Emadeddin Baghi, leading human rights activist in Iran

On Monday November 9, the award ceremony for this year’s winner of the Martin Ennals Award for human rights defenders will take place in Geneva. The recipient of the award will probably not be there though. Emadeddin Baghi, one of Iran’s leading intellectuals and human rights activists, will be the first laureate in the award’s eighteen-year history to be denied the opportunity to receive his prize in person since the Iranian authorities are not allowing him to leave the country to accept it.

Iran’s citizens have won more than their fair share of prestigious international human rights awards. Fearless attorney and human rights defender Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2003, the first (and only) Muslim woman to receive that honor. Parvin Ardalan, a prominent journalist and women’s rights activist, was awarded the Olof Palme Prize for 2007 for her activism on behalf of women’s rights in Iran. And this year, Emadeddin Baghi won the Martin Ennals Award for his work to defend the rights of prisoners and to end the imposition of the death penalty. However, instead of expressing pride in the accomplishments of their citizens, the Iranian authorities have not only done their best to try to silence their voices, but won’t even let them collect their awards.

Parvin Ardalan had already boarded a plane at the airport in Tehran in March 2008 to fly to Stockholm to accept her Olof Palme Award when she was removed from the flight by Iranian authorities. Her passport was then confiscated. Since that time, she has been battling charges against her stemming from her activities with the One Million Signatures Campaign, calling for better rights for women. She was finally able to leave Iran to go to Sweden in October 2009.

Although Shirin Ebadi was allowed to accept her Nobel Prize in person, she has been subjected to persistent and withering threats, intimidation, and persecution. In December 2008, dozens of government agents carried out a raid on the Center for Human Rights Defenders, run by Ms Ebadi to provide legal assistance to victims of human rights violations, hours before they were planning on holding an event there to commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Center staff members and guests were harassed and intimidated and the center was forcibly closed; documents and computers containing protected attorney-client information were later removed.

The Martin Ennals Award, named for the first secretary-general of Amnesty International, is a collaboration of ten of the world’s leading human rights organizations, including AI. It is “granted annually to someone who has demonstrated an exceptional record of combating human rights violations by courageous and innovative means.”  The Chairman of the Jury of the MEA, Hans Thoolen, described Emadeddin Baghi as “an exceptionally brave man defending human rights despite imprisonment and poor health.”

Emadeddin Baghi is the founder of the Association for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights, which had been compiling information on torture and other abuses of detainees. He has focused attention on Iran’s appalling record of executing juvenile offenders, as well as the execution, following grossly flawed legal proceedings, of a number of Iranian Arabs accused of politically motivated crimes. In the late 1990s he exposed the mysterious serial murders of Iranian intellectuals. His books Right to Life and Right to Life II argue for the abolition of the death penalty using Islamic texts and jurisprudence. They have been banned by Iranian authorities–who had previously shut down his newspaper Joumhouriat in 2003– and Mr. Baghi has served years in prison on charges of “endangering national security” and “printing lies.”  In December 2007, during his most recent imprisonment, he suffered three seizures and remained in poor health without adequate medical care until his release in October 2008.  Officials closed down the office of the Association for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights in September 2009.

Amnesty International has deplored the Iranian authorities denying Emadeddin Baghi the opportunity to personally accept an award he so richly deserves.

Why is the Iranian government so afraid of Kian Tajbakhsh? To all appearances, the 47-year-old Iranian-American is a mild-mannered social scientist who taught urban policy at the New School University in New York. He was living quietly in Tehran with his Iranian wife and baby daughter and working on a book when he was arrested on July 9.

So why was he just convicted by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran and sentenced to up to 15 years in prison? Judging from the list of charges piled up against him and the long prison term imposed, one would think he was one dangerous fellow, single-mindedly bent on overturning the Iranian government, working with foreign enemies to undermine Iranian society, and sowing mass chaos. (more…)

In Iran, in January of this year, a man being stoned to death for adultery managed to survive his ordeal by digging his way out of the pit in which he had been buried.  According to an Amnesty International report, citing Iran’s penal code, “if the condemned person manages to escape from the pit, they will not be stoned again if they had been sentenced after confession.” The man who escaped in January was not stoned again that day, though it is believed he was taken back into custody.   

Today, Ohio faces a similar dilemma.  Romell Broom survived the Buckeye state’s attempts to execute him by lethal injection, due to the failure of his executioners to find a useful vein in which to inject the poison.    Does this mean Mr. Broom will no longer face the needle, or will Ohio subject him to a second execution?  It appears that the latter is the case (Ohio Governor Ted Strickland merely granted Mr. Broom a week-long reprieve), although there may be arguments in court that being executed twice would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. 

Ohio has had these problems before: the execution of Christopher Newton (who “volunteered” to be executed by giving up his appeals) took 90 minutes, and the lethal injection of Joseph Clark took 40.  In both cases, the delay was the result of the inability of the execution team to find suitable veins.

Given that this horrible problem keeps re-occurring, it would be wise for Ohio Governor Ted Strickland to at least declare a moratorium and halt executions in his state.

Abdolfattah Soltani, an Iranian human rights defender, was one of hundreds of people who were rounded up and imprisoned in the crackdown that followed Iran’s presidential elections.  Plain clothes Iranian security officials arrested the leading human rights activist in June along with countless others — students, opposition politicians, journalists and rights activists — and threw them in prison.

Soltani has for years stood by victims of Iran’s repression. And by putting himself in the line of fire, he too has become a target of the Iranian government crackdown.

Tens of thousands of Amnesty members took action in response to news of his arrest. And last week, Soltani was released. While we continue to have a number of concerns about human rights in Iran, we have found Soltani’s release, along with last month’s release of human rights defender Shadi Sadr, profoundly encouraging.

Amnesty members helped counter the climate of fear instilled by Iranian authorities with a spirit of hope. They sent a vital message of solidarity to Soltani and other human rights defenders like him in their hour of darkness, reminding them that they were not alone.

We sincerely thank everyone who took action on Soltani’s behalf.

We’re happy to bring you some good news in the case of lawyer and human rights activist Shadi Sadr.

We’ve all watched with dismay during that last 2 months as Iran has cracked down on hundreds of thousands of people who have poured into the streets to protest the contested results of June’s presidential election. Behind the scenes, Iranian authorities have conducted a campaign to silence dissident voices — like human rights lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani — through arbitrary arrests and detention.

It was as part of this campaign that Shadi Sadr was detained last month. On July 17, Sadr was walking on a road in Tehran when men in civilian clothes grabbed her and attempted to push her into a car. Sadr lost her headscarf and coat in the ensuing struggle but managed briefly to escape. She was quickly recaptured and beaten with batons, and then taken away in the car.

We are relieved to report that after more than a week in custody, Sadr was released on bail, thanks in part to appeals from Amnesty activists worldwide. Amnesty International is monitoring her situation and will issue further updates as they become available.

Many Iranian Americans have turned to the arts as a means of critiquing the status quo both in Iran and the US. Among them is Maz Jobrani, an Iranian American  comedian and a part of the “Axis of Evil” comedy troupe. He has been touring with the troupe since 2005; his routine surrounding Iran, racial profiling, and being Muslim in America. His act is so popular that he has appeared on shows ranging from the Colbert Report to The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

Last week, Jobrani also voiced his support for upholding human rights in Iran and urged his viewers to attend the Global Day of Action for Iran. “Over the last few weeks, we have watched elements within the Iranian regime react with brutality to people who seek to have a voice in their own government,” he said. “Many have been imprisoned and tortured. Some stand to be executed. We cannot simply stand by.”

Nazanin Boniadi is an Iranian born actress who has appeared on the soap opera General Hospital as well as the films Charlie Wilson’s War and Iron Man. When she’s not on set, Boniadi works alongside Amnesty International as an official spokesperson for disenfranchised populations across the world. She has been increasingly involved with Iranian youth and women, bringing attention to many of their unjust convictions and treatments in detainment. Last year, Boniadi wrote a heartfelt entry on Amnesty’s blog about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A bit from Jobrani’s stand-up routine:

Jobrani’s message of support for the Global Day of Action for Iran:

Samah Choudhury contributed to this post

The Iranian authorities have announced they have released 140 prisoners from Evin Prison in northern Tehran, reports Reuters. Parliament official Kazem Jalali says that 150 prisoners, arrested during the uprising after the June 12th Presidential election, still remain behind bars.

Ayatollah Khamenei has also ordered the closure of a detainment center in Kahrizak after it failed to “preserve the rights of detainees”. Whether the prisoners in that prison were released or transferred elsewhere remains to be seen.

As conditions in Iran continue to look bleak, many people are wondering what the rest of the world can do next. To address these and other concerns, Amnesty International will be hosting an lecture on the human rights situation in Iran and how the international community should respond tomorrow, (Wednesday) July 29th.

Speakers will include:

Payam Akhavan: Co-founder, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center & Professor of Law, McGill University and former UN prosecutor

Ahmed Batebi: Founder and spokes person, Human Rights Activists in Iran & former student activist in Iran

Mehrangiz Kar: Distinguished Human Rights Lawyer & Activist

The lecture will be taking place at 600 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, on the 5th floor. Due to space limitations, please RSVP to zjanmohamed@aiusa.org or call (202) 675-8755.

Protests in more than 80 countries, with numbers ranging from a couple hundred to several thousand, took to the streets on Saturday to stand in solidarity with the Iranian people against the government’s brutal crackdown this summer. Among the 1,000 people in Amsterdam was Iran’s Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi who led the crowd in chanting: “We want to live in peace. Long live peace”.

The event will hopefully force the Iranian authorities to display greater transparency regarding election results and provide those imprisoned with their human rights.

“Our message is very simple,” [Aaron Rhodes, an event organizer] said. “We’re supporting civil and human rights in Iran and we’re calling upon the government in Iran to cease their abuse of power, cease the imprisonment of innocent people and the torture of detainees and stop the violence against people who are simply trying to exercise their internationally protected human right to peacefully protest.”

Back in Tehran, opposition leaders Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Khatami urged the country’s clerics to intervene to help stop the spread of “oppression” by the authorities. They accused the government of “savagery” and that its “interrogation methods are a reminder of the dark era of the Shah”, who ruled until 1979.

Below are some videos from the various rallies across the world:

Samah Choudhury contributed to this post

On July 25, people in more than 60 cities across the world will be standing in solidarity with the Iranian people in their struggle for human rights. Protesters in Iran continue to experience brutality on the city streets while the number of arrests steadily rises– the latest being the detainment of opposition leader Mir Hussein Mousavi’s brother-in-law, Shapour Kazemi.

The global day of action, organized by United4Iran, is organized around the following four core demands:

1. That member states and civil society organizations of the international community give sustained attention to the Iranian people’s human rights as a matter of international concern, and that the UN should immediately initiate an investigation into grave and systematic human rights violations in Iran, including the fate of prisoners and disappeared persons, unlawful killings, and torture and other ill-treatment;
2. An end to state-sponsored violence, accountability for crimes committed and no recourse to the death penalty.
3. The immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience, including politicians, journalists, students, and civil society activists; and
4. Freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and freedom of expression (including freedom of the press) as guaranteed by the Iranian constitution and Iran’s obligations under international covenants that it has signed.

Supporters include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ebadi, Sean Penn, Dariush, Jody Williams, Betty Williams, Mairead Maguire, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Simin Behbahani, Reza Aslan and Ismael Khoi. Dariush will actually be performing at the rally in DC!

Attend an event near you! Visit united4iran.org for a complete listing.

Speaker: Roxana Saberi

Time: July 25, 12 noon
Place: Federal Plaza, Dearborn and Adams
Rally time: Noon
Rally location: Federal Plaza at Dearborn and Adams Street in downtown Chicago
More information: Facebook or contact aiis@chicago.edu

Part one: Demonstration @ UN Office
Start at 4:00pm, corner of 18th+K. We have requested road closure from DCDOT. Signs, slogans, use of bullhorns.

Part two: March to Rally
March starts at 5:15pm, East on K st one block, South on 17th st (march past WH w/o stopping), Enter Constitutional Gardens at 17th + Constitution St.

Part three: Rally at National Mall Constitution Gardens (on 19th + Constitution)
Speakers:
Jody Williams, Nobel Laureate
Mehrangiz Kar, Human Rights Lawyer
Joe Stork, Human Rights Watch, Deputy Director of Middle East and North Africa Division
Parisa Saeb, Human Rights Activist
Dariush, Prominent Iranian Singer and Social Activist

For more information, contact info@united4iran.org.

Samah Choudhury contributed to this post