Responses to Human Rights Abuses in Iran

1. Mohammad-Ali Taheri, founder of “Halgheh Gnosticism”, has gone on a hunger strike, in order to protest against sabotaging of the cases by the investigators and interrogators. Mohammad-Ali Taheri is now in section 2A of Evin prison due to his religious beliefs, and so far, there is no information about his physical state. During the past few days, his family have been prevented from visiting him.
2. Following the transfer of 10 political prisoners from section 350 to solitary confinement, more than 25 individuals from section 350 have been refused to visit their families.
3. For many occasion in the past week, a group of residence of Shahran, zone 5 of the city of Tehran, have gathered in front of the City Council building, to protest against cutting down of trees, destruction of “Asia Park”, and ignoring warnings given by the City Council about construction.
4. Ms Shirin Ebadi has brought to the attention of judicial authorities and prisons organizations about the health and well-being of prisoners and warned them that, in the event of any incident to the prisoners, officials will be responsible and in some cases criminal prosecution could be applied.
5. According to published reports, residence of Bastak town, in the Hormozgan province, got into a conflict with the police. In this conflict, which was about the civil divisions, few motorbikes of the regime’s agents were set on fire, and also few residences were wounded. The protesters also closed Bastak to Bandar-Langeh road.
6. Furthermore, following the protests to support members of the International Organization to Preserve Human Rights in Iran, in continuation of detention of political, ideological and religions prisoners, particularly imprisonment of Gonabadi Dervishes and their lawyers in Evin prison of Tehran and Adel Abad prison of Shiraz.
7.Despite the pressures from authorities, on Wednesday 1 May, the syndicate members of the Vahed company gathered at their bus terminals, distributed gifts and sweets to all workers to celebrate Labour Day, and then made their way to Azadi Square, holding banners while singing the national Anthem and taking photos.
8.Hootan Kiyan, a lawyer of the Justice Department who has been detained since mid-September 2013 and is in the worst conditions, wrote a letter to his lawyer, Mr Naghi Mahmoodi, whom due to security reasons, is outside of Iran. In this letter, as well as describing tortures and sufferings that he has been going through, he requests his lawyer to expose the facts that unlawful executions by hanging and stoning in Tabriz prison are taking place and being covered and hidden by the intelligence officers.
9. The United States Commission on Religious Freedom, stated in its 2013 report that the rights to religious freedom in Iran is violated in the worst way, alongside other countries such as Iraq, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

Women’s Rights
1. During the past week, following the aim and ambition to create a gendered society, Farahani, the Chairman of Iran’s Post Bank, announced the opening of a female branch of the bank.
2. Furthermore, Mariam Alangi, the wife of Mohsen Dogmechi, a political prisoner who passed away in Rajaee Shahr Prison due to cancer, was summoned to Evin prison to serve three years of imprisonment. A trial was declared in the court against Mariam Alangari after she organized a funeral and conducted interviews with the media about the death of her husband.
3. Hossein Mahjoob, the General Secretary of the Workers said that “The Labour House is not the official centre to announce the employment and unemployment statistics, however, unemployment, especially amongst the females, has increased. And according to the Official Statistics Centre, women’s unemployment has doubled in recent years”.

Universities and academics
1. Hasan Tarlani, an imprisoned student in Kerman Prison who went on medical leave before 21 March, has returned to the prison following rejection to his request for extension of leave.
2. According to reports, academic director of the National Institute of Fashion and Dress signed a contract for design of student clothing “Parnia” by this foundation and The University of Azzahra, and pointed out some details of the plan.

Workers and vulnerable communities
1. Mahabad Livestock Cooperation is one of the industrial productive organizations which has been affected by recession in Kordestan and despite 17 to 26 years of experience of some workers, no payment has been made for the past 16 month.
2. Furthermore, in the previous week, the condition of Ghaleb Hoseini and Ali Azad, two detained labour activists, are unknown. It is worth mentioning that the interrogation of these two activists have ended, but the authorities of the Intelligence Bureau has refused the referral of their cases to courts and are also refusing any legally required answers to their families.
3. The Zarrin factory of Ghashm in Hormozgan County has been having difficulties in production. According to the manager of the company this is due to poor quality of the soil. As the result of this 80 workers have been dismissed since the beginning of Persian year (21 March).
4. Furthermore, Zamzam Fizzy Drink factory of Eastern Tehran, by announcing liquidation of the factory would stop functioning making 500 workers unemployed.
5. Over thousand employees of “Jabal Bar” factory in Bandar Abbas, have lost their jobs in this factory.
6. Reports indicate that, following the protest of the workers of the Copper Melting Plant’s for many days in Khatun Abad, which had started on 24 April 2013, special official agents closed the factory permanently.
7. Furthermore, 7 workers of the sugar factory in Sanandaj, with experiences ranging 4 to 14 years have been fired due to the high prices of raw materials.
8. On the morning of 30 April, 80 landscaping workers of district 2 municipality of Ahvaz, in protest to not receiving any payment for the past year, had gathered in front of construction building office.
9. “Seyed Mousa Mir Jahanmardi”, the manager of The Labour House in Bushehr indicated that: “the Range Kahr Factory in Bushehr with more than 100 workers is in the verge of bankruptcy due to numerous environmental warnings.
10. The head of the association of Islamic Councils of Quazvin province announced that “Salaries and wages of the employees of 60 manufacturing units have been postponed between 2 to 24 months.
11. On Saturday 27 April 2013, the employees of one of the most important companies in the city of Kermanshah have gone on hunger strike due to late payment of salaries and wages, mismanagement and the bad behaviour i.e. insulting and humiliating, of the managers toward staff.
12. Hasan saeedi one of the independent activists of the Bus Company of Tehran was fired from his job following a vote by the Committee of Cooperatives of the Office of Resolution of Dispute, Labour and Social Welfare in the North West of Tehran.
13. According to the received reports, on 29 and 30 April 2013, number of labour activists namely Mohamad Abadpour, Jamil Rast Khediv, Omar Shakeri and Esmail Niazi of citizens of Saghz were threatened and summoned to custody over the telephone.
14. On Wednesday 1 May 2013, at least 12 workers of the copper factory of Khatun Abad in the city of Babak were arrested by the Security Council of the Kerman Province.

The Sentences: Execution Flogging, amputation, imprisonment and custody
1. On Saturday 27 April 2013, Vahid Sheikh Begloo, a civil activist and a student who is excluded from studying was sent to the Central Prison of Tabriz to serve one year sentence.
2. On Friday 26 April 2013, 4 prisoners were accused of involvement in drug trafficking were hanged in the central prison of the city of Kerman.
3. On Sunday 28 April 2013, Ghasem B and Hadi KH, the two prisoners accused of drug trafficking were both hanged in Veramin.
4. In continuous to the summoning and arresting of Arab activists in different parts of Iran, on Saturday 20 April 2013, Adel Simri and Majid Bavi were arrested in the city of Ahvaz.
5. On Wednesday 24 April, Mr Abdolrahim Moafian, Head of the Cooperation Council of the Reformists of Fars and manager of Ehsan’s Cultural Centre was arrested by the security forces. There is, yet no information available his where-about.
6. The security forces raided Dagagah village of the city of Sarv Abad and arrested 4 Kurdish citizens named Roohollah Heydari, Avat Heydari, Kavan Heydari and Ahmad Habibi.
7. Behzad Arabgol, a construction worker, veteran of Iran and Iraq war and the chief of zone 4 of Mir Hassan Moosavi regiment, on Tuesday 30 April was summoned to Evin Prison and hence was arrested.
8. On Sunday 28 April, Hamid Khoshnam who was charged with murder, was executed in the central prison of Zahedan,.
9. Omid Sajadi from Bandar Abbas was executed on 22 March. He was charged with carrying and keeping illegal drugs. The night before the execution he, unsuccessfully attempted suicide by trying to cut his own neck-artery and hence caused severe injury. Nevertheless, the execution was still carried out in the central prison of Bandar Abbas with the injured neck.
10. On Wednesday 24 March, a group in Koolbaran Sardasht region, ambushed military forces of Islamic Republic of Iran, and consequently, Naser ALikhani, one villager from Islam Abad was severely injured.
11. Asel Samiri and Majid Bavi, two civil activists were arrested in Ahvaz city on 29 April.
12. Two people who were charged with raping were executed on Sunday 10 April in Mashhad City prison.
13. Mostafa Banisharif, an environmental and social-political activist from Chahar Mahal Bakhtiyari city, was arrested on Tuesday 30 April.
14. On Tuesday 30 April, security officers, arrested 6 Azarbaijan cultural activists in the city of Tabriz.

The rights of ethnic and religious diversity in Iran
1. The son of Riaz Sobhani, a Baha’i citizen said “considering the age of his father, he is in poor mental and physical condition”. Rueaz Sibhani is in prison since June 2011 being accused of financial assistance to Baha’i’s Online University.
2. On Tuesday 30 April 2013 in Kavar city three Gonabadi Dervishes called, Mohammad-Ali Sadeghi, Mohammad Ali Dehghan and Mohsen Esmaili have been arrested without presence of any official judicial ruling. According to their families these Dervishes were detained by resorting to force, fear and violence. Families of detained Dervishes are concerned about the status of their health.
3. Elham Rozbehi, a Baha’i citizen living in the city of Esfehan who was sentenced to two years prison, last week was transferred to a court in Semnan with her infant baby.
4. 21 representatives of the Government of Iran signed a petition showing concern about the deviant sects and false mysticisms in Iran, emphasizing on confronting them as harshly as possible and demanding banning their activities and sentencing their members to imprisonment and flogging.

Press and Cyberspace
1. Repors indicates that the reformist newspaper, Asre-Zohoor has been banned by the Prosecutor of the specialist Clergy-Court of Kerman on Saturday 27 April 2013. Printed and written materials associated with a picture of Mohammad Khatami, Iran’s former president candidacy in a special New Year issue of the magazine was the cause of the suspension of this local reformist press.
2. Following summoning of Yaghob Khezri, journalist, blogger, cultural activist and student in response to a court sentence, Mr. Khezri was sent to Mahabad prison.
3. Furthermore, Shadyar Omrani, writer, freelance journalist and a translator who cooperates with Persian language media abroad by pseudonym of “Shoresh Raha” has been summoned to explain herself on some issues. Ms. Omrani has links and collaboration with Iranian Christian in production of news, reports and articles.
4. Non-state publisher “Kaveer”, for the third consecutive year running, was barred from participating in this year’s International Book Fair by the Ministry of Culture.
5. Mohammad Jafar Mohammad-Zadeh, Deputy Minister of Culture, on Friday 26 April 2013 reported the increase of surveillances and control of Ministry of culture over the media in the next two months.

Other human rights violations
1. The authorities of the Court of Justice in Tehran have disagreed with the leave of Mehdi Tajik, a former student activist. Mehdi Tajik, who has been sentenced to 27 months of imprisonment with punishment, went to Evin Prison on February 2013 to serve his sentence. He has now been kept in section 350 of Evin Prison.
2. Furthermore, Hussein Ali Amiri, a member of the Guardian Council announced on Saturday April 27 that a new Islamic Penal Code has been ratified.
3. Reports received from Evin Prison indicate that the 10 political prisoners namely Saeed Madani, Abdullah Momeni, Abolfazl Abedini-Nasr, Siamak Ghaderi, Amir Khusrau-Dalir Thani, Mohammad Hassan Yousif-Poor Saifi, Saeed Abedini, Kamran Ayyazi, Mohammed Ibrahimi and Poorya Ibrahimi on Sunday 28 April have been sent from Section 350 to solitary confinements.
4. Due to neglect of the authorities of Evin prison and Court of Justice in Tehran, visual condition of Jacob Malaki one of the prisoners in section 350 of Evin Prison, has been endangered.
5. According to the reports received Vice President of the House Judiciary Committee, Hamid Reza Tabatabai has told: “Stoning was not removed from the new Penal Code but its implementation has been changed”.
6. Mehdi Motamedi Mehr, a member of freedom movement in Iran is held illegally in section 209 since last March.
7. According to the reports received, Khosro Kadivar, a human rights activist and head of the Mokrian News Agency, has been on hunger strike since first of April.
8. Hossein Rahimi the head of Traffic Police of the Greater Tehran has announced that: “those with improper Hejab, molesters of chastity and noise pollution makers in cars will face a three week ban on driving”.
9. Iranian police announced a new program to deal with women’s clothing (Hejab) and said: “those vehicles that carry mannequins will be banned”.
10. Ali Akbar Ismael- Poor, a member of children’s rights protection in Iran has warned that the situation of children in Iran has become intricate.