Iran
Factional conflict within
The clampdown on the
independent print media that had followed the sweeping reformist victory in
parliamentary elections in February 2001 (see Human Rights Watch World Report 2001) was followed by the
detention of scores of leading independent and reformist figures and activists.
Many of these activists had participated in the flowering of the independent
press in the late 1990s as writers, editors, and publishers. Other targeted
activists included supporters of the national religious trend, a loose alliance
of intellectuals and politicians advocating Islamic government with adherence
to the rule of law and the constitution, who for many years had been one of the
few currents of internal political opposition tolerated by the establishment.
Seventeen reformist
figures, many of them prominent, were brought to trial in October 2000 in
connection with their participation in an international conference on the
future of
On January 13, the court
convicted seven of the defendants on vague charges of having "conspired to
overthrow the system of the Islamic Republic." The severest sentences, ten
years of imprisonment, were passed on Ak
The court also sentenced
student leader Ali Afshari to five years in prison, and veteran politician
Ezzatollah Sahhabi to four and a half years. Both were already in prison by the
time the trial began in October 2000. Women's rights activists Shahla Lahidji
and Mehrangiz Kar each received four-year prison sentences, but were released
pending an appeal. Ezzatollah Sahhabi was also provisionally released, but he
was re-arrested following public remarks he made in March and was still
detained without charge in November.
An appeal court reduced
Ak
These detentions further
chilled the political climate in the run-up to the June presidential election
as opponents of reform showed themselves determined to intimidate, silence, or
punish those known to support the reformist cause. A leading conservative
cleric, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, stated in April: "what is being termed as
reform today is in fact corruption." And other conservatives sought to
discourage President Khatami, the reform movement's figurehead, from standing
for a second term. When he could not be discouraged, they signaled by their
actions that regardless of the outcome of the election, there would be no
concession to the reformist agenda.
Another persistent
challenger to the dominant orthodoxy of the conservative clerics who held power
was Ayatollah Hossain Ali Montazeri, the former designated successor to
Ayatollah Khomeini as Leader of the Islamic Republic. He remained under house
arrest in Qom, but his criticism of the present system, especially of the
institution of the velayat-e faqih (rule of the supreme jurist),
continued to circulate by cassette tapes, photocopied statements, and through
the Internet. In December 2000, the authorities detained the ayatollah's son
for allegedly distributing illegal literature, but the real reason appeared to
be related to the publication of Ayatollah Montazeri's memoirs on the Internet.
These directly attacked the position of Supreme Leader, arguing that the
concentration of power in the hands of one man was contrary to Islamic
principles. Protests about the continuing restrictions on Ayatollah Montazeri's
liberty mounted throughout the year. In June, the ayatollah's children (with
the exception of his jailed son) circulated a letter calling for the lifting of
these restrictions, and 126 out of 290 members of parliament signed a similar
statement. President Khatami several times publicly criticized the stifling of
dissent, including closures of newspapers and magazines, and the imprisonment
of political dissidents, but he appeared unable or unwilling to remedy these
problems. In February, in a speech marking the Islamic Revolution's
twenty-second anniversary, he warned: "those who claim a monopoly on Islam
and the revolution, those with narrow and dark views, are setting themselves
against the people." He also complained repeatedly that he lacked the
power to carry out his obligation as president to uphold the constitution. But
even after his sweeping election victory in June, when he increased his share
of the popular vote, he continued to shy away from open confrontation with his
opponents and made no discernible progress in implementing his promised
reforms. Increasingly, through his statements, he appeared to represent more of
a safety valve for public frustration than an agent of tangible change.
A severe drought in the
east and floods in the north-west exacerbated the country's economic malaise
and contributed to public scapegoating of Afghan refugees and migrants, who were
blamed for high unemployment and rising crime and were increasingly a target of
violence. Afghans were viewed as particularly culpable for drug offenses, and
thousands were detained and scores executed in an intensified official
clampdown on alleged drug-traffickers. The government repatriated thousands of
other Afghans under a process agreed with the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR), despite insufficient safeguards to prevent those at risk
of persecution being returned. At the same time, there were new influxes of
refugees fleeing continuing unrest and violence in
Law enforcement
authorities made increased use of public executions and corporal punishment,
often after only cursory trial proceedings. In February, five convicted
drug-traffickers were publicly executed by being hanged from construction
cranes in the Khak-i Sefid district of Tehran, part of an intensified clampdown
on drug-traffickers, and the authorities carried out more than twenty public
executions for drug-related offenses in July and August. Public floggings were
also increasingly used for a wide range of social offenses, including breaches
of the dress code, despite opposition from Ministry of Interior officials who
questioned the effectiveness of such punishments. In July and August, clashes
reportedly occurred at public floggings and executions in
In August, the
parliamentary commission charged with investigating human rights violations by
public institutions, known as the Article 90 Commission, produced a report
sharply critical of deteriorating prison conditions. The report itself was not
made public, but members of the commission said it identified the sharp rise in
the number of offenders being sent to prisons as a major cause of prison
overcrowding and the high level of drug abuse among prisoners. More than
two-thirds of all prison inmates were reportedly held for drug-related
offenses, and AIDS and other diseases were reported to be spreading rapidly
among the prison population.
The proliferation of
unofficial, illegal detention centers, such as the so-called Prison 59 in
The independent press,
before it was closed down in mid-2000, had sought to expose the connections
between certain state institutions and the clandestine underworld of death
squads and enforcers. It was the investigative journalism of people such as Ak
In a similarly
unrevealing trial in May, guilty verdicts were announced against the so-called
Mahdaviyat group, a group linked to the authorities, who were convicted of
inciting violence against Sunni Muslims and committing political killings. This
trial, which involved links between state bodies and illegal political
violence, was held behind closed doors. The sentences have not been publicly
announced but its was reported in the press that at
least one of the defendants was sentenced to death.
Earlier, on January 30,
the Supreme Court rejected the appeals against conviction of ten members of the
minority Jewish community in
The conservative
backlash set in motion by the sweeping reformist victory in parliamentary
elections in February 2000 showed no signs of abating. By the end of November
2000, more than fifty daily and weekly newspapers had been issued with closure
orders, and more than twenty leading independent and reform-minded journalists,
editors, and publishers remained in prison. In January 2001, the authorities
closed the philosophical and cultural monthly, Kiyan. The journal had
published academic articles debating the philosophical underpinnings of the
reform movement. The conservative faction also sought to prevent reformists
being elected to the parliament. Before the June parliamentary election, held
concurrently with the presidential vote, the Council of Guardians vetoed 145
out of 356 candidates nominated for the seventeen seats, a far higher
proportion than in February 2000. In a further display of conservative power,
in August, the parliament was forced to accept two candidates nominated by the
judiciary to the Council of Guardians. The parliament initially rejected the
two nominated jurists, Mohssen Ismaili and Abbas Ali Khadkhodai, claiming that
they lacked adequate experience, but the head of the judiciary, an appointee of
the supreme leader, refused to withdraw their names. Eventually, the Council of
Expediency, another body appointed by the supreme leader headed by former
president Hashemi Rafsanjani, crafted a rule change whereby the appointments
were ratified without obtaining majority approval from members of parliament.
A few members of
parliament were willing to confront what they viewed as conservative attempts
to circumvent and undermine their constitutional powers as the people's elected
representatives, and to speak out against violations of constitutional
principles. They included outspoken parliamentarian Fatima Haqiqatjou, who
protested the arrest of journalists and accused the judiciary of exceeding its
constitutional functions. Her criticisms made her the target of criminal
prosecution, and in August she was sentenced to twenty-two months in prison for
"spreading propaganda against Islam" and insulting state officials. Haqiqatjou
appealed her conviction, denying the charges and also claiming parliamentary
immunity for comments made in the course of parliamentary debate. She remained
at liberty pending her appeal. However, seven other reformist parliamentarians
were facing charges for remarks they had made under the cover of parliamentary
immunity, part of a growing struggle between conservative elements of the
judiciary and reformist members of parliament.
Despite the silencing of
the independent press, the debate about human rights remained at the center of
the political struggle in
Hassan Youssefi
Eshkevari, who was detained in August 2000 for advocating liberal
interpretations of Islam supportive of international human rights principles,
continued to be imprisoned. He had been convicted of apostasy in a secret trial
by a
Access to the country
for independent human rights investigators remained restricted, although
representatives of international human rights organizations were allowed to
visit
In May, the
THE ROLE OF THE
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
United Nations
Iran played an active
role in multilateral diplomatic efforts in the human rights field, hosting, in
February, the Asian regional preparatory conference for the United Nations
World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related
Intolerance (WCAR) and entering into negotiations with the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights over a program of technical assistance
in the human rights field. In April, the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights renewed the mandate of the special representative on
European Union
Relations with the E.U.
continued to improve. British government minister Marjorie Mowlam visited Iran
in February: she praised the government's efforts to combat drug-trafficking
but criticized continuing human rights violations including the clampdown on
journalists and the press. In September, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi met
with E.U. commissioners for wide-ranging talks. Human rights concerns were
again reported to be part of the agenda, but the major emphasis was on
expanding trade ties.
British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw visited
Contrary to some initial
expectations, oil industry interests closely associated with the new Bush
administration brought no discernible shift in
In April, the Iranian
parliament convened an international conference in support of the Palestinian
uprising against Israeli occupation, which was attended by representatives of
numerous groups on the
In this climate of
increasing rhetorical antagonism against
If the