The following is a monthly report summarizing the human rights status in Iran in November / December 2014 (Solar calendar month of Azar). This report has been prepared by the Office of Statistics and Publications of the Human Rights Activists Association of Iran. Considering the ongoing suppression and ban on independent human rights activist organizations in Iran, this report may not be considered a comprehensive and complete reflection of the current situation of human rights in Iran. It should be noted that the department of Statistics also publishes an annual report about the human rights conditions in Iran in the form of an analytical and statistical report.
An overview of the human rights situation in Iran in November / December
During months of November / December 2014, systematic Human rights violations in Iran continued with a quick pace just like before. In the first couple of days of this month 12 people were executed in the cities of Qazvin, Karaj, Mashhad, Joqtay, Kashan and Qom to be the omen sign of this month for the human rights society of Iran. As for the boldest executions of this month, we should mention the executions of 18 prisoners on Tuesday 2 December 2014, because of drug related crimes, 7 Prisoners at Vakil Abad Prison of Mashhad and 1 female at Qazvin Central Prison. Most of these executions performed in secret and without the state media cover.
one of the most noted and controversial reports on the death penalty domain was the approval of death sentence for Sohail Arabi, Facebook activist at Supreme Court for alleged insults the Prophet and Imams. Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ezhei, the spokesman of the Judiciary, in response to a reporter’s question about the possibility of Amnesty for Sohail Arabi, stated that: “Amnesty is not yet considered for him and his sentence has been issued as for corruption on earth.”
On Friday, 14 December, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the Secretary of Iran’s Human Rights Council of Judiciary, declared that “we are trying to change the drug-related executions.” In this context, he also added: “It is sad that we are seeing a large number of executions for drug-related offenses, based on existing law.” However, it was not long before that Alireza Jazini Deputy Secretary General of the Iran Drug Control Headquarters, announced its disapproval for the suspension of “Executions” of Drug Smugglers and added: “it (death) is approved by the Expediency Council and any reform should be done by the same authority, not by the authority of Parliament. Iran Drug Control Headquarter is against the removal of Death Penalty. During this month, a death-row prisoner in Kazeroon was pardoned by the victim’s family, 14 seconds after execution performed and survived.
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in which demanded that the Islamic Republic of Iran stops the human rights violations, including “torture, gender discrimination and targeting activists and journalists”. In the resolution of the UN General Assembly resolution on human rights violations Iran, Syria and Myanmar have been condemned. Iran’s envoy called this resolution as “political, discriminatory and biased”.
This month, also included the continues violation of rights for national and religious minorities in Iran such as the possibility of kidney failure and lack of medical attention to Seyed Qasim Abasteh, Sunni prisoner at hall 10 of Karaj Rajaee Shahr Prison; residents of Kut Abdolah gathering in front of the Governor Office to protest against the ignorance of the rights of the inhabitants of the area by the public authorities.
In the domain of Bahai citizens’ rights violation who were subject to numerous abuse and harm just like before, there were reports of raid and search on several Bahai houses and businesses in Rasht ; prosecution and summoning of 8 Bahai citizens in Mashhad and start of imprisonment of 3 Bahai citizens in Uromiyeh.
Another report was that on Thursday 4 December 2014, unknown people who introduced themselves as Basijis , forced Alka Misaghi ( a Bahai citizen of Tabriz ) to get in a vehicle in one of Tabriz streets. She was then interrogated while the vehicle travelled around the city and been asked many questions.
One of the boldest reports about the Bahai rights violation was the comments made by Mohammad Mousavi Bojnordi – member of Association of Combatant Clerics and head of Encyclopaedia Islamica- in his interview with Fars News Agency. In his interview he referred to the 8 Article order of Ayatollah Khomeini and stated that Bahai followers does not have any civil rights and they also should not be able to benefit from free education. Comments made by Rafsanjan Friday prayer Imam with regards to expelling all Bahai citizens from this city was another clear and obvious threat made against Bahai citizens within the last month.
The ongoing pressure and harassment of dissidents in Iran continued with summoning and interrogation of Ali Rosmati, one of Daravish residing in Hendijan in Khozestan by the Bureau of Intelligence of Hendijan in Khozestan state.
On 11 December, Saeed Hosseini, a National and Civil Activist was arrested at his work place by Security- Police forces. The reason for his arrest was his refusal to attend the court for his previous case for which he was arrested in 2013 on the day of “Mother Tongue” in the district of Parsabad Moghan.
Among the events leading to the violation of rights for Christians, especially newly converted Christians; the first report is the arrest of two Christian converts by the names of Shahram Dinaroie and Mohammad Reza Vahedi in Foolad Shahr, Isfahan. They are members of Ava music band and they were arrested while playing gospel songs at a street concert at Khalij Fars Park in Foolad Shahr by security forces and the second report is that Ibrahim Firoozi , the newly converted Christian at Rajaee Shahr Prison has been sentenced to 1 year imprisonment and 2 years exile to the County of Sarbaz.
There were several reports in the domain of Children’s Rights and the boldest of them will follow. Firstly, the news about the transfer of a pupil to the operation room after he was beaten by his teacher. Abdulhamid Gorgij son of Norallah, is a 9-year-old, 3rd grade student at Shahid Mir Hosseini in Mirjaveh County. He was transferred to hospital and then operation room after his hand was infected because of the rupture of the vessel after his teacher whipped him. Unfortunately, this was not the only news in this domain and in coming days December there were other reports of Childs’ Rights violations published in media: beating of a 15-year-old high school student by his teacher in Tehran sent the student to hospital. Based on witness accounts, this student is suffering from cardiovascular disease and was punished only because he asked to borrow a rubber from his classmate. Furthermore, students of a class in Gonaveh were physically punished when they failed to prepare their assignments by their headmaster using a Polika pipe which caused infection in one student’s hand. Also, 4 Afghan pupils were humiliated and punished by their teacher at a school in Pakdasht County in Tehran.
Director of Emergency services of Social Welfare Organization said 80 percent of child abuses are performed by the parents. The issue of child abuse is caused by several factors in which individuals – particular parents – physically, mentally and sexually harass children.
Lack of educational facilities and space in one of the villages of Ahwaz and Afghan refugees gathering in Tehran in protest to foreign nationals’ right to free education in Iran were among the other violations of children’s rights in the country.
On Friday 21 November, the United Nations adopted a resolution which obliged all member countries to ban Child Marriages and adopt and enforce the necessary laws to prevent and to punish criminals in this regards.
In the domain of women’s basic rights, this month contained several violation reports and the most important of them were arrest and uncertainty about Yalda Pajohesh women rights activists, the news of a man throwing Acid on his wife and prevention of females entering the University of Noshirvani in Babol.
The report on the situation to eradicate sexism discrimination in the world, introduced the 10 worst countries of the world bad for women. In this list, Iran’s name came at sixth and Yemen, Pakistan, Chad, Syria and Mali were first to fifth positions respectively. The report released by the World Economic Forum, measures factors such as the equal opportunity to work , the possibility of having health insurance, education and political presence among men and women in the world.
Counsellor of the women affair at Ministry of Education of Kermanshah state announced: 1242 female pupils were identified as “left education” in the state and many of them have re-entered education by the support of the State Ministry of Equation.
Events and news workers in December were numerous just as the last few months which are highlighted briefly in the following. These include: 3-month postponement of salary of 150 workers “Foolad Dorod” steel factory; strike of the contract workers of Fajr Petrochemical; assembly of workers and trade union representatives in the Parliament; non-payment for 1400 “Alborz Sharghi” Mine workers and 150 Marivan Municipality workers were laid off without pay and benefits for two months.
In addition to the above, job security threat for 330 contract workers of Zamzam Mashhad and dismissal of 300 workers of “Ceramic Rock “of shahreza are among the other workers reports.
Unfortunately during this month, there were reports on the events that led to the death and injury of workers while working which will follow.
Yesterday, a worker Extraction section of Razi Petrochemical called “Hamid Mahdavi” fell from the height and died instantly. More than 150 workers at Koshke-Bafgh Mine, including the factory floor, the pit and the open field stopped working after 3 months of the postponement of their wages.
Director of Forensic Pathology said the death toll caused by the events of the past seven months of this year compared to the same period last year was 69 which show 1.27 percent growth.
Based on the statistics of Forensic Pathology in 1392( solar calendar), 1944 individuals lost their lives in work related accidents illustrating 11% increase compared to the last year number of 1796 death. State of Tehran with 488, Khorasan with 154 and Isfahan with 132 deaths has the highest number of work related death respectively. In the first two months of 1393, 285 individuals lost their lives due to work related accidents which shows a 7.5 percent increase with the same duration of last year.
In the field of trade union rights this month was full of events. On Thursday evening, 13 November, Mokhtar Asadi, a member of the Association of Teachers of Kurdistan was summoned to serve one year imprisonment sentence.
Mohammad Sharif Moghaddam, Supreme Council Nursing Member and Secretary General at Home of Nursing, was charged for the protest rally held by in front of the Parliament in November this year and according to the Disciplinary Appeals Board Investigation into violations of Medical Science University, and exiled to work from Tehran to Islam Shahr.
On Monday, 15 December, a group of nurses which were estimated about 700 people from public and private hospitals gathered in front of Presidential palace to protest against the government’s delays in setting regulation on nursing services and also the income disparity between the nurses and doctors.
In the domain of Cultural issues, reports such as: endangered historical places in Isfahan; Historic marketplace in Uromiyeh on the verge of demolition and the arrest of underground rapper and singer by the name ” Hussein Eblis ” in a joint operation by public safety Police and morality police in Khorasan were published.
In the Field of health and environmental several reports were published during this month and most of them were about air pollution and the environment. In this regard, the Minister of Health and Medical Education, in a memo titled “let us find a solution to violence in our society,” he noted, society moves towards violence and according to him, the increase in violence in Iran is a “cultural and psychological problem”.
During this month, Zayandeh Rood River dried out after only a month of flowing. Also, the invasion of Gas pipes to the controlled zone of Dena and cutting many trees have started after 5 years of negligence of Department of Environment while the Oil and Gas Ministry was fined 1 million Dollars in the last period because of this action.
Particular attention to the special cases of human rights Violation
This section of report pays specific attention to more sensitive cases of human rights violations which were more of interests for public opinion during the month of Aban. Obviously, this specific attention does not mean that these kinds of reports reflect the severity and dimension of the human rights violations.
To select the first item in this category, the death penalty for Soheil Arabi should be noted; then attacked on at least six women with a knife in Jahrom and finally the ban on the Yalda Night tour received a lot of attention and sensitivity from public opinion.
Also incidents such as the arrest of Ali Tabarzadi Animal Rights Activist; Miners’ strike at Koshk Bafgh ; Nitrates found in the undergrounds water sources in of Tehran; the report on the status of the girl who repeatedly raped resulting to her pregnancy at age 15; physical punishment of children in schools; message of Mehdi Karroubi to Ali Motahari in order to hold a public hearing; enforcement of 4 smart filtering programs (occupation, age and user requirements is checked); plainclothes security forces and members of Basij preventing Faezah Hashemi speech; arrest of Majid Moghadam a Civil Activists; arrest of Nasrin Sotoudeh and Reza Khandan on the International Human Rights Day and the arrests of the followers of Erfane Halghe (Interuniversalism Mysticism) who gathered in front of Evin Prison and the Bar Association of Iran were among the other cases that received much attention by the public opinion.
Human rights reports in the shadow of “Little Attention”
In contrast to the previous section of the report, many of the human rights reports faced “little attention” or even no attention by the media including social media activists which are forming a part of public opinion. It is important to note that these neglects are often unintentional but there are also intentional discriminations which could facilitate even further violations of human rights in Iran.
Arrest of Mahtab Afshari an instructor of Erfane Halghe ( Interuniversalism Mysticism) ; arrest of Ali Ghazali Chief Editor of the website “Baztab Emroz ” and “Ayandeh Online” by the Ministry of Intelligence; Trial of 3 poets and filmmakers at Islamic Revolutionary Court on charges of working with a singer; Arrest Warrant issuance for the Chief Editor of Entekhab; Arrest of a political activist in the city of Marivan: Summoning of Peyman Aref to Evin Court; Closure of Roshanfekran Press Office and women’s studies by the municipalities were some of the reports that received little attention.
The office of Statistics and Publication of Human Rights Activists in Iran