Human
Rights Watch
World
Report 1999
Iran
Human Rights Developments
Human rights failed to improve, and in some areas deteriorated, as the power
struggle intensified between supporters of President Khatami’s reformist
program and those seeking to maintain the grip on power of a closed circle of
clerical rulers associated with the leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah
Khamene’i. While the political rivalry between these increasingly polarized
factions helped highlight important human rights issues, it nevertheless appeared
to drive and even promote violations of human rights as hardliners in the
judiciary and the parliament sought to undermine President Khatami’s efforts to
normalize Iran’s relations with the West and the United States by speaking out
in support of fundamental rights and the rule of law. Efforts for reform were
met with repression and threats of further violence. For example, the head of
the Revolutionary Guards Corps, General Yahya Rahim Safavi warned reformers in
April, “we are seeking to root out counterrevolutionaries wherever they are. We
have to cut the throats of some and cut off the tongues of others.” A few days
later he threatened, “we will go after them when the time is ripe...fruit has
to be picked when it is ripe. The fruit is unripe now.”
Executions
after unfair trials proliferated, including cases of stoning to death in
public. For the first time since 1992 a follower of the Baha’i faith was
executed in prison. Other religious minorities, including Sunni Muslims,
Evangelical Christians, and Jews were subjected to discrimination and
persecution. Prominent dissidents, including writers and editors, were
subjected to arbitrary detention and independent newspapers were closed down.
New laws were passed discriminating against women and aimed at restricting
debate about women’s rights. Torture was widespread during interrogation, and
the government failed to take steps to halt violent attacks by vigilante groups
which serve as enforcers for conservative clerics, known as the Partisans of
the Party of God (Ansar-e Hezbollahi) . As tensions with the Taleban rulers of
neighboring Afghanistan mounted, Afghan refugees, more than a million of whom
have lived in Iran for many years seeking refuge from civil war, were attacked
and beaten by crowds leading to several deaths.
Hundreds
of people were executed after trials that failed to comply with minimum
international standards. In June, the daily newspaper Hamshahri, reported the
public hanging of four young men in the city of Ahvaz, in the south, for
“insulting” Leader Khamene’i and “armed robbery.” Seven people were reported by
opposition groups to have been convicted of adultery and stoned to death in
October 1997 and six more were reported to have been sentenced to stoning in
January. On July 21, Ruhollah Rowhani was executed in the city of Mashhad on
charges of converting a Muslim to the Baha’i faith. This execution marked a
deterioration in the situation of this intensely persecuted minority. At least
fifteen other Baha’is were held in prison and seven were facing death sentences
because of their faith. There were further detentions of Baha’is in September
when dozens were detained in a new wave of repression. In May, Jewish
businessman Ruhollah Kakhodah-Zadeh was arrested and later hanged in prison.
His crime was never declared in public and any legal proceedings which occurred
did so in secret. In June, Molavi Imam Bakhsh Narouie, prayer leader of a Sunni
mosque in the town of Miyankang in Sistan va Baluchestan province in
south-eastern Iran was killed, leading to protests from the local community who
believed that the authorities were responsible. Sunni Muslims form a minority
in predominantly Shi’a Iran, but a majority of ethnic Kurds and Baluchis are Sunni,
which exacerbates their already tense relations with the central authorities in
a state in which Shi’a Islam is the established religion.
Attempts
by the judiciary and other supporters of the status quo in Iran to discredit
leading associates and supporters of President Khatami focused national and
international attention on long-standing human rights problems. For example,
the prosecution on corruption charges, of the mayor of Tehran, Gholam Hossein
Karabaschi, exposed the widespread torture of suspects during investigation.
Judicial officials reportedly tried to build a case against the mayor on the
basis of coerced statements taken from detained municipality officials,
including elected district mayors and deputy mayors. On being released, the detained
mayors complained about their ill-treatment and produced medical evidence to
substantiate their allegations. Their statements were widely reported in
newspapers sympathetic to President Khatami and the mayor.
In
March, responding to hostile questions from reporters about the treatment of
the officials, Ayatollah Yazdi, the head of the judiciary, stated the
allegations were “all a political campaign aimed at the police and the
judiciary” and threatened to prosecute reporters for “making unfounded accusations
against the judicial branch.”
In
May, the former editor of Adineh magazine, Faraj Sarkouhi (s ee Human Rights
Watch World Report 1998), who had been released from his one-year jail term for
“circulating harmful propaganda” and permitted to travel to Germany to be
reunited with his family, was able to reveal information about torture and
ill-treatment he had suffered while in detention, including mock-execution.
Together with the testimony of the mayor of Tehran’s associates, Sarkouhi’s
experience made public the continuing prevalence of torture in Iranian prisons.
The
Tehran mayor’s trial, in open court in the presence of international reporters
exposed other long-standing problems in the criminal justice system. The
defense in the June hearing challenged the impartiality of the judge, arguing
that “it is not in accordance with the principles of justice for you to occupy
the positions of investigating magistrate and trial judge in the same case.” In
the General Courts, first introduced in 1994, the function of the prosecutor
was doubled up with that of the trial judge, removing fair trial safeguards (s
ee Human Rights Watch World Report 1995) . The mayor also called attention to
the torture of his officials, and the inacceptability of “anything written under
duress while these people were in prison.” The mayor was convicted and
sentenced to lashes and five years in prison, but was at liberty pending an
appeal.
The
mayor’s prosecution brought to the fore dissension between Iran’s leaders,
often played out at a cost to human rights protection. In April, after the
detention of the mayor, Minister of the Interior Abdollah Nouri criticized the
judiciary’s “arbitrary” action and announced that his ministry was setting up a
defense committee for the mayor. Nouri’s criticism of the judiciary led to a
vote of no confidence in him from the parliament, and his dismissal from office
on June 26. President Khatami responded by appointing Nouri to the position of
deputy-president for development and social affairs.
Nouri
had also provoked conservative anger by calling for the elimination of the role
of the Council of Guardians in vetting and excluding candidates for election to
the parliament, the presidency, and the Assembly of Experts - an eighty-six
member body responsible for choosing the leader of the Islamic Republic. The
Council of Guardians vetoed almost all of the candidates associated with the
reformers in the October election. In May, Nouri had granted a permit to
students to demonstrate in favor of reforming laws governing participation in
elections. The peaceful rally of several thousand students in Tehran’s Laleh
park was violently broken up by a group of Hezbollahi vigilantes while police
stood by. In August, under pressure from conservatives, the cabinet declined to
submit a bill to parliament to restrict the powers of the Council of Guardians.
While
the treatment of Abdullah Nouri highlighted violations of the right to
participation in public affairs, freedom of assembly, and the illegal
activities of vigilantes, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ataollah
Mohajerani became identified with increasing the diversity of the Iranian press
by issuing permits to new publications with independent views. Mohajerani’s
efforts were countered by the increased zeal of the judiciary to close down
independent publications and imprison and prosecute journalists and editors; by
attacks from vigilantes on newspaper offices; and by new laws passed by the
parliament seeking to ban publications dealing with women’s rights and the
reform of family law.
Newspapers
continued to be subject to harassment and closure orders both through the legal
channels of the press courts and extra-legal administrative acts or attacks
from vigilante groups. Akbar Ganji, the editor of Rah-e No weekly newspaper was
held in incommunicado detention for three months following a speech he made in
Shiraz critical of government policy. In January, a newly established
journalists union accused the head of the judiciary of “obstructing the freedom
of the press” after he had declared that the judiciary was under no obligation
to explain to the media why people were detained. In February, the newsletter
published by Habibollah Payman, head of the unrecognized Islamic Militant
Movement party, was banned and he was fined after proceedings that did not meet
international standards of due process. In April the offices of Hamshahri,
Iran, and the Iran Daily News , daily newspapers which had been supportive of
the mayor of Tehran, were raided by police in an operation which failed to
comply with mechanisms established under the press law for investigating
alleged violations by newspapers. In July, three other newspapers, Panshambeha,
Gozaresh-e Rouz, and Khanneh, were closed under official pressure. The editors
of Gozresh-e Rouz and Khanneh were each imprisoned for a week for
interrogation.
In
August, Jameh , which within a few months had gained a reputation and a wide
readership for its championing of reform, was closed down, although the jury in
the press court had advised minimal punishment. In an apparent turnabout
Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohajerani stated, “the opponents and
enemies of liberty can also be those who do not respect their limit.” Within a
few days of the closure, a newspaper appeared under the title Tous which was
accused of being Jameh under another name. Head of the Judiciary Yazdi
objected, “The publication of a previously forbidden newspaper under a new name
is illegal. We are asking the ministry of culture to take action before someone
else does.” Ayatollah Yazdi’s words were followed by an attack by Hezbollahi on
the editorial offices. Conservative pressure on Tous did not relent on
September 15 Ayatollah Khamene’i threatened to use extra-legal force to silence
independent newspapers which he characterized as “a dangerous, creeping
cultural movement...writing against Islam,” unless government officials took
action against them. The next day, Tous managers Hamid Reza Jalei-Pour and
Mohammad Javadi Hessar, editor Mashalla Shamsol-va-Ezin, and staff writer
Ebrahim Nabavi, were arrested by order of the Revolutionary Courts on charges
of publishing articles “against security and general interests.” The newspaper
was ordered closed. The four journalists were all released in October, and no
legal reason for their detention was provided by the authorities.
Also
in September, the independent newspapers Rah-e No and Tavana were ordered
closed by administrative decree. The judiciary declared that it was creating a
special body to monitor the conduct of the press and to refer writers to
revolutionary courts. The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance protested
this move and insisted that, “it is necessary to deal with press violations
according to the law and in ordinary courts and with the presence of a jury.”
Freedom
of expression was restricted in other ways. In November 1997, after Grand
Ayatollah Montazeri had delivered a lecture in Qom criticizing Ayatollah
Khamene’i’s interpretation of the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih (Rule of the Supreme
Jurist), on which the position of the leader of the Islamic Republic rests,
Hezbollahi ransacked his residence. Throughout the year, Grand Ayatollah
Montazeri, the former designated successor to the late Ayatollah Khomeini as
leader, was subjected to house arrest and banned from teaching and commenting
on public affairs. In February, a special court for the clergy ordered the
freezing of assets controlled by Ayatollah Montazeri assets, including funds
received in tithes from Shi’ites in Iran and throughout the world. Scores of
his relatives and supporters were imprisoned for their views. For example, in
December 1997, the leader of the Iran Freedom Movement, Ebrahim Yazdi, was
detained for eleven days, apparently for his role in organizing support for a public
letter, signed by fifty-five people, protesting the restrictions placed on
Ayatollah Montazeri. In April, about forty bazaar shopkeepers and teachers were
detained for leading protests against the restrictions on Ayatollah Montazeri
in his home town of Najafabad in central Iran. Ayatollah Montazeri’s
son-in-law, Hadi Hashemi wasdetained in May and held incommunicado. Mohammad
Movahedi Savoji, the son of a member of parliament, was also arrested in May
and condemned to twenty months imprisonment in September for speaking out
against the harsh treatment of Ayatollah Montazeri.
In
June, independent legal scholar Hojatoleslam Mohssen Saeidzadeh was detained,
apparently because of his public criticism of the status of women in family
law. He was not able to challenge the legal basis for his detention before a
court and he was denied access to his lawyer, he remained in custody at the
time of writing.
Opposition
views outside the differing factions of the clerical leadership, including
those of political parties like the Freedom Movement and the Iran’s Nation
Party, continued to be denied expression. Opposition publications were banned
and their meetings were frequently attacked by vigilantes. In contrast, the
Ministry of the Interior’s Committee on Political Parties agreed in May to
license the Servants of Construction (Kargozaran Sazandeghi), led by supporters
of clerical leaders associated with economic reform, as a first political
party.
Violent
vigilantes restricted freedom of association and limited political debate
unchecked by the authorities. In November 1997, Hezbollahi disrupted a speech
by the dissident philosopher Abdol-Karim Soroush and caused extensive damage to
student union offices at Amir Kabir university. On the same day, the same mob
beat Hishmotallah Tabazadeh, a radical student leader, for his call for the
leader of the Islamic Republic to be elected by direct suffrage, and for limits
to be placed on the leader’s powers. In March, Hezbollahi broke up a peaceful
demonstration by students in Tehran criticizing the role of the Council of
Guardians in excluding candidates from parliamentary by-elections. In May,
after statements threatening such action by parliamentarians, attackers beat a
speaker and disrupted a conference of surgeons which had criticized a proposed
law to segregate health care along gender lines. Eventually, on September 11,
reacting to the beating of a minister and a vice-president by Hezbollahi...,
President Khatami declared: “The authorities must not dither or show mercy in
dealing with this ugly vengeance against the rule of law and freedom. The law
breakers, who are either ignorant or have a mission, understand no logic but
force.” No action was taken against those responsible for the public attack on
senior government officials.
Women’s
rights were also a battleground in the confrontation between reformers and
social conservatives. In November, reformers achieved some success with the
passage of a law by the parliament allowing judges to award custody of minor
children to the mother in divorce cases if the best interests of the child
would be served by so doing. This was an encouraging moment in a mixed year for
women’s rights in Iran, but a year in which activism for change in the
discriminatory treatment of women, especially in the family, achieved
considerable public prominence.
Conservatives
responded to increased activism for women’s rights by trying to ban it. In
April the parliament passed a bill, yet to become law, making it a crime “to
create division between women and men through defending [women’s] rights
outside the legal and Sharia frameworks.” The proposed law also sought to ban
pictures of unveiled women appearing in the press. Minister of Culture
Mohajerani opposed the bill, but his objections were overruled by the
conservative majority in the parliament. The bill passed a second reading in
parliament in August.
In
a similar vein, the parliament overruled objections from ministers, several
women members of parliament, and the medical profession to pass a bill seeking
to enforce gender separation in the provision of medical care. Many
commentators pointed out the impracticality of the proposed law given the lack
of sufficient women doctors to meet even the minimum medical requirements of
Iran’s women. Some observed that it would require the recruitment and training
of thousands of new women doctors, and male gynecologists objected that they
would be unemployed. The bill was widely viewed as a show of force by
conservative parliamentarians who intended to put an end to efforts to reform
family law. In October, the Council of Guardians sent the bill back to the
parliament without its approval.
Enforcement
of the dress code for women varied with the political climate. Women detained
for failing to cover their hair and to wear a flowing garment hiding the shape
of their bodies were subjected to fines, up to seventy-four lashes or to prison
terms of up to three months. Detentions increased during May, the period of
Moharram , associated with mourning and increased piety in Shi’a Islam.
Celebrations following the Iranian national soccer team’s qualification for the
soccer World Cup in France in June were characterized by public mixing between
the sexes and open flouting of the dress code.
Defending Human Rights
No independent domestic human rights monitoring organizations were permitted to
operate and individual advocates were subjected to threats, intimidation, and
arbitrary imprisonment. Human rights organizations with links to the
government, like the Islamic Human Rights Commission, issued mild statements
critical of some aspects of domestic human rights conditions, and gave the
false impression that Iran tolerated human rights activists. Human Rights Watch
and other independent international organizations were denied permission to
visit the country.
In
September former deputy prime minister Abbas Amir Entezam was imprisoned after
he made statements criticizing torture and ill-treatment of prisoners. His
remarks were prompted by the assassination, claimed by the armed opposition
group, the People’s Mojahedine Organization of Iran, of the former head of
Iran’s Prisons’ Organization, Assadollah Lajevardi, who presided over mass
executions and widespread torture during his tenure of office. Entezam had been
released conditionally from a life prison term, but the official reason for his
reimprisonment was not announced. He was not permitted to have access to his
lawyer.
United Nations
The government continued to deny access to the U.N. special representative on
Iran, Maurice Copithorne of Canada. In his report to the U.N. Commission on
Human Rights in April, Copithorne stated that “the situation is continuing to
worsen...the new government must recognize the importanceand urgency of
reversing the present trend.” He emphasized the high number of executions in
the report, but acknowledged governmental efforts to ease censorship. A
resolution passed by the commission in April expressed its concern that “human
rights continue to be violated in Iran.”
A
slightly different tone was struck by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
Mary Robinson, who visited Tehran in March during a regional governmental human
rights conference, which Human Rights Watch was denied permission to attend.
Although her scheduled meeting with President Khatami was canceled, the high
commissioner observed that she found “certain trends that are encouraging” and
noted that “the debate about human rights is developing in Iran.”
European
Union
The Iranian government dissociated itself from the reward offered by an Iranian
foundation for the killing of the British novelist Salman Rushdie, clearing the
way for the resumption of full diplomatic relations between Iran and the U.K.
Despite continuing threats against the novelist from parliamentarians and
conservative leaders, E.U. relations with Iran warmed throughout the year. E.U.
ambassadors withdrawn in protest over the Mykonos restaurant killings in
Germany (s ee Human Rights Watch World Report 1998) returned to Tehran in
November 1997. In January, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said that
isolating Iran is not the right response because, “isolating Iran politically
won’t help the advocates of change there... [and] isolating Iran economically
won’t hit the target we want: Iran’s attempts to acquire weapons of mass
destruction.” In February the E.U. abandoned its ban on ministerial level
contacts with Iran. In announcing the resumption of official dialogue E.U.
ministers called on the Iranian government to address concerns in a number of
areas, including human rights and the situation of Salman Rushdie. Germany had
special concerns about German national Helmut Hofer, condemned to death for
illicit sexual relations with a Muslim woman. In July, Italian Prime Minister
Romano Prodi became the highest level western official to visit Tehran in six
years. European governments continued to object to U.S. law calling for
sanctions against non-United States companies involved in sizeable investment
activities in Iran. In May, overriding objections from some members of
congress, the Clinton Administration waived sanctions against Total of France
and two other energy companies which have invested in the capital starved
Iranian energy sector, apparently wishing to avoid an open breach with the E.U.
over the issue.
United
States
While not reaching the levels of normalization achieved between Europe and the
Iranian government, official U.S. rhetoric towards Iran also mellowed
throughout the year, although sanctions prohibiting trade with Iran remained in
place. The thrust of U.S. policy towards Iran did not emphasize human rights in
Iran; rather Iran’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and its alleged
sponsorship of international terrorism were cited as the primary U.S. concerns.
U.S. leaders, including President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright, made
public statements to invite the Iranian government to begin an official
dialogue with the U.S. on issues of concern — a request the Iranian side
declined to take up. The Congress was decidedly more hostile to Iran than the
administration, appropriating funds intended to destabilise the Iranian
government, and passing resolutions condemning Iran’s policies. In May, the
State Department listed Iran among state’s sponsoring terrorism, including in
its list of “terrorist acts” attacks on supporters of armed opposition groups
living in northern Iraq. Nevertheless, the State Department also included the
armed opposition group, the People’s Mojahedine Organization of Iran on its
list of “terrorist organizations.”
