Human Rights Watch World
Report
1997
Human Rights Developments
The upset
victory of Mohammad Khatami, a presidential candidate disfavored by much of the
clerical establishment, changed the nature of the human rights debate in and
about
The
violations of human rights that continued in the months leading up to Khatami's
inauguration on August 3 underlined the challenge facing him in this realm. Executions
after unfair trials proliferated, protesters were arbitrary detained, and
religious minorities, government critics, and independent thinkers were
targeted for persecution. The authorities carried out mass arrests in response
to popular unrest over economic problems in different parts of the country. Elements
within the government continued to tolerate or encourage the activities of
violent religious zealots known as Partisans of the Party of God (Ansar-e
Hezbollah or Hezbollahi), who continued to assault and intimidate writers and
intellectuals, disrupt gatherings critical of government policies and carry out
violent raids on the offices of magazines and newspapers with which they disagreed.
The
challenges facing Khatami were compounded by competition among centers of
political power within the government. While the presidency is accorded
considerable power under the constitution, he is subordinate to leader of the
Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khamene'i. In addition, Khatami's predecessor as
president, Hojatoleslam Rafsanjani, did not withdraw from the political scene. He
was appointed head of the Council for the Determination of Exigencies, a body
with loosely defined power to determine policy "in the best interests of
society." Originally created in 1988 by Ayatollah Khomeini to override
legislative gridlock between the parliament and the Council of Guardians, the
Council for the Determination of Exigencies expanded its powers to take unilateral
action on a number of occasions. In addition to the competition between these
three centers of executive power, the parliament (Majles) and the Council of
Guardians also exercised powers under the constitution.
The
Council of Guardians, an appointed body responsible for upholding Islamic
principles in government policy, vetted candidates wishing to run in the
presidential elections. In all, of the 238 candidates who sought to run, the
council approved only four, all from the country's clerical leadership. The
council is charged, under the constitution, with assessing such factors as a
candidate's wisdom and piety. It is not required to give reasons for excluding
candidates, and those rejected have no right of appeal.
The
constitution requires that the president be a Shi'a Muslim, thereby excluding
the approximately 20 percent of the population who are Sunni Muslims or members
of other religious minorities. Women are also ineligible to run for president.
Khatami's
election campaign was itself disrupted by sometimes violent mobs of religious
conservatives who created disturbances at rallies, shouting down speakers and
beating those in attendance. Moreover, there were reports that hundreds of
election workers were detained by elements within the security forces opposed
to his platform.
The
government repeatedly showed its intolerance of public gatherings critical of
its policies. Following the death in disputed circumstances on December 2, 1996
of a prominent Sunni cleric, Mollah Mohammed Rabi'i, in Kermanshah, the major
city in the
Even
wholly peaceful memorial ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the death of the
first prime minister of the Islamic Republic, Mehdi Bazargan, were banned or
disrupted. On January 31 a Hezbollahi-led group released ammonium chloride gas
in a hall in
On
February 16, riot police broke up a protest by striking refinery workers
outside the Oil Ministry in
On August
14 clashes between demonstrators and police were reported in Neyriz, east of
The
government continued to make prominent announcements of the discovery of plots
and espionage activities directed against it, thus seeking to discredit political
criticism as hostile foreign interference. On January 16 the security forces
announced the arrest of six "spies" in west Azarbaijan province. On
March 3 fifty people were arrested in Orumieh in
All
espionage cases are tried before Revolutionary Courts, in which procedures fall
far short of international standards for a fair trial. Defendants are denied
access to legal counsel and may be held indefinitely incommunicado in pre-trial
detention. Political offenders and accused drug traffickers are also tried
before Revolutionary Courts. Scores of persons convicted for drug trafficking
were executed in 1997, many in public.
Grand
Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the former designated successor to Ayatollah
Khomeini as leader of the Islamic Republic, and several other senior Shi'ite
clerical leaders in
On March
14 the parliament approved a ten-year extension of the Law of Hodoud and
Qissas, originally approved for a five-year trial period. The law provided for
corporal punishments such as lashing and amputation as well as particularly
cruel methods of execution like stoning. In August, the Iranian press reported
that Zoleykhah Kadkhoda, a twenty-year-old woman, survived an attempt to stone
her to death after she was convicted of adultery in Boukan. She was buried in a
ditch from the waist down and pelted with stones, but revived after being
carried unconscious to the morgue. Judicial authorities were deciding whether
to reimpose the penalty on her, according to the press reports.
The
banning of newspapers and magazines critical of the government and the
prosecution of independent writers continued. In January, Karamollah Tavahodi,
a Kurdish writer in
On
February 12, the 15 Khordad Foundation, an organization with close ties to the
clerical leadership, announced an increase to U.S.$2.5 million in the reward
for the murder of the British novelist Salman Rushdie. There was no official
repudiation of this announcement, although President Rafsanjani did stress that
the foundation was "nongovernmental," and that government policy
remained "unchanged." The government did not condemn the threats to
Mr. Rushdie's life stemming from the pronouncement by Ayatollah Khomeini that
he should be killed for insulting Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses .
Faraj
Sarkouhi, the editor of Adineh magazine, was arrested in February on charges of
attempting to leave the country illegally. He was held for months without
access to family members or his lawyer. Controversy surrounded his whereabouts
during the six weeks preceding December 13, 1996, when Sarkouhi was presented
at an unusual press conference at
Cases in
addition to that of Sarkouhi cast a long shadow over the freedom of editors and
writers throughout the year. In January, Professor Ahmad Tafazzoli of
In
February, Ebrahim Zalzadeh, publisher of the independent magazine Mayar,
"disappeared." His body was discovered in the Tehran morgue on March
29. Members of his family accused the authorities of responsibility for his
death. Zalzadeh was one of eight writers and publishers who had offered to
share in the punishment of Abbas Maroufi, editor of Gardoun magazine, who was
sentenced to receive twenty-five lashes in February 1996 for writing an article
critical of the government.
In April,
Mohammad Sadegh Javadi-Hessar, the editor of Tous magazine, was convicted of
"causing public confusion." He was banned from journalism for ten
years and fined the equivalent of U.S. $1,000 for an article critical of higher
education policy.
The
program presented by President Khatami promised a brighter future for freedom
of expression. Ata'ollah Mohajerani, his nominee for the key post of minister
of culture and Islamic guidance, told the Iranian parliament prior to his
confirmation, "I am in favor of cultural tolerance....We must create a
climate in the Islamic Republic in which individuals will be able to express
their views on various issues." He also condemned the activities of the
Ansar-e Hezbollah, stating, "We must ultimately decide whether we are
going to live under a system of law and order or not."
However,
in an indication that writers' problems continued after Khatami's election,
Hezbollahi militants ransacked the offices of Iran-e Farda magazine in August. Although
no action was taken against the perpetrators, the Ministry of Islamic Guidance
issued an unprecedented condemnation of the attack, stating,"This kind of
action will lead to anarchy....All protests against the contents of a
publication must be done through legal channels and in a rational manner."
In September, the editor of Iran News , an English-language daily, Morteza
Firouzi was arrested, following publication of articles advocating the release
of foreign nationals held in Iranian prisons. He remained in detention and was
accused of being a United States spy.
Iran's
constitution provides only qualified commitments to the principle of
non-discrimination on the basis of religion or ethnic identity. In practice,
discrimination is widespread and institutionalized, and, in the case of Baha'is
and evangelical Christians, amounts to outright persecution. In February, death
sentences against Musa Talebi and Zabihollah Mahrami, two Baha'is convicted as
spies by Revolutionary Courts, were approved by the Supreme Court. Allegations
of espionage for Israel were often used by the government as a pretext for
persecuting Baha'is. The headquarters of the Baha'i World Community was
situated in Haifa, in Israel.
The
Martyr Qudusi Judicial Center in Tehran, which handles prosecutions for dress
code violations, issued new guidelines in February providing that women who
wore a "thin or short scarf" or who otherwise violated the
requirement to cover the hair and the back of the neck, would be subjected to
fines, prison terms of up to three months, or up to seventy-four lashes. Security
forces carried out mass arrests of violators of dress and other moral codes. For
example, in December 1996 police in north Tehran announced the arrest of 130
young people who had participated in mixed-gender parties in private houses.
The Right to Monitor
There
were no independent nongovernmental human rights organizations operating inside
the country, although several semi-official organizations published mild
criticism of government policies, indicating a slight opening in the public
human rights debate. The government denied access to all independent
international human rights organizations that applied to conduct field
research, including Human Rights Watch. In June Human Rights Watch asked to
send an observer to attend the trial of Faraj Sarkouhi but this too was denied.
Maurice Copithorne, the U.N. special representative on the human rights
situation in Iran, applied unsuccessfully to visit the country during 1997.
Government
critic Habibullah Peyman was denied permission to attend an International
environmental conference in Germany in February. Abbas Amir-Entezam, a former
deputy prime minister who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1979, continued
to speak out on human rights issues after he was released from prison. His
movements continued to be restricted, and the authorities made clear that
charges of espionage on which he had been convicted still stood. Prominent
philosopher Abdol Karim Soroush, who speaks openly about the need for respect
of basic freedoms, was denied permission to travel to numerous international
conferences to which he had been invited after his return to Iran in April. His
speaking and teaching in Iran was curtailed by threats from Hezbollahi mobs.
The Role of the
International Community
United
Nations
Maurice
Copithorne, the U.N. special representative on the human rights situation in
Iran, submitted his third report to the Commission on Human Rights in April,
concluding that "violations of generally accepted human rights norms are
occurring in Iran and that in some cases, by act of commission or omission, the
government must be responsible for them."
In April,
the commission again condemned Iran for gross and systematic violations of
human rights. The resolution emphasized government involvement in the killing
of dissidents abroad and the continuing threats to the life of Salman Rushdie.
European
Union
The
European Union (E.U.) officially suspended its policy of "critical
dialogue" with the Iranian government in April, following the verdict of a
German court holding "the Iranian political leadership" responsible
for the murder of Sadeq Sharifkandi, the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party
of Iran, an armed opposition group, and three companions in Berlin's Mykonos
restaurant in 1992. While E.U. member states, with the exception of Greece,
withdrew their ambassadors from Tehran, European leaders showed no eagerness to
recast their relations with Tehran over the Mykonos verdict or other human
rights issues.
Human
rights was one area of Iranian policy that the "critical dialogue"
explicitly aimed to improve. But commercial interests remained paramount both
before and after the dialogue was suspended, and there was little evidence of
European initiatives on human rights. German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel made
clear that for Germany there would be "no economic sanctions and no
severing of relations." Following the election of Khatami as president,
the E.U. reportedly initiated discussions with Tehran regarding the possible
return of their ambassadors.
In July,
the French government announced that it would insure a $500 million export loan
provided to Iran by a French bank. In September, the French oil company Total
announced a $2 billion dollar investment, in partnership with a Russian and a
Malaysian firm, in the development of the Iranian offshore gas industry. The
French company had the explicit support of its government and the E.U. in its
decision to invest.
United
States
The U.S.
had no diplomatic relations with Iran, and maintained unilateral sanctions
imposed in 1995 because of what the Clinton administration termed
Iranian policies of "supporting international terrorism,"and
"pursuing the creation of weapons of mass destruction." The Iranian
government continued to deny these accusations.
The E.U.
decision to suspend "critical dialogue" and the election of President
Khatami were conducive to narrowing the gap between U.S. and E.U. policy toward
Iran. While the E.U. signaled displeasure with Iran after the Mykonos verdict,
prominent voices in the U.S. advocated reevaluating its call for multilateral
economic sanctions against Iran in light of evidence that they had won scant
international support and had achieved little in the areas of policy that the
sanctions had been designed to change, including human rights. At the June
summit of the group of eight industrialized countries in Denver, the U.S.,
Russia, Japan, Canada and the major European powers were able to agree on
common language "noting with interest" the election results and the
"constructive role" of Iran in U.N. peace efforts in Tajikistan. These
rare positive comments on Iran were coupled with a call for the Iranian
government, "to respect the human rights of all Iranian citizens and to
renounce the use of terrorism, including against Iranian citizens living
abroad."
In June
in a speech to the National Arab-American Association in Washington, D.C.,
Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch
reiterated the five areas, including "lack of respect for international
standards of human rights," in which the U.S. is demanding progress as a
condition for improved relations. Welch welcomed "the sign that Iran will
permit democratic expression," and noted that the U.S. "will continue
to work with our allies to bring our approaches on Iran closer together." Also
in June, appearing at a press conference with British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, President Clinton referred to Khatami's election as "interesting
and hopeful." On September 30, with reference to the French oil company
Total's decision to lead a multi-billion dollar investment project in Iran
despite U.S. sanctions, State Department spokesperson James Rubin said that
Washington might forego moves to impose penalties on Total if France agreed to
increase pressure on Iran to halt what he referred to as its support of
terrorism and its accumulation of weapons of mass destruction. Many in the U.S.
Congress, however, opposed any relaxation of the U.S. em
The Iran
chapter in the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for
1996 was generally accurate and comprehensive. But throughout the year human
rights took a back seat to other issues in Washington's relations with Iran,
including Iran's opposition to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and
concern that Iran was developing a mid-range ballistic missile capacity.
Relevant
Human Rights Watch reports:
Iran-Religious
and Ethnic Minorities: Discrimination in Law and Practice, 9/97
Iran-Leaving
Human Rights Behind: The Context of the Presidential Elections, 5/97
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