3 May 2013

Committee of Human Rights Reporters - Hossein Salmanzadeh, refugee in police custody in Turkey, has launched a hunger strike in protest of his request for political asylum being ignored. Salmanzadeh who has been in custody at the Turkey police detention center since April 25th is on his 4th day of hunger strike.
Hossein Salmanzadeh is a former photographer from Fars news agency who left the country due to his lack of safety after he published photographs of the mass unrest following the (...)

10 March 2013

Committee of Human Rights Reporters –
Translated by: Sanaz Fotouhi
Where on my body
are your eyes zigzagging?
I die for you!!
The hungry bludger gambling 
With the lice in my empty pocket
and still hung over in the Zipper’s ducts
Where have muted body parts been penetrated by the drill
With shafts as thick as Imperialism
Whose begging is never ending, as the “Taleban” that you are?
Laughter is wounded,
And Samarkand, with a skirt full of pebbles
And a hole,
the forbidden commodity
of the black (...)

5 March 2013

Committee of Human Rights Reporters – Moments ago another 3 journalists, Nasrin Takhoyori, Saba Azarpeik and Sasan Aghayee were released on bail.
According to CHRR, Nasrin Takhayori, editor of the social affairs section of Etemad newspaper and Sasan Aghayee, editor of the Saturday supplement section of this newspaper were detained on January 28th when security officials conducted a simultaneous raid on the offices of 5 media outlets in Tehran. Saba Azarpeik, a former reporter for Etemad (...)

18 February 2013

Committee of Human Rights Reporters – Blogger and political activist Mohammad Reza Pourshajari suffered a heart attack on February 17 and was transferred to the infirmary at Karaj Central prison. According to news provided to CHRR, three physicians at the prison facility by the names of Amjadi, Nejadbahram and Gholizadeh made requests for this political prisoner to be transferred to a medical facility outside the prison. They revealed that the prisoner has blocked arteries, which could (...)

29 January 2013

Committee of Human Rights Reporters – On January 27, 2013, five followers of Ayatollah Dastgheib were arrested in Shiraz. Per a source close to Ayatollah Dastgheib, the name of one of the individuals detained is Taher Faghih. Another 4 individuals were detained at their home in the early hours of Sunday January 27th. There is no obtained information at present regarding the names of the other 4 detained individuals. Ayatollah Dastgheib is a senior cleric and member of Iran’s Assembly of (...)

28 January 2013

Committee of Human Rights Reporters – On Sunday January 27, five Ahwazi Arab death row prisoners contacted their family by phone from Karoun prison in Ahvaz. According to news obtained by CHRR, the 5 minority prisoners who had been moved to an undisclosed location on January 17th have now been transferred back to Karoun prison. There was no information on the whereabouts and fate of the five prisoners on death row for 10 days after they were moved from the prison. In a short phone (...)

28 January 2013

Keyvan Mehregan, Hossein Yaghchi and Saba Azarpeik arrested, Motehareh Shafii released Committee of Human Rights Reporters – In the past three days at least 14 journalists from five media outlets in Tehran were arrested at their homes and their offices. Today January 28, 2013, security forces detained another two journalists Keyvan Mehregan and Hossein Yaghchi. Keyvan Mehregan was transferred to Evin prison with a previous summons and he is facing new charges. Another journalist, Saba (...)

27 January 2013

Committee of Human Rights Reporters – Agents from the Security Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran conducted a simultaneous raid of five reformist news publications; Shargh, Etemad, Bahar and Arman newspapers, and Aseman magazine.
According to informed sources to CHRR, so far the following journalists are confirmed as detained: Nasrin Takhiri, Javad Daliri, Sassan Aghayi, Akbar Montajabi, Motehareh Shafii, Nargues Jodaki, Pouria Alami, Pejman Mousavi, Amili Amrayi. Security agents are (...)

24 January 2013

Human Rights Watch:
(London) – Iran’s judiciary should quash death sentences against five members of Iran’s Ahwazi Arab minority and immediately cancel their execution, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today. The sentences were handed down by a revolutionary court and upheld by the country’s Supreme Court on January 9, 2013.
The five men – Mohammad Ali Amouri, Sayed Jaber Alboshoka and his brother Sayed Mokhtar Alboshoka, Hashem Sha’bani Amouri, and Hadi Rashidi (or Rashedi) – (...)

24 January 2013

Amnesty International :
A prominent Iranian human rights lawyer was returned to prison on Monday, unexpectedly curtailing a three-day temporary leave to visit her family, which was expected to be extended.
Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been serving a six-year prison sentence since September 2010, was granted her first furlough from Tehran’s Evin Prison on 17 January on production of a hefty bail.
Amnesty International has long campaigned for her unconditional release as a prisoner of (...)

24 January 2013

Committee of Human Rights Reporters - 30 human rights organizations, including Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, released a joint statement expressing their opposition to the death sentences issued to five Ahwazi Arab activists from Iran. In their statement they expressed their deep concern about the imminent executions and urged human rights organizations and the international community to take immediate action.
The full statement is as follows: (translation by Human Rights Documentation (...)

21 January 2013

Committee of Human Rights Reporters – The parents and younger brother of political prisoner Anvar Hossein Panahi were summoned on January 21, 2013, to the office of the Qorveh Ministry of Intelligence in Kurdistan province. The intense bullying and pressure tactics against this family continues as judicial authorities impounded 10 million tomans from their bank account, money Panahi’s brother had deposited to help his family. The family of incarcerated Kurdish activist Anvar Hossein Panahi, (...)

17 January 2013

Committee of Human Rights Reporters – Student and women’s rights activist Bahareh Hedayat was granted conditional temporary release from prison today January 17, 2013. According to informed sources, Bahareh Hedayat, member of the Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vehdat (Office for Strengthening Unity), was released on bail of 700 million tomans on the condition of refusing to grant any interviews, refraining from being present at political gatherings or taking part in any political activities. It was (...)

17 January 2013

Committee of Human Rights Reporters – Human Rights lawyer and political prisoner Nasrin Sotoudeh was granted a 3-day prison leave after enduring 2 years and 3 months behind bars. According to informed sources, this afternoon, Thursday January 17, 2013, Sotoudeh who had previously undergone a 49-day hunger strike, was released on bail of 300 million tomans. Nasrin Sotoudeh’s mother passed away while she was behind bars and the law in Iran stipulates that a prisoner has the legal right to (...)

2 January 2013

Committee of Human Rights Reporters – Blogger Ladan Mostofi Maab was released from prison today, January 2nd, after serving her sentence of 2 years and 6 months behind bars. Dr. Ladan Mostofi Maab, an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist, was detained in 2010 with Hanieh Farshi Shotorban and several other bloggers. These bloggers endured months of interrogations in “temporary detention” in solitary, and cells confined to 2-3 prisoners in Ward 209 of Evin prison before being handed down their (...)