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Reported at World Coalition Against the Death Penalty March 13 2012 Iran Human Rights has published its annual report on the death penalty in Iran in 2011. IHR’s international spokesperson Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam says the Iranian authorities are keeping the number of executions high because they use the death penalty as a political tool. The number [...]

RefWorld 12 March 2012 The independent United Nations expert on human rights in Iran today reiterated his concern over continuing violations in the country, including the suppression of civil liberties, arbitrary arrests and detentions, lack of due process, and a significant increase in the number of executions. Ahmed Shaheed told the UN Human Rights Council [...]

Human Rights Watch March 8, 2012 Iran’s judiciary should immediately overturn a lower court ruling against a lawyer sentenced to 18 years in prison for his human rights activities and set him free, Human Rights Watch said today. Abdolfattah Soltani, a colleague of Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi and cofounder of a banned rights group, [...]

Human Rights Watch World Report 2012 – Iran.  Published 22 January 2012 and available at Human Rights Watch in English and Arabic. In 2011 Iranian authorities refused to allow government critics to engage in peaceful demonstrations. In February, March, April, and September security forces broke up large-scale protests in several major cities. In mid-April security [...]

Ireland Refugee Documentation Centre 5 January 2012 Iran – Researched and compiled by the Refugee Documentation Centre of Ireland on 4 and 5 January 2012 In May 2011 Amnesty International notes: “In February 2011, Rahim Rostami, a 19-year-old member of Iran’s Kurdish minority who had arrived in Norway as an unaccompanied minor, and whose asylum [...]

Charles Arthur, The Guardian 5 January 2012 The dream of dictatorships – to control communications within their borders – has got harder and harder as the internet has become more and more pervasive. Fifteen years ago, cutting off the internet was easy: internet providers used modems and you could simply seize them. Now it’s more [...]

Publisher: United Kingdom Home Office (November 2011) Overview: This document provides UK Border Agency caseowners with guidance on the nature and handling of the most common types of claims received from nationals/residents of Iran, including whether claims are or are not likely to justify the granting of asylum, Humanitarian Protection or Discretionary Leave. Caseowners must [...]

Publisher: UN News Service (3rd November 2011) “The United Nations committee tasked with reviewing compliance with international human rights treaties today voiced concern overIran’s record on upholding the rights of religious and ethnic minorities, and the increasing number of executions in the country. The UN Human Rights Committee said it was disturbed by the continuing [...]

UN News Centre 19 October 2011 The United Nations independent expert on the situation of human rights in Iran today voiced concern over alleged violations in the country’s judicial system, citing practices such as torture, cruel or degrading treatment of detainees, and the imposition of the death penalty without proper safeguards. Presenting his report to [...]

Amnesty International 13 October 2011 Iranian opposition leaders Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard remain under house arrest without an arrest warrant, charge or trial. All three continue to have limited access to family members and no legal representation. Recently, Mehdi Karroubi was allowed to visit his family for only one hour. On [...]