The first charter on human rights was authored by Cyrus the Great over 2500 years ago. As Iranians we are heirs to a proud tradition of human rights and tolerance. Sadly, the Iranian authorities have not lived up to this legacy, as can be seen by the mock trials, false imprisonments, torture, child executions, and lack of equality for women in Iran today.
For the past 30 years the Iranian government has barred Amnesty International from entering the country, affording us no transparency in regards to its human rights record. However, advances in technology and the internet are allowing brave Iranian activists to share direct eyewitness accounts of what is happening on ground zero in the post-election crackdown: brutal attacks on and murder of peaceful protestors, wrongful imprisonment without access to an attorney or fair trial, forced confessions obtained under torture and duress, rape used as a weapon of torture in prisons, and the lack of freedom of assembly as seen in the case of the ‘Mourning Mothers’ whose only “crime” was gathering for an hour each Saturday in a peaceful vigil near the place and time of the killing of protester Neda Agha-Soltan.
Despite the dangers posed to protesters, Iranians continue to take to the streets in hundreds of thousands to demand their universally recognized rights. The movement has grown beyond simply contesting the results of the presidential election. It has morphed into a Civil Rights movement of the magnitude seen in the United States in the 50’s and 60’s, uniting Iranians across a broad spectrum of political ideologies, bridging our differences for the first time in 30 years, with a single goal in mind: Freedom.
Today, I stand in solidarity with the people of Iran in demanding a fair and democratic society where the 30 articles of the UN Declaration of Human Rights are fully realized. Together we can ensure that their pleas for freedom are not going unheard by the international community, that their struggle is not in vain, and that they will prevail.
Help share the message of February 11th by adding this solidarity image to your blog, website or social networking profile.
Iranian authorities have committed horrific abuses in the aftermath of the disputed presidential elections last June. Several months later, human rights in Iran remain under attack and the level of repression reaches a breaking point.
Several important events in the Iranian political calendar from the end of January through late March make this threat imminent, most notably the “Victory of the Revolution” day on February 11, 2010, marking the 31st anniversary of the fall of the Iranian monarchy and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini from exile in France in 1979.
Given the importance of February 11th for Iranians, we are calling on our members and the public to unite in the blogosphere to show support and solidarity for those suppressed voices in Iran. During our “Unite for Human Rights in Iran” bloggers day, we are encouraging everyone to publicize the ongoing dire human rights situation in Iran and call for the protection of those arrested or detained from torture or other ill-treatment. Moreover, we urge you to highlight the need to release prisoners of conscience and those convicted after unfair trials.
Opposition leaders are calling for supporters to peacefully demonstrate on February 11th. The Iranian authorities attempt to thwart protests has already led to the expedited executions of Mohammad Reza Ali-Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour, convicted of moharebeh or “enmity against God” and for being members of a banned anti-revolutionary political group last week. It is also expected that nine other protesters sentenced to death for their participation in the post-presidential election protests will be swiftly executed prior to February 11th day in order to further intimidate and silence the opposition.
The executions are clearly a sign of the government’s frustration to end the protests. There are fears that the government might engage in the kind of cleansing that it did between 1980 and 1988, when it executed more than 3,000 political prisoners.
- Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
We are calling for strong international condemnation of human rights violations in Iran. As the United Nation’s prepares for its Universal Periodic Review in mid-February, focusing attention on the need for a strong report condemning human rights abuses in Iran by the Human Rights Council is also critical.
We sent this moving message from Sting earlier today to our email list. In light of the recent startling developments in Iran, we’re also sharing it with you here on our blog:
Dear Supporter,
I was shocked to hear reports that Iranian security forces arrested 29 mothers and their supporters who were silently mourning children killed in post-election violence this summer.
These Mourning Mothers gather peacefully each week to call for an end to widespread human rights abuses and justice for their dead children.
The disturbing news of their arrest brought to mind profound memories of the Mothers of the Disappeared in Chile and Argentina. Like the courageous mothers in Iran, the Mothers of the Disappeared faced threats and harassment for seeking justice for their children kidnapped during the Dirty Wars in Chile and Argentina.
My song “They Dance Alone” is dedicated to the Mothers of the Disappeared. I had the honor of performing it with them in 1988 during Amnesty International’s Human Rights Now! Tour.
Sting dances with the Mothers of the Disappeared during Amnesty's 1988 Human Rights Now! Tour.
Dancing on stage with the Mothers of the Disappeared in Chile and Argentina was one of the most moving moments of my career.
What gives me hope is knowing that Amnesty International is fighting on behalf of the Mourning Mothers and others threatened with abuse in Iran and around the world.
As you read this, Amnesty International is investigating and reporting on the human rights situation in Iran. It’s publishing the names of prisoners of conscience and documenting the use of brutal force to crush dissent — even as it continues to respond to human rights emergencies across the globe.
Today, we’re premiering our video homage to supporters who help spread human rights stories far and wide! YouTube is featuring our new, animated video “The Power of Words” on its homepage with an introduction by actor, Morgan Freeman.
The video demonstrates why the messages you send and the petitions you sign really matter. It is your words that remind violators of human rights, in countries like Zimbabwe, China and Iran, that their actions are unacceptable and opposed by millions.
As 2009 draws to a close we marvel at the extraordinary—and what is sure to be remembered as pivotal—year in Iran. Amnesty International marked International Human Rights Day on December 10 with the launch of its comprehensive report on the post-June 12 election crackdown.
While the litany of gruesome horrors visited upon the Iranian people by their own government’s agents detailed in the report is profoundly upsetting to us, what we come away with is the courage and determination shown by ordinary Iranians who doggedly refused to be bludgeoned into silence. The bravery shown by millions of Iranians: young and old, women and men, middle and working-class, residents of Tehran and many other cities, is truly astounding and a testament to the human spirit. They poured into the streets withstanding savage beatings, arrests and bullets, shouted from the rooftops, wrote slogans on walls and even on currency, painted their fingers green and reported it all to the world.
Even before the June 12 election, 2009 was proving to be a busy year for activists working to improve human rights in Iran. Amnesty International USA presented its first ever Nowruz action in March, asking activists to send Nowruz (Iranian New Year) greetings to directly to three brave human rights defenders: labor activist Mansour Ossanlu, women’s rights advocate Ronak Safarzadeh, and Kurdish journalist Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand. Large numbers of greetings were generated; one activist’s card to Ronak Safarzadeh was even featured on a Committee of Human Rights Reporters web site. Several Amnesty International local groups continued to work on long-term cases of prisoners of conscience: Mansour Ossanlu, Ronak Safarzadeh, writer Arzhang Davoodi, and cleric Sayed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi.
Iraqi authorities announced last Thursday that they will forcibly relocate about 3,400 members of the Iranian opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) from Camp Ashraf where they have lived since the mid 1980’s. Reports about where residents will be relocated are conflicting.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has reportedly announced that Camp Ashraf’s residents will be moved to the southern province of Muthanna. On Monday, the Iraqi government announced that the PMOI will be moved to a hotel in Baghdad. Other reports said that they would be moved to a desert detention camp, Neqrat al-Salman, near Basra.
Residents of Camp Ashraf, also known as Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), were given until Tuesday to leave or else face forced removal and relocation elsewhere in Iraq. But on Tuesday, Iraqi military officials gave journalists a tour of the camp, and assured them that all relocation is voluntary.
But the Washington Post reported Brig. Gen. Basel Hamad of the Iraqi army saying yesterday that “today is the day we start moving things out. We will not allow any foreigners to establish their own laws on Iraqi soil.”
When the father of Dr. Ramin Pourandarjani was contacted by Iranian authorities, telling him that his 26-year-old son had broken his leg in an accident, and that his permission was needed for an operation, the concerned father rushed to Tehran. Upon his arrival he discovered that his son was in fact dead. The government has claimed that the young doctor committed suicide, even that a note had been found near his body suggesting that he had been suffering from depression. But Reza-Qoli Pourandarjani insists that he talked to his son the night before his death and that he had been in good spirits.
The mysterious circumstances around Dr. Pourandarjani’s death have raised questions about the authorities’ account. Dr. Pourandarjani, whose body was found on November 10 in a room at Tehran Police Headquarters, had been doing his required military service by tending to those held in the notorious Kahrizak Detention Center, which was used to detain large numbers of people arrested during the unrest following the June 12 Iranian presidential elections.
There were persistent reports of widespread and brutal torture of detainees at Kahrizak. At least three people were tortured to death there, including Mohsen Rouhalamini, the son of a top aide to presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei, who reportedly died of cardiac arrest and bleeding in his lungs two weeks after he was detained on 9 July; according to some reports, his body bore the marks of severe torture, including disfiguring facial injuries. The Iranian authorities were not able to ignore the reports of torture, and on July 29, the Kahrizak facility was closed by order of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Officials admitted that abuses had taken place and announced that a special parliamentary committee would be investigating.
Dr. Pourandarjani attended the detainees who suffered from torture and ill-treatment including, reportedly, Mohsen Rouhalamini. He was interviewed by the parliamentary committee charged with investigating allegations of abuses. Before his death he reportedly received threats to prevent him from revealing the abuses he had witnessed at Kahrizak. He had also reportedly been forced to say that one detainee had died of meningitis and not of torture. (more…)
Trade Unionist Mansour Ossanlu, age 49, is the leader of the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company (Syndica Sherkat-e Vahed). He has been peacefully working to obtain better conditions for workers in Iran and to end discriminatory laws and practices that curtail workers’ rights in Iran. He is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for “acts against national security” and “propaganda against the system.” He had been previously arrested and detained several times for his peaceful labor activism and severely beaten in custody, causing damage to his retinas. He is currently serving his term in a prison for violent criminals and has been mistreated by staff and other inmates. He suffers from several severe health problems, but has not received necessary medical treatment.
Mansour Ossanlu is one of Amnesty International’s 10 priority cases who you can help free by participating in our Global Write-a-thon running from December 5-13. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience who is being detained on vaguely worded charges in order to halt his efforts to build strong trades unions capable of defending the human rights of workers.
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. (more…)
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…)
Amnesty International works to protect human rights worldwide. We have more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in over 150 countries, and are completely independent from government, corporate or national interests.
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Tom Parker is the Policy Director for Terrorism, Counterterrorism and Human Rights at Amnesty International USA. He was previously Executive Director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center in New Haven, Connecticut See all »
The first charter on human rights was authored by Cyrus the Great over 2500 years ago. As Iranians we are heirs to a proud tradition of human rights and tolerance. Sadly, the Iranian authorities have not lived up to this legacy, as can be seen by the mock trials, false imprisonments, torture, child executions, and lack of equality for women in Iran today.
When the father of Dr. Ramin Pourandarjani was contacted by Iranian authorities, telling him that his 26-year-old son had broken his leg in an accident, and that his permission was needed for an operation, the concerned father rushed to Tehran. Upon his arrival he discovered that his son was in fact dead. The government has claimed that the 
