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ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
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Head of State
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Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran: Ayatollah Sayed
‘Ali Khamenei
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Head of government
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President: Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
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Death penalty
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retentionist
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Population
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71.2 million
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Life expectancy
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70.2 years
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Under-5 mortality (m/f)
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32/31 per 1,000
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Adult literacy
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82.4 per cent
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The authorities continued to suppress
dissent. Journalists, writers, scholars, and women’s rights and community
activists were subject to arbitrary arrest, travel bans, closure of their NGOs
and harassment. Armed opposition, mainly by Kurdish and Baluchi groups,
continued, as did state repression of Iran’s minority communities.
Discrimination against women remained entrenched in law and practice. Torture
and other ill-treatment were widespread in prisons and detention centres. A
security clampdown announced in April was marked by a sharp rise in executions;
at least 335 people were executed, among them seven child offenders. Sentences
of stoning to death, amputation and flogging continued to be passed and carried
out.
Background
Iran’s uranium enrichment
programme continued to be a focus of international tension. Israeli and US
authorities refused to rule out the possibility of military action against
Iran. In March, the UN Security Council imposed further sanctions. In
September, the US government designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a
“terrorist organization” for allegedly supporting insurgents in Iraq and
Afghanistan. In December, US intelligence agencies published a report stating
that Iran had ended any nuclear weapons programme in 2003. The same month the
UN General Assembly condemned the human rights situation in Iran.
Ayatollah Meshkini, Head of
the Assembly of Experts that oversees the appointment of the Supreme Leader,
died in July. He was replaced by former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Increasing numbers of
Iranians faced poverty as the economic situation deteriorated. In June rioting
followed the introduction of petrol rationing. A three-month strike by workers
at the Haft Tapeh Sugar Plant in Khuzestan Province over unpaid wages and
benefits was forcibly broken up by security forces in October. Haft Tapeh and
other workers and teachers staged large demonstrations, and arrests were made.
Freedom of expression
Vaguely worded laws and harsh
practices resulted in widespread repression of peaceful dissent. Demonstrations
frequently led to mass arrests and unfair trials. The authorities maintained
tight restrictions on internet access. Journalists, academics and webloggers,
including some dual nationals, were detained and sentenced to prison or
flogging and several publications were closed down. In April, the Minister of
Intelligence, Gholam Hossein Eje’i, publicly accused students and the women’s
movement of being part of an attempt to bring about the “soft overthrow” of the
Iranian government.
Ali Farahbakhsh, a journalist, was granted an early
conditional release in October after 11 months in detention. He was
convicted of “espionage” and “receiving money from foreigners” in
connection with his attendance at a media conference in Thailand.
Human rights defenders
Independent human rights
groups and other NGOs continued to face long delays, often lasting years, in
obtaining official registration, leaving them at risk of closure for carrying
out illegal activities. Students campaigning for greater respect for human
rights faced reprisals, including arbitrary arrest and torture. Individual
human rights defenders were persecuted for their work; some were prisoners of
conscience.
Emaddedin Baghi, Head of the Association for the
Defence of Prisoners and a leading campaigner against the death penalty,
was detained in October following a summons relating to accusations of
“endangering national security”. While the family was posting bail, they
were told that he now had to serve a suspended sentence imposed in 2003,
including for “printing lies”. Another three-year prison term imposed on
him in July 2007 for “propaganda in favour of opponents”, arising from his
work on behalf of Iranian Ahwazi Arabs sentenced to death after unfair
trials, was pending appeal. His wife, Fatemeh Kamali Ahmad Sarahi, and
daughter, Maryam Baghi, were given three-year suspended prison sentences
in October for “meeting and colluding with the aim of disrupting national
security” after attending a human rights workshop in Dubai in 2004. In
December he suffered a seizure while in custody.
Mansour Ossanlu, head of the Union of Workers of the
Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, was detained in July after visiting Europe
to gather support for the independent trade union movement in Iran.
Following international protests he received medical treatment for an eye
injury reportedly sustained during a dispute with prison officials during
an earlier detention. In October an appeals court upheld a five-year
prison sentence imposed in February.
Discrimination against women
Women continued to face
widespread discrimination in law and practice. Thousands were arrested for
non-compliance with the obligatory dress code.
Activists working with the
Campaign for Equality, which aims to collect a million signatures in Iran
calling for an end to legalized discrimination against women, faced harassment
and arrest. In August, Nasim Sarabandi and Fatemeh Dehdashti were sentenced to
six months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, for “acting against national
security through the spread of propaganda against the system”. They were the
first people to be tried and sentenced for collecting signatures. At the end of
the year, four campaign activists remained in detention without charge or trial
– Ronak Safarzadeh and Hana Abdi, Kurdish women who were detained in Sanandaj
in October and November respectively; and Maryam Hosseinkhah and Jelveh
Javaheri, who were detained in Tehran in connection with their work editing the
campaign’s website. The authorities persistently filtered the website, making access
difficult.
Women’s rights defender
Delaram Ali, who had been arrested in June 2006 following a peaceful
demonstration demanding greater respect for women’s rights, had her 30-month
prison sentence temporarily postponed following local and international
campaigning. In March, 33 women activists were arrested outside Tehran’s
Revolutionary Court during a protest against the trial of five women charged in
connection with the June 2006 demonstration. All were released, but some faced
trial.
Repression of minorities
Repression continued of
Iran’s ethnic minorities, who maintained their campaigning for greater
recognition of their cultural and political rights.
Arabs
At least eight Iranian Ahwazi
Arabs were executed after being convicted in connection with bomb explosions in
Khuzestan in 2005. At least 17 other Iranian Arabs were believed to be facing
execution after unfair trials related to the bombings. Scores, possibly
hundreds, of Ahwazi Arabs were reportedly arrested in April, in advance of the
anniversary of riots in 2005 protesting against a letter allegedly written by a
presidential adviser, who denied its authenticity, which set out policies for
the reduction of the Arab population of Khuzestan.
In April, journalist Mohammad Hassan Fallahiya was
sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour for writing articles
critical of the government and for allegedly contacting opposition groups
based outside Iran. He was detained in November 2006 and denied access to
a lawyer throughout the judicial process. His family said the Evin Prison
authorities refused to allow them to take him medicines required to treat
heart and blood disorders, endangering his life.
Azerbaijanis
Hundreds of Iranian
Azerbaijani activists were arrested in connection with a peaceful demonstration
on International Mother Language Day, 21 February. The demonstrators called for
their own language to be used in schools and other education institutions in
the areas of north-west Iran where most Iranian Azerbaijanis reside.
Prisoner of conscience Saleh Kamrani, a lawyer and
human rights defender, was detained in Evin Prison between August and
December. In September 2006 he had been sentenced to a year in prison –
suspended for five years – for “spreading propaganda against the system”.
It was unclear whether his arrest was connected to this sentence.
Baluchis
Jondallah, a Baluchi armed
group, carried out attacks on Iranian officials, including bombing a bus
carrying Revolutionary Guards in February. It also took hostages, at least one of
whom was killed.
Nasrollah Shanbeh-zehi was arrested following the bus
bombing. Five days later he was publicly executed following a summary
trial.
Ya’qub Mehrnehad, head of the Voice of Justice Young
People’s Society, a recognized NGO, was detained in April in Zahedan,
initially by the Ministry of Intelligence, following a meeting in the
Provincial Office of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance that the
Governor of Zahedan reportedly attended. He remained in Zahedan Prison at
the end of the year, without access to a lawyer. He may have been
tortured.
In May police shot dead Roya Sarani, an 11-year-old
Baluchi girl, while she was being driven home from school by her father in
Zahedan. The authorities reportedly put pressure on her family to hold a
small funeral. No official investigation was believed to have been held
into her killing.
Kurds
Members of the Party for a
Free Life in Kurdistan (Partiya Jiyana Azadîya Kurdistanê, PJAK) attacked
Iranian forces, who shelled parts of northern Iraq where they believed PJAK
forces were hiding. Numerous Kurds were arrested, many accused of membership
of, or contact with, proscribed groups. Kurdish journalists and human rights
defenders were particularly at risk of harassment and detention.
Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand, head of the Human Rights
Organization of Kurdistan (HROK) and editor of the banned weekly newspaper
Payam-e Mardom, was detained in July apparently for “acting against
national security”, “propaganda against the system” and “co-operating with
groups opposed to the system”, although he was not formally charged. He
complained of poor prison conditions and ill-treatment, including denial
of access to the toilet, which was apparently intended to force other
leading HROK members to turn themselves in to security officials for
questioning.
Religious minorities
Baha’is throughout the
country continued to face persecution on account of their religion. At least 13
Baha’is were arrested in at least 10 cities and were subject to harassment and
discriminatory practices, such as denial of access to higher education, bank
loans and pension payments. Nine Baha’i cemeteries were desecrated.
In August and November,
clashes involving Sufis resulted in scores of injuries and, in November, more
than 100 arrests. In September, a couple – a Christian convert who married a
Christian woman in an Islamic ceremony – were reportedly flogged in Gohar Dasht
in connection with their faith.
Torture and other ill-treatment
Torture and other
ill-treatment were common in many prisons and detention centres, facilitated by
prolonged pre-charge detention and denial of access to lawyers and family. At
least two people died in custody, possibly as a result of torture. Torturers
were rarely if ever held to account for their crimes.
In May, four students and editors-in-chief of student
publications arrested in May at Amir Kabir Polytechnic were tortured,
according to their families. The abuse allegedly included 24-hour
interrogation sessions, sleep deprivation, beatings with cables and fists,
and threats to prisoners and their families. The detainees were arrested
in connection with articles deemed by university officials to “insult
Islamic sanctities”. In July, the families of the detained students sent
an open letter to Ayatollah Shahroudi, Head of the Judiciary, describing
the alleged torture.
Zahra Bani Yaghoub, a medical graduate, died in custody
in Hamadan in October. She was arrested for walking in a park with her
fiancé and died in detention the next day. The authorities said she had
hanged herself. Her family said that she was in good spirits when they
spoke to her on the phone half an hour before she was found dead. A report
in November indicated that the head of the detention centre had been
detained, but was then released on bail and remained in office.
In November, a retrial was ordered in the case of the
2003 death in custody of Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist.
She was tortured to death, but the only person prosecuted was acquitted in
2004, a decision upheld in 2005. She had been arrested for taking
photographs outside Evin Prison.
Death penalty
The number of executions rose
sharply in 2007. Amnesty International received reports that at least 335
people were executed, although the true figure was almost certainly higher.
Some people were executed in public, often in multiple hangings. Death
sentences were imposed for a wide range of crimes, including drug smuggling,
armed robbery, murder, espionage, political violence and sexual offences. A
“special” court in eastern Iran established in May 2006 to reduce the time
between the crime and the punishment led to a marked rise in the number of
Baluchis executed.
Child offenders
At least seven people aged
under 18 at the time of the crime were executed and at least 75 other child
offenders remained on death row. Following domestic and international protests,
the death sentences of at least two child offenders – Sina Paymard and Nazanin
Fatehi – were commuted.
Makwan Moloudzadeh, an Iranian Kurdish child offender,
was executed in December following a grossly flawed trial for three rapes
he allegedly committed at the age of 13, eight years earlier. In
sentencing him to death, the judge relied on his “knowledge” that the
offence had occurred and that Makwan Moloudzadeh had reached puberty at
the time of the crime and so could be tried and sentenced as an adult.
Execution by stoning
Ja’far Kiani was stoned to
death in Takestan in July, despite an order from the Head of the Judiciary granting
a temporary stay of execution. The judge in the case was later said by
officials to have been “mistaken”. At least nine women, including Ja’far
Kiani’s co-defendant, and two men remained at risk of stoning. In November,
judicial officials said that a new version of the Penal Code had been sent to
the Majles for approval and that, if approved, it would provide for the
possibility of commuting stoning sentences.
Cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments
Sentences of flogging and
amputation continued to be passed and implemented.
In November, Soghra Mola’i was flogged 80 times for
“illicit relations” after her sentence of death by stoning was overturned
following a retrial. She remained in prison to serve a sentence for
involvement in the murder of her husband.
At least eight people had their fingers or hand
amputated after conviction of theft.
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The library's collections
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