AI Index: MDE 13/09/82
Distr. NS/CO
Introduction
Since the revolution of February 1979 amnesty
International’s concerns in Iran have been executions, cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment of prisoners, lack of fair trials and the detention of
prisoners of conscience (persons imprisoned because of their political or
religious beliefs or by reason of their ethnic origin, sex, colour or language,
who have not used or advocated violence).
Amnesty International has maintained a record of the number of
executions which have been announced by the Iranian authorities and reported
outside Iran. It has also published a report, Law and
Human Rights in the Islamic republic
of Iran (May 1980),
which criticizes the procedures of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts. Although Amnesty International has from time
to time published information about the ill-treatment of prisoners and about
prisoners of conscience, it has been extremely difficult to document these
concerns because of the fears of
prisoners and their families that publicity or any other form of drawing
attention to the treatment of individual prisoners might be harmful to them or
bring about the arrest of relatives.
These fears are shared by Iranians who have been able to leave the
country illegally, but have relatives still in Iran. For this reason amnesty International has
been able to refer to individual cases only when relatives have decided to
accept the risks involved in publicity, or when the prisoner was dead.
Identifying prisoners of conscience amongst the thousands of
people arrested for political reasons in Iran since the revolution has been
very difficult because of the impediments which prevent investigation of
individual cases, because of the imprecision of the charges, even when these
are known, and because of the lack of fair trials which in most cases prevent
Amnesty International from assessing with any accuracy the validity of the
charges.
In spite of these handicaps Amnesty International has built
up what it regards as a reliable body of information about all its concerns in
Iran, based largely on lengthy interviews with Iranians outside Iran, many of
whom have been imprisoned themselves, have avoided imprisonment by living
clandestinely and then leaving Iran illegally, or who have had close relatives
imprisoned and in some instances executed.
The people who agreed to be interviewed by amnesty International include
lawyers, academics, teachers, writers, poets, medical professionals,
architects, engineers and businessmen.
They come from different political groups and in some cases have been
known to Amnesty International for many years, usually as a result of their
opposition and imprisonment at the time of the Shah’s government. Although, for the reasons stated, it is not
possible for Amnesty International to use their names or give the names of
people still in Iran, the organization believes that its assessment of the
situation in Iran is accurate, not least because many of the accounts of imprisonment
from the time of arrest, throughout the period in prison up to release or trial
and possible execution, display strong consistency.
Background to current Amnesty International
concerns in Iran
The Iranian authorities have sometimes stated that the laws
of Islam and of God must prevail in Iran
over human rights standards arrived at by Western dominated human
agencies. Most recently when addressing
a meeting of the Human rights committee in Geneva
on 19 July 1982,
Hojatoleslam Seyyed Hadi Khosroshahi, the Iranian representative, said: “Our
people have decided to remain free, independent and Islamic and not be fooled
by the imperialist myth of human rights…”.
However, Iran
has not since the revolution formally repudiated its obligations as a State
Party to the International Covenant on civil and Political Rights and indeed
had sent a delegation to this meeting to present Iran’s
report on its conformity to the Covenant and to answer the questions of the
Human Rights Committee. Although Hojatoleslam Khosroshahi said that Iran had
not suspended the basic rights and fundamental liberties envisaged in the
Covenant, in the view of Amnesty International the government of Iran has
violated many articles of the Covenant including:
Article 6, which
states that: No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life;
Article 7, which states that: …No one shall be
subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
Article 14, which states that: … everyone shall be
entitled to a fair and public hearing…;
and Article 15, which states that: No one shall be
held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did
not constitute a criminal offence, under national or international law, at the
time when it was committed.
Other articles of the Covenant which have not been respected
by the government of Iran
are those which state the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion;
the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom
of association.
Equally, many of the human rights which have been violated
since the revolution are recognized by the post-revolutionary Constitution of
the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the
General Principles of the Constitution, Article 3 (n) refers to the goal of
“securing the comprehensive rights of all citizens, both women and men, and the
establishment of judicial security for all, as well as the equality of all
before the law”. The following articles
included in the Rights of the People section have particular relevance to
Amnesty International’s concerns.
Article 23 states: “The interrogation of persons
concerning their opinions is forbidden, and no one may be molested or taken to
task simply for holding a certain opinion.”
Article 26 states:" The formation of political
and professional parties, associations, and societies, as well as religious
societies, whether they be Islamic or pertain to one of the recognized
religious minorities is freely permitted on condition that they do not violate
the principle of independence, freedom, national unity, the criteria of Islam,
or the basis of the Islamic Republic. No
one may be prevented from participation in the aforementioned groups, or be
compelled to participate in them.”
Articles 27 states:“Public gatherings and marches may
freely be held, on condition that arms are not carried and that they are not
detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam.
Article 32 states: “No one can be arrested except in
accordance with judgment and the procedure established by law. In the case of arrest, charges and supporting
evidence must be communicated immediately in writing to the prisoner and be
elucidated to him, and a provisional dossier must be forwarded to competent
judicial authorities within a maximum of twenty-four hours so that the
preliminaries to the trial can be completed as swiftly as possible. Punishments for the infringement of these
principles will be determined by law.”
Article 34 states: “It is the indisputable right to
every citizen to seek justice, and everyone may have access to the competent
courts in order to present his case. All
members of the nation have the right of access to such courts, and no one can
be barred from courts to which they have a legal right to recourse.”
Article 35 states: “Both parties to a dispute have
the right in all courts of law to select a lawyer, and if they are unable to do
so, arrangements must be made to provide them with legal counsel.”
Article 36 states: “The passing and execution of
sentence must be performed only by the appropriate court and in accordance with
law.”
Article 37 states: “Innocence is to be presumed, and
no one is to be regarded as guilty unless his guilt has been established by the
competent court.”
Article 38 states: “Any form of torture for the
purpose of extracting confessions or gaining information is forbidden. It is not permissible to compel individuals
to give testimony, make confessions, or swear oaths, and any testimony,
confessions or oath obtained in this fashion is worthless and invalid. Punishments for the infringement of these
principles will be determined by law.”
The section of the Constitution entitled “The judiciary”
contains the following articles:
Article 160: “The Minister of Justice has the
responsibility for all matters concerning the relationship between the
judiciary, on the one hand, and the executive and legislative, on the other
hand. He will be chosen from among the
individuals proposed to the Prime Minister by the Supreme Judicial Council.”
Article 165: “Trials are to be held openly and
members of the public may freely attend, unless the court determines that an
open trial would be contrary to public morality or order, or in the case of
private disputes, both parties request that the hearings should not be open”.
Article 166: “The verdicts of courts must be
accompanied by proofs and include mention of the articles, laws, and principles
in accordance with which they are delivered.”
Article 168: “Political and press offenses will be
tried openly and in the presence of a jury, in courts attached to the Ministry
of Justice. The manner of selection,
qualifications, and powers of the jury, as well as the definition of political
offenses, will be established by law in accordance with Islamic criteria.”
Amnesty International is informed of may instances in which
these articles of the Constitution have not been adhered to.
In a report Law and Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of
Iran, published in May 1980, Amnesty International concluded that “the
guarantees necessary for a fair trial are effectively lacking in cases heard by
the Revolutionary Tribunals.” The
report, which covered the period up to 14 September 197o, analyzed in detail
the role of the Revolutionary Tribunals, special courts set up after the
Revolution. It was based on an Amnesty
International mission which visited Iran from 12 April to 1 May 1979; on a
study of legal procedures followed in some 900 cases about which Amnesty
International had obtained information and on a study of statements attributed
to government or religious spokesmen in the local and foreign press, official
PARS News Agency reports and Iran Radio.
Amnesty International found that defendants were often not
told the exact charges against them; that they were not always allowed to call
defence witnesses; that they were often not permitted to question witnesses
against them; that they were not allowed counsel of their choice; that many
trials were closed to the public; that in practice there was no right of appeal
and no effective presumption that defendants were innocent until proved
guilty. Amnesty International’s recent information
leads it to believe that the criticism made in its report are still valid and
that Iranian citizens enjoy even less protection under the law now than they
did in the period immediately after the revolution. Furthermore, as already mentioned above, in
many cases no trial appear to have been take place at all prior to execution.
For some time after the revolution both Islamic law, as
interpreted by the Revolutionary Tribunals, and the existing codified law were
applied. Although in all the cases which
came to the attention of Amnesty International, including those concerning
political, religious, sexual, drug and alcohol offences, trials took place
before Revolutionary Tribunals, Amnesty International is informed that the
ordinary civil courts continued to deal with some civil cases and some criminal
offences.
In August 1980 a meeting of Revolutionary Judges and
prosecutors took place in Tehran to discuss how, in their view a complete
conversion of the legal system to Islamic law could be effected. A merger of the revolutionary courts with
those civil courts which still existed was expected to follow. Early in 1981 Amnesty International learned
that a new Law of Retaliation or Talion had been drawn up by the Supreme
Judicial Council, approved by the Council of Ministers and was to be submitted
to the Iranian parliament for final approval.
This bill was conceived of as an attempt to codify Islamic law and to
introduce the principle of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. It was
criticized by the Association of Iranian Jurists who urged that the bill “would
foster hate and the spirit of vengeance” and would result in a return to tribal
law, Amnesty International reported instances of its principles being applied.
On 8 July 1981
an Agence France Presse report said that the Iranian parliament had legitimized
the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunals, giving them officially the powers which
they had been exercising de facto since their establishment. Their competence was stated to range from
offences consisting of provoking trouble for political purposes” to “forming or
dealing with networks of corruption.”
On 23 August 1982
Agence France Presse reported an announcement made on Iranian National Radio
that the Supreme Court had abolished all laws predating the Revolution which
did not conform to Islam. The decision
was said to follow a statement by Ayatollah Khomeini in which he decreed that
laws that ran contrary to Islam should be annulled “once and for all”. The Supreme Court was reported as having
ordered all judges and magistrates to halt rulings based on the former laws and
to refer instead to “religious texts or authentic sermons” when pronouncing
their verdicts.
Current Amnesty International Concerns in Iran
Lack of Fair Trial
In spite of the Constitutional guarantees, in none of those
case reported to Amnesty International were “charges and supporting evidence…
communicated immediately in writing to the prisoner”, nor apparently was “a
provisional dossier … forwarded to the competent judicial authorities within a
maximum of twenty-four hours”. On the
contrary, arrests appeared to take place quite arbitrarily and people remained
in prison for very long periods of time without knowing the offence with which
they were charged. One released prisoner
interviewed by Amnesty International had spent a year in prison and was only
informed of the charges against him 11 months after his arrest and one month
before his w trial and release. He spoke
of another prisoner who was asked by the prison authorities why he was in
prison and was unable to enlighten them.
This man was still in prison when Amnesty International’s informant was
released. Amnesty International has been
told of may instances of relatives being arrested as hostages when the person
sought by the authorities could not be found.
In one account given to Amnesty International four relatives and four
friends were arrested, including an elderly mother-in-law, who was first held
for 20 days then released only to be arrested again several months later, at
which time she was held for three weeks before being released because of a
heart attack. Of these eight people who
were arrested as hostages, four have been released and four were still in
prison over one year later.
Iranian lawyers have informed Amnesty International of their
attempts to defend clients tried in the Islamic Revolutionary Courts, but in no
case were they allowed to do so. In none
of the cases coming to Amnesty International’s attention were the defendants
given the opportunity to appeal to a higher court, although the right of appeal
exists in theory.
In most cases known to Amnesty International people
sentenced to death have been executed almost immediately after the passing of
sentence, thus allowing no time for an appeal.
Executions
In many cases executions appear to have taken place without
any trial at all, but even in those cases where trials have occurred they
appear to have been summary. Amnesty
International was told of an instance of this which occurred in Iranian
Kurdistan very shortly after the revolution in March 1979. The informant was one of 180 defendants in a
trial which took place in a barn. The presiding
judge was Ayatollah Khalkhali and at the end of the trial which lasted 2 1/2
hours he sentenced 27 of the 180 defendants to death. They were executed shortly afterwards.
Among those executed in June 1981, after the departure form
power of President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, was Said Soltanpour, a left-wing poet
and playwright who was adopted by amnesty International when he was imprisoned
for opposition to the Shah. His is one
of many cases in which Amnesty International has been unable to ascertain if
any form of trial took place before execution.
In December 1981 the execution took place of Shokrolah Pakenjad,
Secretary General of the Association of Former Political Prisoners and one of
the founders of the National democratic Front which was established after the
revolution with the avowed aim of protecting democratic freedoms and rights in Iran. His execution was not announced by the
authorities until January 1982, following a request by amnesty International
for information about him. Again it is
not known whether he had a trial.
Repeatedly Amnesty International has been told of relatives
only learning of executions some time after they have taken place and of having
been unable to find out whether or not the execution was preceded by a trial.
On informant spoke about the execution of his wife, whom he
described as a sympathizer with the Mujahideen.
He learned of her execution when it was announced on television and
reported in the press, two days after it
had taken place. When the family tried
to reclaim her body, they were informed that she had already been buried. In other cases prisoners have been executed
after having been sentenced initially to a term of imprisonment, without any
indication of additional legal proceedings having been brought against them.
On 26 July 1981
the execution was announced of Mohammed Reza Sa’adati, leader of the Mujahideen
who had previously been sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. On 10
February 1982 the parents of Omid Gharib a former student in France,
were informed that he had been executed two days earlier. He had been arrested on 9 June 1980, after the interception of a letter he
wrote to a friend in France
in which he described the situation in Iran,
and sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment on charges which reportedly included
“being Westernized” and “smoking Winston cigarettes”.
Immediately after the Revolution those executed were for the
most part supporters of the Shah, although executions for sexual and drug
offence and common crimes also took place.
During 1980 and the first half of 1981 executions were reported for
alleged plots against the government, drug-smuggling and selling, espionage,
collaboration with the Iraqi forces sexual offences, support of the Kurdish
Democratic Party, murder and robbery.
Baha’is and Jews were executed, usually on charges of espionage
apparently based on the connections members of these religions have with Israel
(Baha’i world headquarters are in Israel). Since the revolution more than 100 Baha’is
have been executed. Amnesty
International knows of no evidence to support the charges of espionage. Executions for all these offences have
continued, but during the second half of 1981 and 1982 most of those executed
were members of organizations actively opposed to the authorities, most of whom
had also been in opposition at the time of the Shah and had been among the most
fervent early supporters of the revolution.
Following the political disturbances which occurred after
the departure of President Bani-Sadr, hundred of executions took place within a
very short time. Of the 2,616 executions
known to Amnesty International which took place in 1981, 2,444 happened after
20 June. From the reports Amnesty
International received at the time and subsequently it seems very likely that
many of these executions took place without trial or at best after a summary
trial. The sharp increase in executions
from June 1981 was accompanied by growing conflict between supporters of the
ruling Islamic Republican Party and its opponents, including organizations such
as the Mujahideen-e-Khalq. Many
government ministers and officials have been assassinated. The opposition has claimed that their deaths
were in retaliation for executions.
In many cases reported to Amnesty International those
executed had not been involved in violence.
Apart from the example already given of people who were in prison before
the events of June 1981, one former prisoner told Amnesty International that
Qasem Golsham, whose execution for making trouble in the streets” was reported
in the Tehran Times, 24 June 1981, had in fact been a fellow prisoner for the
six months prior to his execution and could not, therefore, have been involved
in the demonstrations or clashes of June 1982.
There have been many reports of the execution of children
and pregnant women. The People’s
Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI), in their book At War With Humanity…,
published in May 1982, give the names of 12 pregnant women they say have been
executed. In the same publication they
give the names of 42 people of under 18 years of age who have been executed
since 20 June 1981 and for
some of these they show copies of birth certificates. Other examples of people under 18 who have
been executed have been provided by Iranians from other political groups
interviewed by amnesty International.
Amir Molki, 16 years old, was reportedly arrested for three months
before being executed without trial on 16 September 10981. in another account Amnesty International was
told of the execution of a boy born in 1970 who had been taken to Evin Prison
in June 1981 as a hostage for his father, who was in hiding. According to the account given to Amnesty
International the boy had been rude to Ayatoolah Gilani, the religious judge at
Evin Prison. On 24 June 1981 Ayatollah Gilani was quoted in the
Guardian newspaper as denying that children aged 13 and 14 were among those
executed and saying: “None was less than 17.
But anyhow, on the basis of Islam, a nine-year-old girl is considered
mature. So there is no difference for us
between nine-year-old girl and 40-year-old man, and it does not prohibit us
from issuing any kind of sentence”. On
20 September Assadollah Lajevardi, the Tehran Prosecutor General, reportedly
said: Even if a 12-year-old is found participating in an armed demonstration, he
will be shot. The age doesn’t matter.”
(Times, 21 September 1981). On 7
December the Head of Iran’s Supreme Court, Ayatollah Mossavi Ardibili, told a
press conference that death sentences were not passed on people under 18,
although Islamic law said that people could be sentenced to death from the age
of 16 (Reuter, 7 December 1981).
Amnesty International’s cumulative total, based on published
reports, for people executed since the revolution was 4,568 on 31 August 1982, but this must be
regarded as a minimum figure, because increasingly executions have not been
announced. In July 1982 Amnesty
International was told by an Iranian civil engineer who had left Iran
illegally only a short time before, that when visiting Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery
in Tehran three or four weeks
earlier he had encountered a man looking for the grave of his daughter, after
having been informed of her execution.
He could not find the grave so asked the cemetery officials for his
lists for Wednesday there were 57 names,
for Thursday 84 or 86, but no executions had been reported in the newspapers or
on television for these days.
In other cases tortured prisoners were shown to families so
that the families would persuade the prisoners to confess to avoid further
torture. In many cases Amnesty
International is told that people have died under torture and their deaths have
subsequently been announced as executions.
One man interviewed by Amnesty International had seen the body of his
cousin, said to have been executed, and stated that both shoulders and neck
were broken and his legs were black for the knees to the toes. There was only one bullet wound and the
cousin thought it probable that the death had been caused by torture. Many other similar accounts have been given
to Amnesty International, but it is impossible in any case known to amnesty
International to be certain about the cause of death. In another account Amnesty International to
be certain about the cause of death. In
another account Amnesty International was told of a man who was in an extremely
bad physical condition when he was executed.
His shoulder was said to be broken and his feet to have been whipped so
badly that he could no longer walk. In
January 1982 Amnesty International published a photograph of the foot of a
17-year-old girl, Afsaneh Fajzbi, which
showed clearly injuries consistent with the alleged torture. Amnesty International is informed that the
photographs were taken on 12 October
1981, 17 days after she was said to have been tortured and following
her release from prison. The injuries
were reportedly cause by 200 lashes applied to the feet with steel cables,
truncheons whips. Other photographs seen by Amnesty International showed marks
said to have been made by cigarette burns.
In some cases Amnesty International has been given medical reports which
support the allegations of torture.
In April 1982 doctors from an Amnesty International Medical
Group in Vienna examined a former
Iranian prisoner who alleged that he had been tortured three and a half months previously by Revolutionary
Guards. In a summary of their medical
examination the doctors stated: “Six round scars on the skin of left cubita,
left shoulder, right upper arm and right gluteal region; these lesions are
considered as compatible with cigarette buns several months ago.” The testimonies accumulated by Amnesty
International leave no doubt that torture is being practiced on a large scale
in Iranian Prisons. There does not
always s appear to be a clear distinction between whipping in order to extract
information or a confession and whipping as a form of punishment.
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Prisoners of Conscience
The number of prisoners of conscience is not known to Amnesty
International. In most cases it is
impossible for Amnesty International to establish whether a given prisoner is a
prisoner of conscience: either the person has not been charged; or the charges
are phrase in such general terms that Amnesty International is unable to
ascertain whether they include a specific offence; or the lack of fair trial
makes it difficult to assess the validity of a conviction. However, information reaching Amnesty
International form many different sources leaves no doubt that amount the
thousands of people imprisoned and executed since the revolution have been many
who have not used or advocated violence.
They include people who have expressed their opposition to
the present authorities in their writing and speech or by participating in
demonstration and people who may not themselves have been active in opposition,
but have been arrested because of their relationship or association with active
opponents. One prisoner of conscience is
Abolfazl Ghassemi, one of the leaders of the Iranian National Front and
Secretary General of the Iran Party, who was elected to the Iranian parliament
in the first elections after the revolution.
He was arrested in July 1980, after his parliamentary mandate had been
contested by the Minister of the
Interior, and was eventually charged inter alia with publicizing the view of a
Kurdish theologian, having collaborated with SAVAK (the former National
intelligence and Security Organization).
According to Amnesty International’s information there is no evidence to
support these charges. Abolfazl
Gahssemi’s trial in November 1981 was held in camera an d resulted in a death
sentence, subsequently commuted to life imprisonment because of his age and ill
health
Other prisoners of conscience include members of the Baha’i
religion, the only substantial religious minority not recognized in the Iranian
Constitution, who appear to have been imprisoned and executed for no other
reason than their religious belief. As
mentioned above, they are usually charged with espionage on behalf of Israel,
but Amnesty International knows of no evidence to support this charge.
Nine members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the
Baha’is of Iran and two other Baha’is arrested in August 1980 have not been
heard of since. Other Baha’is have been
arrested, held without chares for some time and then released. A young Baha’i woman interviewed by Dutch
television told of the arrest of her parents in November 1981. she heard that they had been taken from their
house when they were hosting a meeting of Baha’is. Her father was released after one and a half
months, but in January 1982 she heard that her mother had been executed, after
refusing to denounce her faith under torture.
A large part of the population of Iran consist of ethnic and
tribal minorities and from very soon after revolution Amnesty International
received reports of conflict between ethnic and tribal groups and the
authorities, sometimes resulting in imprisonments, executions and killings. Because of the remoteness of the areas in
which most of these groups live it has been even more difficult for Amnesty
International to obtain specific and reliable information about its concerns in
relation to these people.
Reports have been received from the Kurds of arrests,
torture and extra-judicial executions, but in most cases without details. One report described the killing of 18
workers on 14 September 1981
at a brick-laying factory near the village
of Saroughmish. According to the report Revolutionary Guards
arrested the workers put them against a wall and machine-gunned them. Following this they arrested 70 inhabitants
of Saroughmish and took them to Miandouab.
Another report concerns the Turkoman tribes. Amnesty International is informed that some
months after the revolution fighting broke out between government forces and
the Turkomans. A commission of inquiry
comprising members of the human Rights Committee of the Iranian Bar Association
and the Iranian association of Jurists found that the fight had been started by
government forces. Four Turkoman leaders
whose surnames were Toumaj, Makhtoum, Vahedi and Georjani were arrested and
imprisoned in Evin Prison, form where they were kidnapped, taken away and
killed. The then President of Iran,
Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, sent tow missions to discover how the Turkoman leaders
had died and the finding of both missions were that they had been kidnapped and
killed by Revolutionary Guards. From
that time on Amnesty International is informed that the Turkoman area has been
under occupation by the Revolutionary guards; that social and political life
continues to be repressed and that many Turkomans have been arrested an
imprisoned in Georgean.
The Qahqa’i tribe have also been engaged in conflict with
the authorities and on 22 June 1982
the leader of the tribe, Khosrow Qashaqa’i, and nine other leading members of
the tribe were arrested. Khosrow
Qashqa’i was elected to the Iranian Parliament after the revolution as the
member for Fars, but his credentials were not approved
by Parliament. Amnesty International
does not know what charges have been brought against Khosrow Qashqa'i and his
fellow Qashqa’is.
In October 1981 Amnesty International asked Ayatollah
Madavi-Kani, then Prime Minister, to agree to visit of an Amnesty International
delegation to discuss the organization’s concerns with him and other relevant
authorities. In a reply received from
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 22 October the Iranian authorities insisted
that Amnesty International meet certain conditions before they would receive
the organization’s delegation. Amnesty
International stated publicly that it was not its policy to undertake missions
subject to conditions laid down by governments and on 3 November 1981 wrote to
the new Prime Minister, Mr. Hosein Mousavi, explaining the rules of procedure
under which amnesty International missions operated and reiterating Amnesty
International’s wish to discuss its concerns regarding human rights violations
in Iran with him and other government ministers. No response was received to this letter.
