Human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran
[23] The UNCHR did not pass such a resolution in 2002, when the government of Iran extended an invitation to the UN "Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression" to visit the country and investigate complaints.
"[42] And journalist Hooman Majd explains the Islamic Republic's relative tolerance by claiming that if Iranian intelligence services "were to arrest anyone who speaks ill of the government in private, they simply couldn't build cells fast enough to hold their prisoners.
[78] On 3 December 2020, Amnesty International released a detailed analysis report calling the Iranian authority to drop the plans to amputate the fingers of six men convicted of robbery post the unfair trials and confession based on torture.
Under Sharia policy of qisas (retribution), at least one case of punishment by blinding has occurred in Iran, when a man had his eye gouged out following his conviction for throwing acid in a woman's face.
[97] In March 2019, a prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who represented opposition activists and women prosecuted for taking off their mandatory headscarf, was sentenced to 38 years in jail and 148 lashes.
Legislation is based on the "Qur’an and the Sunnah", the president and Supreme Leader must be from the "official religion of the country" i.e. Twelver Ja’afari Shiism[104] Non-Muslims are not allowed to serve in representative bodies—aside from the five reserved parliamentary seats—and "cannot hold senior government or military positions, and face restrictions in employment, education, and property ownership.
[113] Also subject to Islamic "government suspicion and hostility" according to Human Rights Watch, is the small Protestant Christian minority in Iran, at least in part because of their "readiness to accept and even seek out Muslim converts" as well as their Western origins.
A 2005 Human Rights Watch document criticizes "Parallel Institutions" (nahad-e movazi) in the Islamic Republic, "the quasi-official organs of repression that have become increasingly open in crushing student protests, detaining activists, writers, and journalists in secret prisons, and threatening pro-democracy speakers and audiences at public events."
[133] Extra-legal acts may work in tandem with official actions, such as in the case of the newsweekly Tamadone Hormozgan in Bandar Abbas, where authorities arrested seven journalists in 2007 for "insulting Ayatollah Khomeini," while government organisations and Quranic schools organized vigilantes to "ransacked and set fire" to the paper's offices.
[137] Torture techniques used in the Islamic Republic include: whipping, sometimes of the back but most often of the feet with the body tied on an iron bed; the qapani; deprivation of sleep; suspension from ceiling and high walls; twisting of forearms until they broke; crushing of hands and fingers between metal presses; insertion of sharp instruments under the fingernails; cigarette burns; submersion under water; standing in one place for hours on end; mock executions; and physical threats against family members.
[140] Recorded and edited on videotape, the standard statements by prisoners included not only confessions to subversion and treason, but praise of the Islamic Revolution and denunciation or recantation of their former beliefs, former organization, former co-members, i.e. their life.
Abrahamian argues statutes forbidding 'lying to the authorities' and ability of clerics to be both interrogators and judges, applying an "indefinite series of 74 lashings until they obtain 'honest answers'" without the delay of a trial, make this a legal form of torture.
[149] On 20 December 2018 Human rights Watch urged the regime in Iran to investigate and find an explanation for the death of Vahid Sayadi Nasiri who had been jailed for insulting the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
According to Iranterror.com, "it was widely assumed that [Emami] was murdered in order to prevent the leak of sensitive information about Ministry of Intelligence and Security operations, which would have compromised the entire leadership of the Islamic Republic.
Attorney Mohammad Najafi faced "national-security charges—and potentially years in prison"—for publicly accusing the IRI government of "covered up the true cause of the jailhouse death of his client, a young protester involved in the recent economic demonstrations, according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran.
Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was awarded the 2012 Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament and has been calledd "one of the most important human rights lawyers in the Middle East",[187] was sentenced to eleven years in 2009, later reduced to six.
[1] In mid-November 2018 United Nations' General Assembly's Human Rights Committee approved a resolution against Iranian government's continuous discrimination against women and limitation of freedom of thought.
[6] In response to complaints President Ahmadinejad issued a letter that called for "Islamic mercy" for detainees, and supreme leader Ali Khamenei intervened to close the "especially notorious" Kahrizak detention center.
[24] On 16 September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian, Mahsa Amini,[210] died in a hospital in Tehran, following her arrest by the Guidance Patrol, (the religious morality police), for not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards.
[145] "Discriminatory provisions" against women in criminal and civil laws in Iran were declared "in urgent need of reform," and gender-based violence "widespread" by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a report released 20 Oct 2008.
[23] Iranian Baháʼís have also regularly had their homes ransacked or been banned from attending university or holding government jobs, and several hundred have received prison sentences for their religious beliefs, most recently for participating in study circles.
[248] According to Jewish journalist Roger Cohen: Perhaps I have a bias toward facts over words, but I say the reality of Iranian civility toward Jews tells us more about Iran – its sophistication and culture – than all the inflammatory rhetoric.
[249]Cohen's depiction of Jewish life in Iran sparked criticism from columnists and activists such as Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic Monthly[250] and Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
[306] In November 2007 freelance journalist Adnan Hassanpour received a death sentence for "undermining national security," "spying," "separatist propaganda" and being a mohareb (fighter against God).
[312] In 2012 the journalist Marzieh Rasouli, who writes about culture and the arts for several of Iran's reformist and independent publications including Etemaad, Roozega, and Shargh, where she edited the music pages, was arrested and accused of collaborating with the BBC.
[326] The Internet has grown faster in Iran than any other Middle Eastern country (aside from Israel)[327] since 2000 but the government has censored dozens of websites it considers "non-Islamic" and harassed and imprisoned online journalists.
[338] In the past few years several people have died in custody in the Islamic Republic, raising fears that "prisoners in the country are being denied medical treatment, possibly as an extra punishment."
[348] Due to these actions, the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights stated on 20 March 2006 that she "also expresses concern that the information gained as a result of such monitoring will be used as a basis for the increased persecution of, and discrimination against, members of the Baháʼí faith, in violation of international standards.
Viscount Brentford, House of Lords, in response to the alleged murder of Bishop Haik Hovsepian-Mehr, 3 March 1994 [357]According to Amnesty International's 2007 report, "Ethnic and religious minorities" in the Islamic Republic "remained subject to discriminatory laws and practices which continued to be a source of social and political unrest".
[368] As a result, an Iranian woman named Sahar Khodayari (also known as the "Blue Girl") self-immolated and died on 11 September 2019 protesting the unjustified court ruling that sentenced her to six months in jail just for trying to watch her favorite team's match in Azadi Stadium of Tehran.
