By going on a hunger strike when the COVID-19 outbreak began, prominent Iranian human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh “tried to pressure the prison’s authorities to release prisoners, or at least grant them temporary release on furlough,” says her husband, Reza Khandan.
Article18 has submitted a new report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, highlighting the “multiple layers” of religious-freedom violations faced by Christians and other religious minorities in Iran.
(Beirut) – Iranian authorities have detained two students from Sharif University in Tehran in solitary confinement for nearly two months, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should release the two students immediately – unless they can promptly charge them with a recognizable crime – and ensure all their due process rights.
Elaheh Samizadeh, a Baha’i citizen of Shiraz, has been sentenced to one extra year of imprisonment and two years suspension from holding all governmental and public jobs by Branch 105 of Shiraz Criminal Court.
Amnesty International has released details of the deaths of 304 men, women and children killed by Iran’s security forces during last November’s ruthless crackdown, six months after the protests.
In a reprehensible move by the Iranian government, incidents of persecution against the Baha’is have increased despite already difficult circumstances endured by the entire population during a global health crisis.
Four Iranian converts to Christianity have been sent to Lakan Prison in the northern city of Rasht, having been unable to afford the bail set for them.
Iranian university student Ali Younesi has been arbitrarily detained since 10 April 2020. His family believes he is being held in Tehran’s Evin prison, where he has been denied access to a lawyer and permitted only two brief telephone calls to his family. The Iranian authorities have not provided clear reasons for his arrest. He is a prisoner of conscience targeted solely for his family ties and is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.
We at the Center for Human Rights in Iran mourn the death of our former colleague Ali Ajami, and express our deepest condolences to his family and friends.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Turkish authorities and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to do everything possible to guarantee the safety of Iranian journalists who have fled to Turkey and to speed up their resettlement in third countries because their situation has worsened as a result of the coronavirus epidemic.
