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Scores of political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience,
continued to serve prison sentences imposed following unfair trials in previous
years. Hundreds more were arrested in 2005, mostly in connection with civil
unrest in areas with large minority populations. Internet journalists and
human rights defenders were among those detained arbitrarily without access
to family or legal representation, often initially in secret detention
centres. Intimidation of the families of those arrested persisted. Torture
remained commonplace. At least 94 people were executed, including at least
eight who were under 18 at the time of their alleged offence. Many sentences
of flogging were imposed. The true number of those executed or subjected to
corporal punishment was believed to be considerably higher than the cases
reported.
Background
The political stalemate of the previous year continued until the election of
a new president in June. Over 1,000 presidential candidates were excluded
from the election by the Council of Guardians, which reviews laws and
policies to ensure that they uphold Islamic tenets and the Constitution. All
89 women candidates were excluded on the basis of their gender under
discriminatory selection procedures known as gozinesh.
There were reports of arrests of people demonstrating against the elections. Up
to 10 people were killed in separate pre-election bomb attacks in Ahvaz and Tehran,
and six others were killed in a bomb attack in Ahvaz in October.
The authorities faced armed opposition from Kurdish and other groups.
The election as President of former Revolutionary Guard Special Forces member
Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
who took office in August, completed the marginalization of pro-reform
supporters from the political process and led to a concentration of power in
the Office of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Sayed
‘Ali Khamenei. In October, the Supreme Leader
delegated some of his supervisory powers over the government to the
Expediency Council, headed by defeated presidential candidate Hojjatoleslam AliAkbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Relations with the international community remained strained over human
rights and Iran’s nuclear
programme, particularly after Iran
announced in August that it was resuming uranium enrichment for civilian
purposes. Iran accused
foreign governments, particularly those of the USA
and UK, of instigating
unrest in border areas; the UK
accused Iran of aiding
anti-UK insurgency activities in Iraq. The European Union-Iran
human rights dialogue was suspended because of diplomatic tensions.
In December, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the human
rights situation
in Iran.
Repression of minorities
Discriminatory laws and practices remained a source of social and political
unrest and of human rights violations, particularly against Iran’s ethnic
and religious minorities. In July the UN Special Rapporteur
on the right to adequate housing visited Iran. He found discrimination in
the distribution of resources, and in access to and quality of housing, water
and sanitation in areas populated by minorities.
Arabs
In April, at least 31 Arabs were killed and hundreds injured during clashes
with the police following demonstrations in Ahvaz and
elsewhere in Khuzestan province. Hundreds of other people were detained. The
demonstrators were protesting against a letter allegedly written by a
presidential adviser, who denied its authenticity, which set out policies for
the reduction of the Arab population of Khuzestan. Waves of arrests continued
throughout the year, particularly following bomb explosions in Ahvaz
in June and October and attacks on oil installations in September and
October.
- At
least 81 people were arrested in November while attending an Arab
cultural gathering called Mahabis. Those
arrested included Zahra Nasser-Torfi, director
of the Ahwaz
al-Amjad cultural centre, who was reportedly
tortured in detention, including with beatings and threats of execution,
rape and other sexual abuse, before being released on bail to await
trial.
Azeris
At the end of June, scores of ethnic Azeris
participating in an annual cultural gathering at Babek Castle in Kalayber
were arrested. At least 21 were later sentenced to prison terms of between
three months and one year, some of which were suspended. Some were
also banned from entering Kalayber for 10 years.
- Abbas Lisani,
an Azeri butcher, was arrested during the Babek Castle event. He was released on
bail in July and was sentenced in August to one year’s imprisonment to
be spent in internal exile after conviction of “spreading propaganda”
and “disturbing public opinion”. He was believed to have appealed against his sentence.
Kurds
In June, clashes between security forces and Kurds celebrating events in Iraq led to
injuries to police officers and the arrest of dozens of demonstrators. In
July, after Iranian security forces shot dead a Kurdish opposition activist, Showaneh Qaderi, and reportedly
dragged his body through the streets behind a jeep, thousands of Kurds took
to the streets to protest. Security forces reportedly killed up to 21 people,
injured scores more and arrested at least 190. In further clashes in October
and November, at least one person, Shoresh Amiri,
was killed, several people were injured and others were arrested.
- Dr Roya Toloui, a women’s
rights activist, and two journalists, Ajlal Qavami and Sa’id Sa’edi, were among the Kurds arrested in August. All
were released on bail in October and were reported to be facing
political charges that can carry the death penalty.
Religious minorities
Members of Iran’s religious minorities were detained solely in connection
with their faith.
- Hamid Pourmand, who had converted to Christianity from
Islam over 25 years previously, was sentenced in February by a military
court to three years’ imprisonment on charges of deceiving the Iranian
armed forces about his religion and “acts against national security”. In May he was acquitted of apostasy.
- At
least 66 Baha’is were detained and two
remained held at the end of the year. Mehran Kawsari and Bahram Mashhadi were sentenced to three years and one year
in prison respectively in connection with an open letter sent to
President Khatami in November 2004.
Human rights
defenders
The registration process for independent non-governmental organizations
remained a barrier to their effective operation, and individual human rights
defenders remained at risk of reprisal for their work.
- In July, Abdolfattah
Soltani, a lawyer and co-founder of the Centre
for Defenders of Human Rights, was detained. He was reportedly accused
of releasing “secret and classified national intelligence” in connection
with his work defending an espionage case. He remained in detention at
the end of the year with limited access to his family and no access to
his lawyer.
- Prisoner of conscience Akbar Ganji, an investigative reporter who uncovered the
involvement of government officials in the murder of intellectuals and
journalists in the 1990s, continued to serve a six-year prison sentence
imposed after he was convicted of vaguely worded charges including
“acting against national security”. Following a hunger strike in protest
at being denied independent medical treatment outside prison,
accompanied by considerable domestic and international protests, he was
temporarily released for medical treatment in July. He was returned to
prison in September and placed in solitary confinement for over six
weeks. His wife said he had been beaten by security forces in hospital.
Torture and cruel, inhuman and
degrading punishments
Torture continued to be routine in many prisons and detention centres. At
least five people died in custody. In several cases, torture or ill-treatment
may have been a factor. Denial of medical treatment to put pressure on
political prisoners emerged as an increasingly common practice.
In July a report by the judiciary detailed human rights violations, including
torture, of prisoners and detainees. It stated that measures had been taken
to address the problems, but gave no details.
- In
September, Arezoo Siabi
Shahrivar, a photographer, was arrested along
with up to 14 other women, at a ceremony commemorating the 1988 “prison
massacre” in Evin prison, Tehran, in which thousands of
political prisoners were executed. In detention she was suspended from
the ceiling, beaten with a wire cable and sexually abused.
- A man
from Shiraz
sentenced to 100 lashes in 2004 for homosexual activities alleged that
he had been tortured and threatened with death by security forces.
At least three amputations were carried out. It remained common for
courts to hand down sentences of flogging.
Update: Zahra Kazemi
In November the Appeals Court
upheld the acquittal of an Intelligence Ministry official accused of killing
Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in custody in July 2003. A new
investigation into the killing was announced.
Death penalty
At least 94 people were executed in 2005, including at least eight aged under
18 at the time of the crime. Scores more were reported to have been sentenced
to death, including at least 11 who were under 18 at the time of the offence.
The true figures were probably much higher. Death sentences continued to be
imposed for vaguely worded offences such as “corruption on earth”.
- In
October, a woman was reportedly sentenced to death by stoning, despite a
moratorium on the use of this punishment introduced in 2002.
In January, the UN Committee on the
Rights of the Child urged Iran
to suspend immediately the execution of people aged under
18 at the time of the crime, and to abolish the death penalty for people who
commit crimes before they are 18. Despite Iran’s
statement that there was a moratorium on the use of the death penalty against
juvenile offenders, Iman Farrokhi
was executed on the very day that Iran’s report was considered by
the Committee. He was 17 when he allegedly killed a soldier in a fight.
Following domestic and international protests, the death sentences of some
women and of men aged under 18 at the time of their
alleged offence were suspended or lifted.
Freedom of expression and association
Freedom of expression and association remained severely curtailed. Journalists
and webloggers were detained and imprisoned and
some newspapers were closed down. Relatives of detainees or those sought by
the authorities remained at risk of harassment or intimidation.
Press Courts were reintroduced in October comprising a panel of three judges
and a jury selected by the judiciary. Some journalists’
organizations criticized the composition of the juries.
- Mohammad
Reza Nasab Abdolahi,
a student campaigner for human rights and a newspaper editor, was
sentenced in January to six months’ imprisonment and a fine for
“insulting the country’s leader and making anti-government propaganda”. He
was released in August. His pregnant wife, Najameh
Oumidparvar, was detained in March for 24 days
after posting a message on her weblog that her
husband apparently wrote before his arrest.
Women’s rights
The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women
visited Iran
in January and February. She criticized the arbitrary arrest, torture and
ill-treatment of women, including women human rights defenders, and called on
Iran
to adopt a national action plan to promote and protect human rights that
would eliminate violence against women. She also expressed particular concern
at discriminatory laws and failures in the administration of justice which
result in impunity for perpetrators and perpetuate discrimination and
violence against women.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate
housing noted discrimination against women in relation to housing and a lack
of safe houses for women who are victims of violence.
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