Iran Pressured to Open Doors to U.N. Rights Investigators

GENEVA, Jun 11 (IPS) - The Iranian government rejected charges that it has violated human rights and freedom of speech and assembly before a session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva Thursday - the same day that the Iranian opposition’s request to hold a peaceful protest was denied by authorities.

Although Tehran insists there is a standing invitation for U.N. special human rights rapporteurs to visit, none have gained access to the country since 2005. ”We would like see the Iranians actually follow through with concrete action on their commitment to allow special rapporteurs, as well as the [U.N.] high commissioner’s office, to enter Iran and do full investigations of the human rights situation,” Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, the U.S. representative to the Council, told IPS.“Claiming that they are open to it is one thing,” she said. “We want to see actual results that convey the sincerity of this statement, and today we see no actions that prove the truth of that intention.”

In its official reply, the Iranian delegation welcomed visits by the special rapporteurs in “due course”, without specifying any time frame.

At the Council’s periodic review, the United States, Britain and Norway explicitly criticised Iran, while strategic partners or neighbours - such as China, Kuwait, Pakistan, Venezuela and Cuba – defended Tehran’s human rights record.

One Western diplomat told IPS on the condition of anonymity that the Iranian government had made extensive effort to enlist allies to sign up for the 12 slots allocated to official government speakers, and this had been a serious struggle.

Addressing allegations of torture, particularly following last year’s post-election crackdown, the Iranian delegation asserted that, “Islam is against all forms of torture and the Iran’s constitution forbids it in the strongest terms. Torture is strongly prohibited by the Constitution and other laws of the Country. Torture is a punishable criminal offence and the perpetrator is severely punished.”

“Death sentences are only issued for the most serious crimes and none of the international instruments totally reject them and countries may choose to use capital punishment,” it said in response to charges that political dissidents had been executed after trials utterly lacking in basic protections of due process.

As at previous Council sessions, delegation members complained that criticisms were politically motivated.

“Many of the human rights criticisms directed at Iran are made and produced by Iran’s enemies,” Fatemeh Alia, a conservative member of the Iranian Parliament and a member of the Iranian delegation, told IPS. “If there are any cases, report them to us and we will follow up.”

Iran’s representative at the Council, Javad Larijani, at one point characterised Iran as one of the strongest democracies in the region – a statement that provoked laughter among some audience members.

In the middle of his speech, one member of the audience shouted, “Mr. Larijani, you are lying”, and was escorted outside by the police.

The delegation also defended the situation of “freedom of expression and assembly” and said that this is “guaranteed” in Iran. “Annually, numerous political and trade unions assemblies and meetings are being held,” Iran’s response said.

Ebrahim Mehrati, who was detained during the post-election unrest, severely abused and raped by a baton, was among those who challenged the Islamic Republic’s narrative at a side event in Geneva.

“My friends and I, who have experienced prison in the Islamic Republic and were present at the session yesterday or watched its live web cast, felt so much pain, sadness, and disgust at this inhumane cover-up of truth,” Mehtari told IPS on Friday. “Just search for words such as rape, torture, and repression on the Internet, the truth shines like daylight.”

Ten non-governmental organisations - seven of them critical and three in support of the government - also presented their cases. A member of the official Iranian delegation shook hands and thanked the Iranian NGO representatives after their presentation.

“The Iranian delegation’s performance and description of the situation in the country at the Human Rights Council on Thursday served to mislead the international community about the realities on the ground,” Dokhi Fassihian, executive director of the Democracy Coalition Project, told IPS. Her group was among those that addressed the Council.

“The fact that the Iranian government will not allow independent U.N. human rights monitors in the country - at the request of the international community – proves they have something to hide,” she said.

“Javad Larijani’s attempt to bypass discussion of Iran’s serious human rights crisis and particularly his claim that no one is tortured in Iran is contradicted by so many testimonies of victims,” Hadi Ghaemi, spokesperson for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, told IPS.

“Just during the past few days, several more human rights defenders have been detained, including Narges Mohammadi, a close aide to [Nobel prize-winning attorney] Shirin Ebadi,” he said.

“Furthermore, coerced confessions, taken under duress, continue to be broadcast on Iranian TV on a daily basis,” Ghaemi added. (END/2010)

June 17, 2010     2 Comments

Anniversary Preview: Tehran Gets the Jitters

June 10, 2010 | 10:29pm, the Daily Beast
Tension is building in Tehran ahead of Saturday’s anniversary of the Iranian protests. Omid Memarian talks to people in the Iranian capital.

In advance of the one-year anniversary of Iran’s disputed elections on Saturday, the government has sent security forces into the streets of Tehran to prevent another popular uprising. Already, plainclothes police and students have clashed violently, and the government has warned against further protest rallies. Confrontations with women over how to dress, and the execution of five dissidents last month have contributed to tensions in the capital.

When students gathered at the Azad University recently, chanting slogans such as “death to the dictator,” and protesting recent arrests, plainclothes officers swiftly cracked down on the demonstrators, who were beaten, according to reports by people who were there.

“It seems that as we get closer to the anniversary of last year’s elections… confrontations and threats intensify.”
A few days later, the police commander of greater Tehran, General Hossein Sajedinia, told an official news agency that police forces would not hesitate to confront illegal demonstrations.
“The government is ready for a crackdown,” a journalist in Tehran told The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity, noting that police are now omnipresent in the city. He added that, as a result, residents are visibly nervous. “Everyone is asking each other whether there will be demonstrations.”

This week, the government turned down formal requests for demonstration permits by Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, both candidates in last year’s elections, despite promises that there would be no speeches or statements made at the rally. On Thursday, fearing a brutal crackdown on what would be an “illegal” protest, the opposition leaders called for people to stay home this weekend.
“Given the horrible atrocities that took place over the past year …we are asking people to save lives and property, to seek their demands through less costly means,” the opposition leaders said in a statement.
“I think it’s obvious why the authorities do not wish to issue the permit,” Mehdi Karroubi’s son and spokesman, Hossein, told The Daily Beast. The government can only mobilize between 200,000 and 300,000 people as counterdemonstrators, and election protesters in Tehran would number in the millions, if a permit was issued, Hossein Karroubi said.
Last year, after elections that were roundly criticized for being fraudulent, millions of people protested in the streets, leading to a brutal government crackdown that left at least 48 people dead, hundreds injured, and thousands detained. Hundreds of those arrested received severe prison sentences for participating in the street protests.
Previously, the government has arrested journalists, expelled foreign reporters, closed down newspapers, interfered with Internet service, and disrupted cellphone services to control the free flow of information, and people fear that the government will resort to similar tactics around the anniversary of the elections this weekend.
“It seems that as we get closer to the anniversary of last year’s elections… confrontations and threats intensify,” said Faezeh Hashemi, a former member of the parliament and daughter of former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, according to the reformist website JARAS. “Instead of spending so much force, money, resources, energy and the country’s very reputation on suppression,” she said, the government should “accept some of the proposed solutions for getting out of the existing situation.”

Given the government crackdown, people are expressing reluctance about taking part in any demonstrations over the weekend. A 24-year-old university student in Tehran told The Daily Beast by telephone that many students are having second thoughts about participating in protests.

“The street protests can no longer be justified, because when we participate in protests, we run the risk of never returning home, or going to prison,” said the student, who preferred to remain anonymous. “This is a very high price to pay.”

Saba Vasefi, a women’s rights activist, said Iranians have other concerns, such as economic hardship, that may trump the issue of political freedom. “I believe the masses aren’t prepared to pay [the price when] they can’t imagine a clear outcome.”

Omid Memarian is columnist whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and other publications. He was a World Peace Fellow at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 2007-2009 and the 2005 recipient of the Human Rights Defender Award, the highest honor bestowed by Human Rights Watch.

June 10, 2010     1 Comment

Iran’s Hanging Judge

Jun 9 2010, Institute for War and Peace Reporting- Abolghasem Salavat, dubbed “Judge of Death”, and two colleagues have presided over most political trials since last year’s unrest.A decision to show clemency to 81 of the people detained in the unrest that followed last year’s presidential election in Iran has once again shone the spotlight on the country’s judicial and penal systems.

On June 2, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved a recommendation by the head of the judiciary. Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, to release some of the 81 under amnesty and reduce the sentences of the rest.None of those eligible has been named, but most had been convicted by Iran’s Revolutionary Court system, which is separate from the civil judiciary and are tasked with dealing with threats to the the Islamic regime and the constitutional order. As such, they led the way in trying people detained in the wave of arrests that followed protests sparked by last summer’s presidential election.

Within the Revolutionary Courts, three judges – Abolghasem Salavati, Mohammad Moghiseh and Pir-Abbasi – stand out for their role in presiding over joint and individual trials involving hundreds of defendants.

Although some of these trials were held in public, the three judges remain shadowy figures. It is unclear what their legal backgrounds are, or how they came to be appointed. There are no pictures of Moghiseh or Pir-Abbasi, and they do not appear at public events. Pir-Abbasi’s first name is not even known.

A human rights lawyer in Tehran, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “What they have in common is that they impose sentences that do not correspond with the crime committed; they ignore the defence case put by defendants and their lawyers; they approve indictments that have no legal basis; they are unfamiliar with the law and legal matters; and they undeniably come out with erroneous rulings.”

Salavati is somewhat better known than his two colleagues. Millions of people remember his face from televised trials where he sat in judgement over hundreds of defendants.

At least 12 death sentences are believed to have been passed against alleged participants in the protests that followed the June 2009 re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, and Salavati was responsible for half of these, winning him the grim nickname “Judge of Death”.

Salavati is rumoured to have acquired his post as head of Revolution Court branch thanks to the backing of former intelligence minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei.

His name first became publicly known in December 2006 when he passed death sentences against two defendants for the 2005 murder of Hassan Ahmadi Moghadas, deputy chief prosecutor for Tehran and himself a Revolutionary Court judge, who headed the same branch that Salavati later took charge of.

Moghadas also presided over countless trials of dissidents and journalists, including that of prominent investigative journalist Akbar Ganji whom he sentenced to 15 years in jail.

In January 2009 Salavati found four people guilty of colluding with the United States government against Iran for working on an HIV/AIDS prevention programme. Arash and Kamyar Alayi, brothers who were both doctors, got six- and three-year sentences, respectively, while Silva Haratounian and Mohammad Ehsani received three-year terms.

The Alayi brothers’ “crime” seems to have been to participate in a seminar held by the non-government Aspen Institute in Washington.

Salavati was unmoved by the defence argument that they were not working with the American government. No evidence was produced in court to support the prosecution case, and the judge simply based his decision on the indictment document submitted by Iran’s intelligence ministry.

The indictment, posted on the internet by the International Campaign For Human Rights in Iran, amounts to little more than a confused story of alleged US interference in Iran, rather than specific factual evidence.

Salavati seems to have proved his credentials with this case. His judicial backing for the intelligence agency’s pursuit of alleged dissidents made him the ideal candidate to take a leading role in the post-election trials of 2009, the biggest political cases in two decades.

In that role, Salavati sat in judgement over some of Iran’s most prominent political figures such as one-time vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former deputy speaker of parliament Behzad Nabavi; former government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh and a number of others from government and parliament.

Human rights groups called for Salavati to be suspended from his post because of the unswervingly harsh verdicts he issued based on thin evidence.

When the first hearings of 100 detainees were heard, Salavati read out an indictment similar in style to the one used in the Alayi trial. The defendants were accused of various misdeeds, very few of which constitute a crime under the law.

Despite the paucity of evidence, Salavati passed sentences of up to 15 years in prison and ordered the death penalty for two alleged protestors, Arash Rahmanipour and Mohammad Ali Zamani. Both men were arrested months before the June presidential election.

Rahmanipour’s lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that both the trial and the investigation that preceded it were deeply flawed.

“He told me that during two interrogation sessions, his sister was brought into the room and seated opposite him. He was then told that if he wanted her to go free, he must confess to whatever he was told,” she said. “I was Arash’s lawyer, but I was never allowed to participate in his trial. I insisted to be allowed to attend a trial session in August [2009] but security officers threatened to arrest me and confiscated my lawyer’s license, which they returned to me only later.”

Sotoudeh said she was shocked that the two convicted men were executed in secret, and their families and lawyers informed only after the fact.

Another controversial case was heard following the December 2009 protests over the election result, which coincided with the Shia holy day Ashura.

Salavati sentenced 20-year-old student Mohammad Amin Valian to death on a single piece of evidence – the defendant’s own confession that he threw three rocks during the unrest.

The extreme nature of the sentence led to an outcry from international and domestic human rights groups. On appeal, the death penalty was commuted to a three-year prison term, a decision which lends weight to the argument that the original judge, Salavati, was swayed more by political than judicial interests.

Another defendant convicted by Salavati, and released once he had served his term, said the judge seemed a little vague on the detail of charges, which in his case involved alleged contact with foreign organisations and meetings with political figures abroad.

“When I asked what foreign organisation and which individuals [I met], he couldn’t even name them. I was accused of a range of charges but my entire court hearing lasted no more than eight minutes,” said the former prisoner, who did not want to be named. “From the nature of the court proceedings, you could tell the judge had already made up his mind. My appearance there with a lawyer was merely to uphold the pretence of due process.”

Lawyers involved in such political cases believe Salavati merely signs off on the indictments brought by the intelligence agency, and agrees to the sentences they request.

“In none of these cases has there been enough evidence to justify even holding my clients in custody,” said one lawyer. “No judge with any dignity would confirm such verdicts.”

The decision to show clemency to 81 prisoners comes just ahead of the first anniversary of the disputed presidential election. It is clearly an attempt to show the Supreme Leader has a merciful side, in contrast to the harshness shown by judges like Salavati who in the space of about three months, presided over questionable trials and severe sentences including numerous applications of the death penalty.

Omid Memarian is an Iranian journalist and blogger based in San Francisco.

June 9, 2010     1 Comment

Divisions Sharpen as Iran Girds for Renewed Protests

BERKELEY, California, Jun 7, 2010 (IPS) - A week before the first anniversary of Iran’s contested presidential elections, the disruption of a speech by the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini during a memorial service for the founder of the Islamic Republic on Jun. 4 has once more publicly exposed the rift within the top level of Iran’s leadership.

According to the government, two million Basij militia members and supporters from all over the country were mobilised to come to Tehran to participate in last week’s ceremonies marking the 21st anniversary of Khomeini’s death.

However, many believe the rallies were in fact intended to intimidate the opposition protesters expected to take to the streets on Jun. 12, a year after the polls in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner and the government waged a bloody crackdown in which hundreds were arrested and jailed.

Though the militia’s presence must have been organised and approved beforehand, the unprecedented heckling of a well- known public figure seems to indicate that the divisions among various factions of the Islamic Republic’s rulers is intensifying.

According to the schedule, the Friday Prayers event was to feature three prominent speakers - President Ahmadinejad, followed by Hassan Khomeini, the Ayatollah’s grandson, followed by current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But Ahmadinejad took too long to finish his speech, and at the end he announced the next speaker to be the Supreme Leader, “omitting” Hassan Khomeini from the speakers list.

When Hassan Khomeini took the podium anyway, a group of radical pro-government men began to loudly heckle him, reportedly shouting “Death to Mousavi” – a reference to a leader of the so-called Green opposition movement and a candidate in the 2009 elections – forcing Khomeini to cut his speech short.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei then implicitly attacked Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi – the other major opposition candidate - at one point comparing the men, who publicly support the late Imam Khomeini, to two followers of the Prophet Mohammad who ended up opposing him during the rule of Imam Ali.

Mousavi quickly issued a statement explicitly criticising the Supreme Leader’s comments, and charging that the whole incident was orchestrated to purge Hassan Khomeini from Iran’s political scene.

“This behaviour demonstrates that radicals continue to have the last word inside the Iranian regime,” Alireza Eshraghi, editor of the Iran programme at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, told IPS.

“Ayatollah Khamenei is sure about his control over the situation and… and he is unwilling to compromise even with the moderates, a reason why his approach is that ‘you are either with me or not’,” he said.

Three prominent and high-ranking clerical leaders, Ayatollah Sanei, Ayatollah Mousavi Ardabili, and Ayatollah Bayat Zanjani, all of whom have positions close to those of the reformists, also condemned the disruption and accused the government of being behind the incident.

Ayatollah Sanei said that authorities, particularly the president, have become “incapable of solving the country’s social, economic, political, and international problems, so they do these actions as a way to divert public attention.”

Ali Motahari, a conservative Member of Parliament, wrote in a piece published on the conservative website Bazab that Ahmadinejad had a pivotal role in what took place on Jun. 4. He also said that if Iran’s judiciary had charged and tried the “2009 sedition elements”, which according to him are Mousavi, Karroubi, and Ahmadinejad himself, the events of last Friday could have been avoided.

“Ahmadinejad is like a spoiled child who is rewarded for his constant abuse of others,” he said.

Motahari’s remarks drew an immediate backlash from conservatives in Parliament.

“Considering Ali Motahari’s positions, so far 50 MPs have asked in a letter to the Arbitration Council of the Fundamentalist Faction to expel him from the Faction,” said Mahmoud Ahmadi Bighash, a conservative MP, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency, IRNA.

On Sunday, Ali Larijani, speaker of the Iranian Parliament, threatened to report violations of the legislated budget by Ahmadinejad’s cabinet to the public and to other Parliamentary members.

A feud has been brewing between Larijani and Ahmadinejad since the president claimed that the Parliament had passed bills in violation of the country’s Sharia laws a few weeks ago.

“So far, the Parliament has passed more than 130 laws which are against the Sharia and against the Constitution,” Ahmadinejad said in a meeting with the Article 90 Commission of the Iranian Parliament.

Alireza Haghighi, a political analyst in Toronto, told IPS that over the past three decades, the Iranian government has cracked down with increasing severity against its opponents, with the result that it is now upsetting the Islamic Republic’s establishment.

“Ali Larijani’s critics represent the established clergy against Ahmadinejad and the pressure will increase this year,” he said.

Reports out of Tehran indicate that a heavy police presence is tangible in the city on the threshold of the election anniversary. Many young people have been questioned and even arrested for what police call “poor hijab”, the modest dress code mandated under Iranian law.

Several students also told IPS that over the past few days, access to Google and Gmail has been frequently blocked at their universities, and that internet speeds are severely reduced at certain times of day.

“The Iranian ruling authorities may be able to control the street protests through guns, but the rifts among the different sections of power structure have turned so severe, they will not be able to hide it anymore,” a Tehran University professor told IPS on the condition of anonymity.

“Ahmadinejad not only faces the widespread opposition of the elite academic class and the civil society, he is facing the ever-increasing opposition of the conservatives,” he said. “The combination of the two will either lead to a weakening of his power or a serious crackdown on the opposition, even the moderate conservatives - both options will bear a heavy cost for the stabilisation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

(END)

June 7, 2010     2 Comments

WSJ: IRAN IS ABUSING THREE MORE AMERICAN HOSTAGES

The Wall Street Journal, April 3 2010- As the three Americans detained in Iran near the end of their eighth month in captivity, it has become increasingly clear that their case, like those of so many other prisoners in Iran, is not legal but political and a matter of human rights.

Since Sarah Shourd, 31, Shane Bauer, 27, and Josh Fattal, 27, were arrested by Iranian authorities who claimed they illegally crossed the border from neighboring Iraq last July, the three Americans have been almost completely cut off from the outside world. Swiss Ambassador Livia Leu Agosti, whose embassy represents U.S. interests in Iran, was able to visit the trio twice, but the last time was in late October. It was not until March 9—more than seven months after their arrests—that the three were permitted to call their families for the first time.The hikers have been held in solitary confinement for a prolonged period. (Sarah still is, her family says, although she is allowed to meet with Josh and Shane at least once a day.) And although Sarah, Shane and Josh have a lawyer, they have not been allowed to meet with him even once, according to their families.

The families do not believe that the three have been physically tortured. That is good news, but torture is not only physical.

Human-rights activists have a name for the isolation, denial of access to attorneys or family members, and mix of intimidation and manipulation that many detainees endure. They call it “white torture,” which does not leave any physical marks on the body but devastates one’s mind and conscience.

We, too, experienced white torture when we were detained in Iran in recent years and accused of crimes against the Islamic state. During interrogations that lasted for several days, we were usually blindfolded and sat facing a wall, as our interrogators fired questions from behind. We had no legal representation during that time; and we were severed from our families—treatment that an intelligence agent later claimed in one of Ms. Saberi’s trials was “natural” in “security” cases like hers. Our lives were threatened, as were those of our families. Mr. Memarian was beaten.

This kind of treatment is not uncommon for political prisoners in Iran. Human-rights organizations fear that both psychological and physical torture have been inflicted upon many of the thousands of journalists, human-rights campaigners, reformist figures, students and other activists that human-rights advocates say were arrested since last June’s disputed presidential election for having exercised their basic human rights.

Like the hikers, we were held in Evin Prison. Like them, we were not criminals, but our captors did not care about reality. They had a plan for us from the beginning and were determined to implement it. They wanted us to say we had connections to foreign governments and agencies and that our presence and work in Iran were part of a plot to undermine the Islamic regime. Although this was not true, under intense pressures and threats, both of us agreed to “confess” to crimes we had not committed and were promised freedom in return.

It is possible that Sarah, Shane and Josh, whom Iranian authorities have accused of espionage, have been under similar pressures to make false confessions.

While the three Americans might have mistakenly crossed into Iran while hiking near the Iran-Iraq border (though even that is not clear), they are not spies. They are simply young travelers fascinated by the beauty and history of the Middle East, and curious to learn about different cultures in the region.

If Iranian authorities had a single piece of evidence that the trio had taken part in espionage or any wrongdoing other than perhaps crossing the border, they certainly would have revealed it by now.

Moreover, if the judiciary had a substantial case against the three Americans, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would not have suggested a prisoner swap last month—a proposal that makes it seem as if Iranian authorities see the three as hostages (never mind that hostage-taking is a clear violation of international law).

Regardless of what Sarah, Shane and Josh are accused of, the treatment they have been given is not at all justified. Yet it is merely one example of the widespread, entrenched methods used with prisoners in Iran.

As Iran seeks a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the international community must hold Tehran accountable for its violations of human rights. If Iran gets elected to this body by secret ballot of the General Assembly in May, it would make a mockery of the council and be a disaster for its legitimacy.

While the Obama administration seeks allies to pressure Iran over its nuclear program, Washington should also push them to unite in preventing Iran’s membership in the UNHRC and in pressing for a special U.N. rapporteur on human rights to Iran. The U.S. and the West have not yet used all their diplomatic channels to hold Tehran responsible for its notorious human-rights record, which encourages Iran to believe it can get away with recklessly violating the basic rights of both Iranians and foreigners.

Mr. Memarian is an Iranian journalist who was detained for 55 days in 2004 and was the recipient of Human Rights Watch’s highest annual award in 2005. Roxana Saberi was working as a freelance journalist in Iran when she was arrested in January 2009. She was released 100 days later and is now writing and speaking out about prisoners of conscience in Iran. Her book Between Two Worlds tells the story of her arrest and captivity in Iran.

April 21, 2010     1 Comment

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