The death of Sahar Khodayari, a woman who set herself on fire in Tehran because she thought she would have to serve jail time for trying to watch a soccer match, has put the spotlight on the costs of a discriminatory state policy that Iranian women have been protesting for decades.
Harsh verdicts issued against journalists and political activists show that the cost of advocacy for reform and civil liberties is still high in Iran despite pledges by moderate President Hassan Rouhani to change the status quo.
Four months after being arrested while covering a Labor Day protest, Journalist Marzieh Amiri has been sentenced to 10.5 years in prison and 148 lashes by Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Mohammad Moghiseh. If upheld upon appeal, Amiri, a reporter for the reformist Shargh newspaper in Tehran, would have to serve at least six years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is alarmed by a new wave of arrests and interrogations of women journalists since the start of August in Iran. The Islamic Republic is now the world’s biggest jailer of women journalists, with a total of ten currently held.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is due in Sweden on August 20 and 21 to meet with Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström and representatives of the Swedish Parliament and some international peacekeeping bodies to discuss Yemen and to safeguard the Iran Nuclear deal also known as The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
In these troubled and dangerous times, the Fifth Congress of Union for Secular Republic and Human Rights in Iran takes on unusual significance. I would like to join those who strongly endorse the call for Iranians to unite in undertaking non-violent measures to move towards establishing a secular republic in Iran, and the demand to oppose, strenuously, any external interference in Iran’s affairs. These objectives merit full and committed support. Noam Chomsky
An Iranian-born Canadian resident has returned to British Columbia after being imprisoned and allegedly tortured in his home country for 11 years.
Recent statements by Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, advisor to Iran’s head of the judiciary and a former minister of justice, defending the mass extrajudicial executions of 1988 provide shocking confirmation of the authorities’ wilful flouting of international human rights law both at the time and now and a stark reminder of the sense of impunity that senior officials linked to the killings enjoy, Amnesty International said today.
The Quds Force has been a constant thorn in the side of American interests in the Middle East, providing military aid and direct combat support to anti-US militants in such hotspots as Iraq and Afghanistan.
Iran’s authorities are using incommunicado detention, prolonged solitary confinement and threats against family members in order to extract forced video “confessions” from women’s rights defenders detained for campaigning against the country’s discriminatory forced veiling (hijab) laws, said Amnesty International.
