Supplementary memorandum from Human Rights
Watch
1. Human Rights Watch has the honour to
submit this memorandum relating to the human rights situation
in the Islamic Republic for the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs
Committee. As members of the Committee are aware, the human rights
situation in Iran has for many years been of great concern to
Human Rights Watch.
2. Human Rights Watch welcomes the fact
that the European Union included human rights among the four areas
of special importance in the Political Dialogue linked to the
Trade and Cooperation Agreement under negotiation with Iran.
3. As the Committee is aware, despite landslide
electoral victories in every major election for 1997, Iranian
reformers are unable to dislodge repressive policies favoured
by the clerical leadership, including far-reaching restrictions
on freedom of expression, association, and political participation.
4. Bearing in mind where the power in the
Iranian system currently resides, Human Rights Watch strongly
advises the Committee to seek an opportunity to meet with the
Supreme Leader, Ayatoll Ali Khamene'i, the Head of the Judiciary,
Ayatollah Hashem Shahroudi, and the twelve members of the Council
of Guardians. These institutions have presented major obstacles
to improvements in the human rights field in the many areas that
have been proposed by the President and the parliament.
5. We would like to bring to the Committee's
attention some of our concerns regarding the current human rights
situation in Iran.
6. During 2002, executions after unfair
trials have increased, students arbitrarily detained, and religious
minorities, government critics, and independent thinkers targeted
for persecution. Elements within the government continue to tolerate
or encourage the activities of shadowy underground paramilitary
forces, linked to hardline conservative clerical leaders unwilling
to relinquish their continuing grip on power. The situation of
religious and ethnic minorities remains a cause for serious concern.
Iran's constitution provides only qualified commitments to the
principle of non-discrimination on the basis of religion or ethnic
identity. In practice, discrimination is widespread and institutionalised,
and in the case of Baha'is and evangelical Christians, amounts
to outright persecution. From the range of concerns described
above, we urge that the Committee use its good offices to raise
the following cases with responsible Iranian officials in order
to safeguard the rights and well being of the individuals concerned.
These individuals are in imminent danger of suffering severe violation
of their basic rights justifying the urgent attention of the international
community.
— Urge the government to release from
prison and halt the harassment of lawyers known for their defence
of human rights. Mohammad Dadkhah and Abdolfath Soltani, part
of the defence team of the Iranian Freedom Movement and the National
Religious Alliance groups, have been sentenced in January to five
and four months imprisonment, respectively. They have been charged
with slander for claiming that their clients were tortured while
in detention. Nasser Zarafshan, who probed the involvement of
Ministry of Intelligence officials in the 1998 assassinations
of prominent dissident writers and intellectuals, has been sentenced
in September 2002 to five years in prison and fifty lashes on
charges of revealing information about the case. You should seek
their unconditional release.
— Urge the government to make public
the whereabouts of two writers, Alireza Jabari and Simak Taheri,
arrested in December 2002. The charges against them should also
be made public and they should be allowed immediate access to
legal counsel, their families and a doctor.
— Urge the government to release from
prison journalists, writers, and activists convicted in politicized
and unfair trials, including Emadedin Baghi, Akbar Ganji, Hassan
Youssefi Eshkevari, Hashem Aghajari, Behrouz Geranpayeh, Abbas
Abdi, and Hossein Ali Ghazian. They have been imprisoned for expression
of their non-violent political opinions.
— Urge the government to lift all the
charges and end the prosecutions of more than thirty members of
Iran Freedom Movement (IFM) and fifteen National Religious Alliance
(NRA). They were held incommunicado for months in a secret Tehran
detention centre known as Prison 59, faced spurious charges of
seeking to overthrow the government and underwent unfair trials
before the Revolutionary Court. Detention conditions for several
elderly prisoners have been a cause of particular concern.
— Urge the government to rescind the
ban on the Iran Freedom Movement, a 50-year-old political party
and enable other political parties to function.
— Urge the government to release Abmad
Batebi, Mehradad Lohrassbi, Abbaas Deldar Behrouz Javid Therani,
Akbar Mohammadi, Manouchehr Mohammdi, Ali Afshari, Mehdi Sanjar
Baf, and Parviz Moradi, all students. They have been arrested
and sentenced to long terms prison. Some of them have been in
prison since 1999.
— Urge the government to initiate a
program of action to identify and address discrimination against
religious and ethnic minority groups. For instance Iranian Baha'
is, the largest religious minority, face persecution, including
being denied access to higher education, permission to worship
or to carry out other communal affairs publicly. Call for the
unconditional release from prison of four Baha' is, Behnam Missaghi,
Keivan Kihalaj-Abadi, Mossa Talebi and Zabollah Maharmi detained
since 1989 solely on the grounds of their religious beliefs, and
for an end to the persecution of Baha'is in Iran.
— Urge the government to facilitate
visits by the UN Special Rapporteurs on Violence Against Women,
Freedom of Expression, Torture, and Freedom of Religion, as well
as the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. In each case,
the government should make public and time-specific commitments
to full implementation of their recommendations.
— Urge the government to ratify the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW), Convention against Torture (CAT) and the International
Criminal Court (ICC )Treaty, and announce an official review of
reservations entered upon ratification of other major human rights
instruments.
— Urge the government to abolish the
death penalty for juvenile offenders (persons convicted for offences
committed under the age of 18) as a first step towards total abolition
of the death penalty.
— Urge the government to pass an amendment
to the press law, that has been tabled for discussion in the parliament,
which is designed to safeguard freedom of the press and permit
publications closed by unlawful judicial procedures to reopen.
— Urge the government to implement
appropriate measures to ensure that refugees are not returned
to their home countries without access to proper determination
procedures and their full rights under the Refugee Convention.
Human Rights Watch encourages the Foreign Affairs
Committee to engage more closely with Iran on human rights issues.
The attached section on Iran from our recently
published World Report 2003, Events of 2002 provides more specific
details about our concerns summarized above.[43]
Human Rights Watch
February 2003
43 Human Rights Watch World Report 2003: Iran. Back
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