procedural regulations and compensatory funds have not been properly allocated.

On August 13, Justice Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi said that the budget allocation for the NCCC was insufficient: “We predict that the compensation amount for false arrests is going to be a large number and we don’t think Parliament or the government can handle it… The courts and prosecutors must be more careful so that they make no mistakes and we don’t have to pay damages.”

The justice minister appeared to be implying that the reason the Judiciary had not yet initiated the formation of the NCCC was because there have been too many false arrests and the government would not be able to cope with the potentially huge financial payout.

On May 19, 2016 the Deputy Supervisor of the Supreme Court Gholamreza Ansari announced that the procedural regulations for the NCCC’s operation had been sent to the judiciary chief for approval. “Commissions cannot operate until the judiciary chief approves them,” he said, adding: “Local commissions have been formed in various cities and they are registering requests for damages, but it is not clear which authority will pay for the compensations.”

On June 13, 2016 Pourmohammadi told reporters that his ministry had taken the “first necessary steps” to allocate compensations from the treasury. “If there is a ruling to pay compensation for false arrests we are obliged to pay it,” he said. “At the moment, the amount allocated for compensations is very little and insufficient. This year’s national budget included a general provision to pay compensation for false arrests from the 40 billion tomans ($128.3 million USD) allocated for all damages payable from the treasury… but the Judiciary has to figure out the details for compensation rulings.”

In July 2005 a citizens’ rights commission formed by then Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi published a report on prison conditions that included sections on arbitrary arrests. 

In a rare admission of human rights abuses, the report revealed the “use of blindfolds, beating of suspects, prolonged detentions and long delays in investigating suspects” and “in some cases detained girls and women were possibly assaulted.” The report also mentioned the case of one person who had been in prison for 17 years with no records of him ever being prosecuted or sentenced. In other cases highlighted by the report, “1,400 inmates in one prison were in legal limbo,” a 13-year-old boy was kept in a notorious detention center for stealing a chicken, and a woman in her 80s was arrested because she was unable to pay a debt.

Omid Kokabee’s Release Comes After Months Struggling with Kidney Cancer That Was Left Untreated in Prison

August 29, 2016—Imprisoned Iranian scientist Omid Kokabee, who spent more than five years in Evin Prison for refusing to work on Iran’s military projects, was granted conditional release on August 29, 2016. Kokabee, currently on medical leave, was diagnosed with kidney cancer this past April after years of being denied proper medical treatment by prison authorities.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran calls on the Iranian Judiciary to immediately allow Kokabee to leave the country if he so wishes, so that he may continue his interrupted scientific studies and career.

Kokabee’s academic studies as a post-doctoral physics student at the University of Texas were abruptly halted when he was arrested in Iran in 2011 during a visit to his family.

“While we welcome the decision to release Omid Kokabee after he unjustly spent more than five years in prison, his release does not compensate for the pain he endured during these years and the severely damaged health he suffered as a result of prison conditions,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Campaign.

“The Judiciary Chief approved a ruling by Branch 36 of the Tehran Appeals Court that says Omid Kokabee qualifies for conditional release and therefore he will not be returning to prison,” Kokabee’s lawyer, Saeed Khalili, told the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA).

Khalili added that the ruling had been issued “two or three days” before it was formally delivered in writing on August 28, 2016, according to the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA).

Kokabee, 34, has been on medical furlough (temporary leave) since May 25, 2016, after undergoing surgery to remove his cancerous kidney.

He was arrested on January 30, 2011 at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport on his way back to the U.S. to continue his studies at the University of Texas at Austin. On May 14, 2012, Kokabee was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Abolqasem Salavati for “contact with enemy states.” The sentence was later upheld on appeal. 

Kokabee said in an April 2013 open letter from Evin Prison to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, that he was imprisoned for refusing an offer from the Iranian intelligence establishment to collaborate on a military research project.

During his imprisonment Kokabee’s repeated requests for furlough were denied until he was transferred to a hospital in April 2016 where doctors discovered a large tumor on his right kidney.

Article 502 of Iran’s Criminal Code states: “If a prisoner is suffering from physical or mental illness and his imprisonment would make his illness worse or delay his recovery, the judge can postpone the sentence being served until the prisoner regains his health after consultation with his physician.”

The authorities at Evin Prison also denied repeated requests submitted by Kokabee’s family for temporary leave for the young scientist to receive outside medical treatment even though he was suffering from severe pain and medical complications for years following multiple bouts of kidney stones.

Kokabee was denied access to specialists in a hospital and was instead given painkillers from the prison infirmary until his condition became critical and he was finally taken to a hospital, a source told the International Campaign for Human Right in Iran.

Political prisoners in Iran routinely receive discriminatory treatment, including denial of necessary medical treatment.

Labor activists Jafar Azimzadeh and Shapour Ehsani-Rad have been put on trial for allegedly inciting workers to strike. The first day of their trial was held on August 29, 2016 at Branch 101 of the Second Criminal Court in the city of Saveh, 76 miles southwest of Tehran. 

“This case doesn’t have any legal foundation,” an informed source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. “Mr. Azimzadeh was already prosecuted and jailed for all the charges mentioned in this case. You cannot prosecute someone twice for the same crime, but the security establishment is not very concerned about following the law or respecting rights; they recycle these cases to make it easier to prosecute those who continue their activities.”

On March 1, 2015 Azimzadeh, the president of the Free Workers Union of Iran, was sentenced to six years in prison for “assembly and collusion against national security” and “propaganda against the state” by Judge Abolqasem Salavati of Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court. After the Appeals Court upheld the sentence Azimzadeh reported to Evin Prison in Tehran on November 8, 2015, but he was temporarily released on June 30, 2016 following a two-month hunger strike.

Mohammad Ali Jedari Foroughi, the attorney representing Azimzadeh and Ehsani-Rad, also a member of the Free Workers Union of Iran, told the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) on August 29 that his clients have been charged with “assembly and collusion against national security” and “propaganda against the state.” The next session of their trial has been scheduled for September 5.

Iranian law prohibits the re-prosecution and interrogation of individuals on the same charges.

Azimzadeh and Ehsani-Rad have been accused by the Safa Rolling and Pipe Mills Company of provoking its workers to go on strike, according to a statement issued by the union.

After working for 16 months without health and work safety insurance and for four months without paid wages, approximately 1,000 workers protested by going on strike on April 21, 2015 for more than a month.

Following the strike, Azimzadeh and Ehsani-Rad were arrested in late May 2015 and detained for 18 and 26 days respectively before being released on bail. 

In its statement, the Free Workers Union of Iran condemned the authorities’ prosecution of workers as enemies of the state for attempting to improve labor conditions. “The actions by the security and judicial institutions are an insult to the general public and millions of workers and teachers,” it said.

Independent unions are not allowed to function in Iran, workers are routinely fired and risk arrest for striking, and labor leaders are prosecuted under national security charges and sentenced to long prison terms.

The 10-year prison sentence of newspaper columnist Afarin Chitsaz has been reduced to two years on appeal and she has been banned from practicing journalism for two years according to the ruling issued by Branch 36 of the Appeals Court on September 5, 2016, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has learned.

Chitsaz, who wrote a political column for Iran, the official newspaper of the Hassan Rouhani administration, was arrested during a wave of arrests on November 2, 2015 by the Revolutionary Guards’ Intelligence Organization and sentenced to 10 years in prison in March 2016 for “assembly and collusion against national security” and “collaboration with enemy states” by Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court.

Her arrest typified hardliners’ targeting of political centrists and supporters of the more moderate administration of President Rouhani, in addition to their long-standing targets of reformist journalists and activists.

On July 5 she was permitted to leave prison for three days on furlough (temporary leave) on 10 billion rials ($320,000 USD) bail. Then, on July 21, she was hospitalized for a knee operation and has been recovering at her parents’ home since August 10.

“My client is under medical treatment for meniscus tears in her knees and for this reason her furlough has been extended several times,” her lawyer, Mohammad Moghimi, told the Campaign. “Her right knee has been operated on and her other knee needs surgery as well. I am hopeful that she will be allowed to remain outside of prison for as long as her treatment requires.”

Three other journalists were also arrested on November 2 by the Revolutionary Guards’ Intelligence Organization: the reformist journalist Issa Saharkhiz, the reformist newspaper editor Ehsan Mazandarani, and reformist journalist Ehsan (Saman) Safarzaei. Davoud Assadi, a marketing manager and brother of the Paris-based dissident journalist Houshang Assadi was also arrested that day.

In March 2016 Mazandarani was sentenced to seven years in prison while Safarzaei and Assadi were sentenced to five years in prison. Mazandarani and Safarzaei’s sentences were reduced to two years in prison on appeal. 

Saharkhiz, who previously spent nearly five years in prison for publishing political commentaries critical of the widely disputed results of Iran’s 2009 presidential elections, was sentenced to three years in prison by the Revolutionary Court in Tehran on August 9 for “propaganda against the state” and “insulting the supreme leader.” He will also be tried in a criminal court for allegedly “insulting” Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Amir Javadifar died beside me as he was begging for water. I can never forget those moments.”

Reza Zoghi, who was tortured at the Kahrizak Detention Center in south Tehran where three young men died as a result of the torture, has rejected an apology from then-Tehran Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi.

“His apology is an insult,” Zoghi told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. “The first night we were transferred from Kahrizak to Evin Prison, Mortazavi threatened us [and told us] to say we had not been tortured. I don’t understand his apology and more importantly, he was not the only person responsible for what happened. Without a doubt there were higher ranking officials who supported Mortazavi, but were never identified or put on trial for the deaths at Kahrizak.”

After the peaceful protests that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election in Iran, dozens of protesters were rounded up by security forces and taken to the Kahrizak Detention Center. According to eyewitnesses, many were tortured. Three men died as a result of their torture. Mortazavi was deeply implicated in the transfer of the protestors to Kahrizak, and then falsified the cause of their death in order to cover up evidence of torture and murder at the facility.

Zoghi, who was 23-years old when he was taken to the prison, currently lives in Izmir, Turkey. 

“Those who witnessed what happened at Kahrizak were never asked to appear in court to tell their story. Also, except for Mr. [Mohsen] Rouholamini [whose son, Mohsen, died there], no one has been able to pursue his case. All the other plaintiffs were pressured into silence with threats and intimidation and many of them left Iran,” said Zoghi.

Mortazavi, the main suspect in the Kahrizak suit brought against him by the Rouholamini family, submitted a letter about the deaths of the detainees to the Appeals Court on September 11, 2016.

“As I was the Tehran prosecutor at the time, I express shame for this terrible incident, even though it happened without any deliberate intention, as God and my conscience are my witness,” wrote Mortazavi.

“The bloody incidents that happened after the great plot hatched during the June 2009 presidential election were described as a crime by the supreme leader of the revolution [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], and I, the prosecutor at the time, deeply apologize and seek forgiveness from the innocent martyrs [Amir] Javadifar, [Mohsen] Rouholamini and [Mohammad] Kamrani, and hope God Almighty would bless them with the highest rank.” 

The Green Movement grew out of the widespread protests against Iran’s widely disputed presidential election in 2009. The administration of then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, supported by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, swiftly responded with a harsh crackdown against protestors and anyone deemed supportive of the cause. The government still views the Green Movement, referred to by hardliners as “the sedition,” as a foreign-instigated plot aimed at regime change, and has kept its leaders under house arrest since 2011.

According to former Tehran University Law Professor Ghasem Sholeh Sadi, Mortazavi’s apology could be interpreted as an admission of guilt, but it could prove difficult to hold him responsible in court.

“The court could take this apology as an indirect admission of committing a crime,” Sadi told the Campaign. “But you can’t count on that because it depends on how you look at a lot of other laws relevant to this case, especially given that Mr. Mortazavi’s apology is vague. In his apology he wrote that it was not intentional and that he was not aware of what had happened.”

Speaking to the Campaign in reaction to Mortazavi’s trial, Zoghi said: “I and many of the former detainees have wanted to take our cases to international tribunals, but we don’t know how to proceed. We couldn’t pursue it in Iran because of all the threats and intimidation, but we are victims and our voices haven’t been heard.”

Recalling the night detainees were transferred from Kahrizak Prison to Evin Prison, Zoghi told the Campaign: “That night Mortazavi visited us and warned us not to say anything about being tortured. Then a human rights group visited us and we also had two visits by a group of MPs. We told them everything and gave our criticism. Meanwhile we were being interrogated every day and they wanted us to confess to what they were telling us. They wanted us to say that we were conducting propaganda against the state or colluding against national security.”

Zoghi continued: “We received treatment in the clinic for our injuries from the very first days when we arrived at Evin Prison. They bandaged our wounds and gave us shots and pills against infections. About two weeks went by before they allowed us to contact our families. I was freed on bail about 17 or 18 days after I was detained. The others were released a day or two before or after. By that time, the torture marks on our bodies were not so visible.”

According to Zoghi, about 150 people were rounded up at a protest rally in Tehran on July 10, 2009, and taken to Kahrizak, which at the time was not officially listed among the country’s detention centers. Five days later, three detainees—Mohsen Rouholamini, Mohammad Kamrani and Amir Javadifar—died as a result of torture.

Ramin Pourandarjani, a 25-year-old doctor who was serving as a conscript at Kahrizak Prison, and who had attended the injured prisoners, also died on November 10, 2009 amid mysterious circumstances. Dr. Pourandarjani had been named as a suspect in the Kahrizak torture case, and had been repeatedly questioned. On December 1, 2009, Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi claimed Pour-Andarjani had died from “drug poisoning.”

Tortured and Threatened

In an interview with the Campaign, Zoghi recalled the events following his arrest: “We were arrested by a few plainclothes agents near Revolution Square [in Tehran] on July 9 [2009]. We were first transported in a van to a security police station where they really beat us up during questioning. They also photographed us. Then, around 10 or 11 at night, we were transferred to another police station and were again questioned until morning. Then a judicial official named [Ali Akbar] Heydarifar gave us a piece of paper with five charges listed against us, including ‘propaganda against the state’ and ‘assembly and collusion against national security.’ He forced us to sign it and told us we were being sent to Kahrizak. He said we were going to be there until the end of the summer and by that time, if we were still alive, they would investigate our cases.”

“Every day they would force us to walk on the hot asphalt,” said Zoghi. “Every day, twice a day, they would take us to the yard in front of the infirmary and beat us with pipes. During the five days we were there, we were fed half a potato and half a loaf of bread, twice a day. There were about 150 of us, plus another 30 dangerous criminals, kept in a 60 square-meter area. We couldn’t stretch our legs to sleep so some of us had to stand up and take turns sleeping. One time they tied three of the detainees to the ceiling and viciously beat them. Before they were brought to Kahrizak, many of the detainees were already in bad shape from being severely beaten during police questioning.”

Zoghi added that when they were released, about three weeks later, 124 of the Kahrizak detainees lodged complaints at the Military Court on Shariati Street.

“The day I went there I saw a lot of the detainees. A few days later we received a letter that we could get free medical treatment. I went to Imam Khomeini Hospital where I was able to get pills to treat infections,” Zoghi told the Campaign.

“At the time I was serving my compulsory military service and hadn’t showed up at my barracks for a month. So a few days after I was released from prison, I was taken into custody by military police and three months were added to my service as punishment. After that I was busy with my military service and couldn’t follow up with my complaint. But there was a Colonel Nezamdoust who visited me several times and threatened me, telling me not to pursue my complaint. Finally I gave up. It was very painful. I had been threatened so many times that I couldn’t go through with it.

“In fact, none of us were actually able to pursue our cases. In the end, only the Rouholamini family was able to drag Mortazavi to court. But what upsets me was that none of our names were mentioned during the trial. It’s true that we survived, but we were all tortured. Amir Javadifar died beside me as he was begging for water. I can never forget those moments.”

“Despite all the threats and intimidation, I and the others tried to voice the truth about Kahrizak. But even as I’m speaking here [in Turkey], I’m afraid something might happen to me if I leave the house.”

Mortazavi’s Trial

More than three years after the deaths of Rouholamini, Kamrani and Javadifar in 2009, their families finally succeeded in bringing Mortazavi to trial in February 2013 at Branch 76 of the Criminal Court presided by Judge Siamak Modir-Khorasani. The former Tehran prosecutor was charged with being an “accomplice to murder and illegal detention” and “assisting in writing a false report” along with two other officials, Hassan Zare-Dehnavi and Aliakbar Heydarifar.

Mortazavi denied all the charges. But Heydarifar accused Mortazavi of ultimate responsibility for ordering the detainees to be transferred to Kahrizak. According to Mohammad Saleh Nikbakht, the lawyer who represented the family of Javadifar, seven prominent medical examiners testified that all three victims “died from blows to soft tissues on their bodies during a 72-hour period.”

In November 2014, Mortazavi was acquitted of being an “accomplice to murder,” but was permanently banned from holding state positions. He was also fined two million rials (about $60 USD) for filing a false report.

Massoud Alizadeh, another detainee who was tortured at Kahrizak, told the Campaign in August 2015: “I never thought that with all the evidence against him, Saeed Mortazavi would be acquitted. Mortazavi was the one who sent us to the detention center and then wrote a false report that the detainees had died of meningitis…. This is a great tragedy. One should feel sorry for a judicial system that lets a murderous criminal go free.”

The Rouholamini family has not stopped fighting for justice. They filed an appeal against Mortazavi for the murder of their son and the case, which was taken up by Branch 22 of the Appeals Court in May 2015, remains in progress.

Zarif Hopes Their Situation Can Be “Resolved Amicably”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said he hoped the situation of detained dual nationals in Iran could be “resolved amicably,” adding that the office of the president has no control over the Judiciary, at a talk in New York on September 23, 2016.

The Judiciary is theoretically independent according to the Iranian Constitution, but a pattern of repeated interferences in its activities by the Intelligence Ministry and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has seriously undermined its role.

Bagher Namazi, Siamak Namazi, Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe, Robin Reza Shahini, and Kamal Foroughi, a 76-year-old Iranian-British man held since May 2011, are among the dual nationals who are currently languishing in Iran’s prisons without access to due process after being arrested by the Revolutionary Guards’ Intelligence Organization.

Civil rights activists and human rights organizations have criticized the administration of President Hassan Rouhani for its inaction in stopping human rights violations. On the international stage, Iranian officials often sidestep responsibility by claiming that the Judiciary is independent even though the president, as the authority in charge of overseeing the Constitution, could call on the Judiciary to respect domestic and international laws on human rights. 

Zarif’s statement came in response to a question posed by Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran: “During the past three years, you and President [Hassan] Rouhani, especially during your trips abroad, have very actively courted and talked with the Iranian diaspora, particularly the professional and business class, inviting them back to the country. However, the security and intelligence forces of the Islamic Republic have consistently and routinely detained dual nationals who traveled back without evidence of wrongdoing. And they include, for instance, 80-year-old former UN official Bagher Namazi, his son Siamak Namazi, and the mother of a two-year-old, Naznin Ratcliffe.”

“My question is, how do you reconcile your invitation to the Iranian diaspora? How can they trust your invitation, when in practice these detentions and this treatment of dual nationals continues? The answer is not really the ‘independence of the Judiciary’ or ‘the rule of law,’ as you and I know. I would appreciate it if you would explain the policies of yourself and Mr. Rouhani’s abroad, versus the practices at home.”

Zarif replied: “Well, you gave the answer yourself. Because the judiciary in the—in the Islamic Republic is independent, that’s the answer. But you made a statement and that is we invite Iranian Americans and Iranians of any—of any new nationality to come to Iran. Obviously, they all know and it’s written in the back of their passport that when they go to their countries of origin, most countries do not recognize dual citizenship and they’ll be subjected to the laws of their country.”

“But you made also a statement,” continued Zarif. “Hundreds of thousands of Iranians, millions of Iranians, live outside Iran. Thousands of them, hundreds and thousands of them come to Iran on a regular basis and leave Iran on a regular basis without any impediment or any problem. Unfortunately, something happens to some of them. I’m not here to judge what has happened to the individuals you mentioned or others. We hope that their situations could be resolved amicably and we hope that they could return.”

“As you know, I played a role in getting the release of some in the past and we hope that this could continue in the future. But I have to insist that the government—some people, for political reasons, try to say that during the three years of President Rouhani this has happened. President Rouhani has nothing to do with it. This is a Judiciary—no president has anything to do with it. It’s one of the hallmarks of our system. The Judiciary is independent from the executive, and it may have some drawbacks but it has its advantages,” he said.

The host of the debate, Fareed Zakaria of CNN, followed up: “…There is a perception that you and President Rouhani do not have complete control of the government—that there are hardliners in Iran who are—who try to embarrass you at every turn, who try to in some way to complicate your ability to make the kind of outreaches you want to make and that sometimes they use the judiciary where they do tend to dominate—that this is part of a larger problem of your political weakness.”

Zarif responded by pointing to what he described as the plurality of political forces in Iran and mentioned that even in the United States, the Supreme Court makes decisions without government involvement.

Cases Expose Judiciary’s Lack of Independence

In another example of the Iranian Judiciary’s lack of independence, an Appeals Court has upheld disproportionate prison sentences against four civil rights activists following pressure by the Revolutionary Guards, the activists told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

Fatemeh (Atena) Daemi and Omid Alishenas have each been sentenced to seven years in prison while Aso Rostami and Ali Nouri have each been sentenced to two years in prison.

“Our case was not judged fairly by any means,” Daemi said in an interview with the Campaign on September 29. “In fact, it was the Revolutionary Guards agents who were mostly in charge of prosecuting us. My lawyer and I were not given a chance to present a defense during the preliminary trial and we saw a letter from the Revolutionary Guards addressed to the Appeals Court asking for the maximum punishment against us.”

Also speaking to the Campaign, Alishenas said: “When my mother asked the judge why he had issued such a harsh sentence, he said ‘we are under pressure from the Revolutionary Guards’.”

“The sentences were handed down under the influence of security forces,” Rostami told the Campaign. “We did not see any signs of a fair trial in any of our court sessions. The first trial lasted barely 10 minutes. The lawyers were not allowed to have a copy of the indictments and they weren’t given a chance to present a defense.”

According to the ruling by Branch 36 of the Tehran Appeals Court delivered to Daemi’s lawyer on September 29, 2016, guilty verdicts were upheld against the four activists for “assembly and collusion against national security” and “insulting the supreme leader.”

Based on Article 134 of Iran’s New Islamic Penal Code, the activists would become eligible for release after serving the prison term for the heaviest punishment (five years for Daemi and Alishenas, and a year and a half for Rostami and Nouri). 

The four are currently free on bail.

“These judges all have one thing in common: hatred for good, humanitarian young people,” wrote Alishenas’s mother, Simin Eyvazzadeh, on her Facebook page. “If they were thieves and had stolen billions, would they have gotten the same punishment? I should have wished my son were a thief to be shown mercy. No, I would never wish such a thing. I have a lot to say when the time is right.”

Alishenas, Daemi, Rostami and Nouri were arrested in August and September 2014 by the Revolutionary Guards’ Intelligence Organization for their peaceful protest activities including engaging in campaigns against the death penalty, condemning the mass executions of political prisoners in the 1980s, meeting the families of political prisoners, and criticizing official corruption.

Their joint preliminary trial, which lasted less than half an hour, was held on March 5, 2015 at Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Mohammad Moghisseh. Daemi was initially sentenced to 14 years in prison, Alishenas to 10 years in prison, and Rostami and Nouri were each sentenced to seven years.

Other Ailing Dual Nationals Remain in Prison while Denied Due Process

“I didn’t feel I would be released until I was on the jet. In Iran, nothing is complete until it is complete,” said Iranian-Canadian dual national and academic Homa Hoodfar on September 26, 2016 after landing at Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport following her release from Evin Prison where she was held since June 2016. “As they say in Iran, nothing is possible and everything is possible.”

According to Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasem, Hoodfar, 65—detained since June 6 for undisclosed “security” charges—was released under “humanitarian grounds, including for medical reasons” on September 29 and flown to Canada, where she resides, via Oman.

Other dual nationals, including Baquer Namazi, the 76-year-old father of detained Iranian-American Siamak Namazi, and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian citizen and mother of a two-year old child, remain imprisoned in Iran with health problems while being prevented from posting bail. 

On March 9, 2016, two days before the end of Hoodfar’s visit to Iran to see her relatives and carry out research on Iranian women, agents of the Revolutionary Guards raided her home in Tehran, confiscated her personal belongings, and told her she was not allowed to leave the country. She was subsequently questioned several times by the Revolutionary Guards’ Intelligence Organization, which finally arrested her on June 6.

During her detainment, Hoodfar’s family frequently expressed concern about her health, especially because she had suffered a stroke shortly before her arrest. In late July she was transferred to the hospital after her condition deteriorated. “She was very disoriented, severely weakened, and could hardly walk or talk” before being hospitalized, Hoodfar’s family said in a statement on September 1.

Following Hoodfar’s release, both the Judiciary’s Spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei as well as Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi claimed she could have be freed sooner if the bail amount had been paid sooner, but Hoodfar’s family maintain they paid the bail amount promptly.

“The bail set for Ms. Homa Hoodfar was 150 million tomans ($48,000 USD), but it was later increased to 500 million tomans ($160,000 USD),” Ejei told reporters on September 28, 2016—two days after Hoodfar’s arrest. “Obviously, it takes time to gather 500 million tomans, and when it was finally paid, she was released.”

Ejei did not specify the charges against Hoodfar nor provide a date for her trial. On June 24 Dolatabadi had said that Hoodfar’s charges involved “feminist and security issues.”

At the airport in Montreal, Hoodfar, an expert on gender and development in Islam, thanked the Canadian government for pushing for her release, and thanked officials in Iran and Oman.

“It’s wonderful to be home,” she told reporters. “I’ve had a bitter seven months, and the detention has left me weak and tired.”

Bagher Namazi, Siamak Namazi, Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe, Robin Reza Shahini, and Kamal Foroughi, a 77-year-old Iranian-British man held since May 2011, are among the dual nationals who are currently languishing in Iran’s prisons without access to due process after being arrested by the Revolutionary Guards’ Intelligence Organization. 

During a recent trip with President Hassan Rouhani to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif blamed the Judiciary for arresting dual nationals.

“This is a Judiciary—no president has anything to do with it,” he said on September 23 at a talk hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Labor rights activists Jafar Azimzadeh and Shapour Ehsani-Rad were sentenced to 11 years in prison each for their peaceful activism on October 15, 2016 by Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court in the city of Saveh, 76 miles southwest of Tehran.

According to the court’s ruling, Azimzadeh and Ehsani-Rad were each sentenced to 10 years in prison for “organizing and operating an illegal group” and one year in prison for “propaganda against the state.” The alleged “illegal group” is the Free Workers Union of Iran, of which Azimzadeh is president and Ehsani-Rad is a member of the board of directors.

“I have been sentenced on the basis of charges I was tried and punished for before [for which I was] sentenced to six years in prison. In fact, I’m a prisoner on furlough (temporary leave),” said Azimzadeh in an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran on October 15.

Azimzadeh was sentenced to six years in prison in March 2015 for “assembly and collusion against national security” and the repeat charge of “propaganda against the state.” In July 2016 he was temporarily released on furlough after he went on a two-month hunger strike demanding that the authorities reconsider his case.

According to Article 14-7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a signatory: “No one shall be liable to be tried or punished again for an offence for which he has already been finally convicted or acquitted in accordance with the law and penal procedure of each country.”

“All the charges and accusations against me are for trade union activities, such as organizing unions, non-violent labor strikes, and interviews with the media to defend workers’ rights, myself included. I am a worker,” added Azimzadeh.

Azimzadeh and Ehsani-Rad are also due to appear in the Saveh Criminal Court for the charges of “disturbing public opinion” and “disrupting public order.” They are accused of inciting workers at the Safa Rolling and Pipe Mills Company to go on strike in 2015.

“The Free Workers Union was formed in 2007 on the basis of the Constitution,” Jafarzadeh told the Campaign on October 15, referring to the right to assemble freely. Article 27 of Iran’s Constitution states, “Public gatherings and marches may be freely held, provided that arms are not carried and that [the events] are not detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam.”

According to the Free Workers Union’s Articles of Association: “The Union sees itself as a vessel for achieving the rights of all workers in Iran and attaining a humane living standard for the working class based on contemporary advances.”

On October 7, 2016 an appeals court upheld a six-year prison sentence against teacher’s rights union leader, Esmail Abdi.

Labor activism in Iran is seen as a national security offense; independent labor unions are not allowed to function, strikers are often fired and risk arrest, and labor leaders are consistently prosecuted under catchall national security charges and sentenced to long prison terms.

Appeals Court Throws Away Conviction

“The judge looked at my file and ordered my unconditional release. It didn’t even take 10 minutes,” said Sedigheh Moradi who was released from Evin Prison on November 23 after Branch 54 of the Appeals Court threw away her conviction.

“I hadn’t done anything. I was held in prison for all these years only because I was imprisoned in the 1980s. Even the Appeal Court judge said there was nothing in my file,” added Moradi in an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

Moradi, 56, served more than five years of a 10-year prison sentence for allegedly “waging armed rebellion against the Islamic Republic by sympathizing with the Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization (MEK).” 

“On the day of my initial trial, presided by Judge [Mohammad] Moghisseh of Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court, Mr. Majid Pouryousef was present. He was in charge of getting [television] interviews from [political] prisoners. He told me in court that I had refused to give an interview when I was imprisoned in the 1980s and now I must give one. I said I did my time in prison and I haven’t been involved in any particular activities. Why should I give an interview? Then I was charged with ‘waging armed rebellion’ for supporting the Mojahedin-e Khalgh and given 10 years in prison. Only because I didn’t agree to give a [televised] interview,” Moradi told the Campaign.

Iran has a documented history of routinely forcing prisoners to “confess” and then broadcasting those “confessions” on state TV. Such broadcasts are used to defame political detainees and as evidence to convict them in court.

Moradi added: “Now I’m out but I feel I’m still in the Women’s Ward in Evin Prison. There are three other political prisoners there who have the same exact case as mine. Now that they let me go free, their cases should also be reviewed and they should go free, too. Maryam Akbari-Monfared, Reyhaneh Haj Ebrahim [Dabbagh]  and Behnaz Zakeri  have all asked for judicial reviews and they had been accepted. Maryam has three girls. Behnaz Zakeri is sick and can’t tolerate prison conditions. I hope their cases will be reviewed as soon as possible and they will all go free.”

Moradi was first arrested and briefly detained in 1981 as an MEK sympathizer in her high school in Tehran. Four years later she was again arrested in connection with the MEK and spent four years in prison.

“When my wife was arrested in 2011, she was not engaged in any [political] activities. She was a housewife and only socialized with her cellmates from the 1980s and with their families,” Moradi’s husband Mehdi Khavas said in an interview with the Campaign earlier this month after the Supreme Court agreed to refer her case for review. 

“We have a daughter who was 13 when her mother was arrested,” Khavas added. “For the past five years their only contact has been weekly visits behind a glass barrier and occasional face-to-face visitations. My wife has not been allowed to use the phone [to contact us] and has been denied furlough. This is a cruel form of punishment.”

Civil rights activist Esmail “Zartosht” Ahmadi-Ragheb—detained in Evin Prison since January 2016 for criticizing Iranian politics on social media—was released on January 8, 2017 until his trial. While imprisoned, the 52-year-old endured a two-week hunger strike to convince the authorities to transfer him from solitary confinement to a public ward, he told the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

Ahmadi-Ragheb, who has peacefully advocated against the death penalty and for political prisoners, was arrested on January 12, 2016 by agents of the Intelligence Ministry and interrogated for 20 days in Ward 209.

The now unemployed father of two told the Campaign that he had to post 100 million tomans ($31,000 USD) bail for his release. He lost his job as a municipal employee in the city of Shahriar, Tehran Province, after being sentenced to six months imprisonment in March 2016 for “propaganda against the state” by Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court for the content of his social media postings.

“One of the things I had mentioned a lot in my Facebook posts was the term ‘religious dictatorship,’ he said in March 2016. “That was used as evidence, along with my participation in a rally in support of [human rights lawyer] Nasrin Sotoudeh in front of the Bar Association, as well as my meeting with the mother of Sattar Beheshti [a blogger murdered by his interrogators in prison], and my participation in demonstrations in support of political prisoners.” 

“They told me all these activities were illegal,” he added.

*On Jan. 12, 2017 at 1:42 p.m. EST this article was revised to reflect that Esmail “Zartosht” Ahmadi-Ragheb was arrested by agents of the Intelligence Ministry, not the Revolutionary Guards.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has written to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calling for an end to the persecution of Reza Shahabi, a prominent labor activist who has refused to comply with a summons to return to prison. 

“A return to detention of Reza Shahabi, unjustly convicted for his trade union activity, would be only a further violation of international conventions and a violation of human rights,” said the organization in a letter dated February 13, 2017. 

“We hereby express the ITUC’s serious concerns on behalf of our 181 million members in 162 countries about the renewed attempt by the Iranian judiciary and intelligence authorities to force Reza Shahabi back to prison,” continued the letter, published on the Tehran Bus Workers Union website on February 15.

Shahabi, 44, a member of the governing board of the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, was arrested in June 2010 for his peaceful activism and sentenced to six years in prison for “propaganda against the state” and “assembly and collusion against national security” by Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court.

After several hunger strikes in Rajaee Shahr Prison and Evin Prison, he was released on September 23, 2014 on medical furlough (temporary leave) after posting a 200 million toman ($62,000 USD) security deposit. 

“If Reza Shahabi does not return to prison, the prosecutor’s office will seize his deposit,” an informed source told the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran on February 10, 2017.

After Shahabi was summoned back to prison in October 2016, an informed source told the Campaign: “Mr. Shahabi (has already) spent four years in prison (June 2010-September 2014) and then he went on medical furlough for the rest of his term.”

“He was not contacted by prison officials and went about his life,” said the source. “Then, in October (2016) the prosecutor’s office contacted Shahabi’s wife and said he has three more months left to serve of his sentence.”

“However, counting his time on furlough, he has finished his prison time,” added the source.

According to the bus union’s website, Shahabi joined the organization in 2004 and was elected to its governing board in June 2005. A few months later he was fired for participating in a strike.

Until his arrest in 2010, he continued his peaceful activism while striving to get his job back.

Iran is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which mandates in Articles 21 and 22 freedom of association and guarantees the right to form trade unions, and to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which guarantees in Article 8 the right of workers to form or join trade unions and protects the right of workers to strike.

The Iranian Constitution also contains provisions for such rights: Article 26 guarantees the right to form “parties, societies, political or professional associations,” and Article 27 states that “Public gatherings and marches may be freely held, provided arms are not carried and that they are not detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam.”

Despite this, independent labor unions are banned in Iran, strikers are often fired and risk being detained, and labor leaders face long prison sentences on trumped up national security charges.

Robin (Reza) Shahini, the Iranian-American man sentenced to 18 years imprisonment in Iran on alleged security charges, has been released on bail while he awaits the results of his appeal.

He spent the first day of the Iranian new year, March 21, 2017, with his relatives, an informed source told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on April 3, adding that “Shahini hopes his heavy 18-year prison sentence will be overturned by the Appeals Court.”

Bail has been set at 200 million tomans (approximately $61,500 USD).

The 47-year-old went on hunger strike on February 15 to protest his unjust sentence and harsh prison conditions. 

Shahini was arrested on July 11, 2016 by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Intelligence Organization allegedly for his social media and blog postings on Iranian politics, and comments he had made about Iran to Western media, including during interviews with Voice of America, which is banned in the Islamic Republic.

Three months later, on October 15, Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court in the city of Gorgan, 190 miles northeast of Tehran, sentenced him to 18 years in prison for “insulting the sacred on Facebook;” “acting against national security;” “participating in protest gatherings in 2009;” and “collaborating with enemy states through Voice of America.”

The charges implied that Shahini was working for the United States government and had entered Iran on a mission. However, while Iranian officials regularly describe the US as an enemy, Tehran and Washington are not officially enemies in a state of war, making the allegation moot.

“I came to Iran to visit my family (on May 25, 2016) because I thought the government’s attitude towards citizens had changed (after Hassan Rouhani became president in 2013) and (the government) wanted to open a new chapter in its interactions with the people on the basis of human rights,” he wrote in a letter from prison, a copy of which was obtained on March 7 by CHRI. 

“My only sin was that as a responsible human being, I expressed my views about my homeland, which is the right of every citizen,” he said. “Don’t let me remain in this prison as an innocent man.”