Particulars of risk in Iran
Human rights-arbitrary arrest3
Human rights-no protection from courts.3
The Iranian Government's human rights record remains poor, and deteriorated substantially during the year, despite continuing efforts within society to make the Government accountable for its human rights policies. The Government denied citizens the right to change their government. Systematic abuses included summary executions; disappearances; widespread use of torture and other degrading treatment, reportedly including rape; severe punishments such as stoning and flogging; harsh prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; and prolonged and incommunicado detention.
The Government restricted the work of human rights groups and denied entry to the U.N. Special Representative for Iran of the Commission on Human Rights (UNSR) during the period of his mandate. The UNSR's mandate ended during the year with the defeat of the resolution at the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in April. Violence against women occurred, and women faced legal and societal discrimination. The Government discriminated against religious and ethnic minorities and severely restricted workers' rights, including freedom of association and the right to organize and bargain collectively. Child labor persisted. Vigilante groups, with strong ties to certain members of the Government, enforced their interpretation of appropriate social behavior through intimidation and violence. There are reports of trafficking in persons.
The Government has been responsible for numerous killings, and during the year there were reportedly executions that took place following trials in which there was a lack of due process. As in the past, there are incidents of security forces using excessive force while suppressing demonstrations.
The UNSR reported in August 2001 that these extrajudicial killings continued to cause controversy about what is perceived to be the Government's cover-up of involvement of high-level officials in the affair.
A November 1995 law criminalized dissent and applied the death penalty to offenses such as "attempts against the security of the State, outrage against high-ranking officials, and insults against the memory of Imam Khomeini and against the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic." Citizens continued to be tried and sentenced to death in the absence of sufficient procedural safeguards. Although domestic press stopped reporting most executions, according to international reports they continued in substantial numbers.
During the period on which he reported, the UNSR reported that approximately two thirds of the executions took place in public, contrary to regulations, and that state television broadcasted scenes from hangings on at least two occasions during 2001. He also noted that a woman was hanged publicly in March 2001. Exiles and human rights monitors alleged that many of those executed for criminal offenses, such as narcotics trafficking, actually are political dissidents. Supporters of outlawed political organizations, such as the Mujahedin-e-Khalq organization, make up a large number of those executed each year.
The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), an opposition party, alleged that the Government arrested Habibullah Tanhaeyan from the city of Sanandaj on December 11, and executed him on December 15 after four days of interrogation and torture. The PDKI also reported the execution of one of its members, Karim Toujali, in January, and of four Kurdish political prisoners in October. Other sources claimed the number executed in October was three or five. The party said that the prisoners are tortured before they are executed. The Society for the Defense of Human Rights in Iran (SDHRI) claimed that the families of the executed prisoners are not informed of either their trials or their convictions, and that the prisoners are tortured before they are executed. SDHRI confirmed the PDKI's report that the bodies are turned over to them only on condition that they be buried at night and without ceremony. The PDKI claimed that 12 of the 110 party members remaining in jail at the end of the year were sentenced to death.
In July in a new effort to combat "un-Islamic behavior" and social corruption among the young, the Government announced the formation of a new "morality force." The force was meant to enforce the Islamic Republic's strict rules of moral behavior. Press reports indicated that members of this force chased and beat persons in the streets for offenses such as listening to music, or in the case of women, wearing makeup or clothing that was not modest enough.
The Constitution forbids the use of torture; however, security forces and prison personnel continue to torture detainees and prisoners. Some prison facilities, including Tehran's Evin prison, are notorious for the cruel and prolonged acts of torture inflicted upon political opponents of the Government. Common methods included suspension for long periods in contorted positions, burning with cigarettes, sleep deprivation, and most frequently, severe and repeated beatings with cables or other instruments on the back and on the soles of the feet. Prisoners also reported beatings about the ears, inducing partial or complete deafness, and punching in the eyes, leading to partial or complete blindness. Stoning and flogging are prescribed expressly by the Islamic Penal Code in the country as appropriate punishments for adultery.
During 2001 HRW reported that public floggings are increasingly used for a wide range of social offenses, including breaches of the dress code. As an example, eight men convicted of drinking alcohol and causing public disturbance are flogged publicly in Tehran, with each man receiving seventy to eighty lashes. HRW also reported that clashes between police and demonstrators broke out at public floggings and executions in Tehran in July and August 2001 when protesters demonstrated against these forms of punishment.
Harsh punishments are carried out, including stoning and flogging. The UNSR reported the stoning deaths of two women and the sentencing to death by stoning of at least one other during 2001. He cited press reports of the May 2002 stoning death of an unnamed 35-year-old woman at Evin Prison in Tehran, who was arrested 8 years earlier on charges of appearing in pornographic films. The UNSR reported that a woman was sentenced in June to death by stoning for the murder of her husband. He also reported that the Supreme Court upheld the sentence of death by public stoning of 38-year-old Maryam Ayoubi, who was convicted for the murder of her husband. Her sentence was carried out in Evin Prison in July. The law also allows for the relatives of murder victims to take part in the execution of the killer.
Organizations such as the Ansar-e Hezbollah, an organization of hard-line vigilantes who seek to enforce their vision of appropriate revolutionary comportment upon the society, harassed, beat, and intimidated those who demonstrated publicly for reform or who did not observe dress codes or other modes of correct "revolutionary" conduct. This included women whose clothing did not cover their hair and all parts of their body except the hands and face, or those who wore makeup or nail polish.
The official figure of executions in Iran for 2002 is 474. Most of these were carried out in public. There were at least three cases of stoning and four such sentences. Other atrocities committed by the ruling mullahs include killing by throwing off-cliff, public mutilation of limbs, abduction and forced disappearance, and various kinds of physical and psychological torture. Hundreds were arrested during recent anti-government demonstrations, with the fate of many still unknown. The body of a female student, Leila Nourgostari, was found dumped in a street, a few days after her abduction by the Revolutionary Guards in Shiraz.
On January 8, 2003 Amnesty International raised its concerned at reports that Reza Nazaarit, Mohamaad Safaavi, Mehdi Boyeri and Hoseyn Amiri may be at risk of imminent cross amputations. A Revolutionary court in Shiraz, south western Iran, sentenced the men on charges of an "armed uprising against the Islamic regime" and theft. They have reportedly been sentenced to have their right hand and left foot amputated. According to a January 11 AFP newswire, an Iranian teenager was sentenced to death by a Tehran court for “repeated boozing offenses”.
The mullahs' regime has increased the humiliation and repression of young people in different cities across the country and conducts "shame tours" of young people who are paraded on donkeys, their hands and feet in chains and their heads and faces often badly bruised. Sometimes they are mock-crucified, with their heads often shaven. Placards with insulting phrases are placed around their necks.
The Iranian Constitution prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention; however, these practices remained common. There is reportedly no legal time limit for incommunicado detention, nor any judicial means to determine the legality of detention. In the period immediately following arrest, many detainees are held incommunicado and denied access to lawyers and family members. Suspects may be held for questioning in jails or in local Revolutionary Guard offices.
The Iranian Charge d’affairs in Australia visited Baxter Immigration Reception Centre earlier in 2003 and warned Iranians detained there that they should return to Iran voluntarily, because the Iranian government would arrest involuntary returnees on their return “aas a lesson to other asylum seekers”.
The court system is not independent and was subject to government and religious influence. It served as the principal vehicle of the Government to restrict freedom and reform in the society. U.N. representatives, including the UNSR, and independent human rights organizations continued to note the absence of procedural safeguards in criminal trials.
Trials in the Revolutionary Courts, in which crimes against national security and other principal offenses are heard, are notorious for their disregard of international standards of fairness. Revolutionary Court judges acted as both prosecutor and judge in the same case, and judges are chosen in part based on their ideological commitment to the system. Pretrial detention is often prolonged and defendants lacked access to attorneys. Indictments often lacked clarity and included undefined offenses such as "antirevolutionary behavior," "moral corruption," and "siding with global arrogance." Defendants did not have the right to confront their accusers. Secret or summary trials of 5 minutes duration occurred. Others are show trials that are intended merely to highlight a coerced public confession.
The Constitution states that "reputation, life, property, (and) dwelling(s)" are protected from trespass except as "provided by law;" however, the Government infringed on these rights. Security forces monitored the social activities of citizens, entered homes and offices, monitored telephone conversations, and opened mail without court authorization.
The Government restricted freedom of religion, particularly for Baha'is and Sabian Mandaeans. The Government controlled the selection of candidates for elections. An intense political struggle continued during the year between a broad popular movement that favored greater liberalization in government policies, particularly in the area of human rights, and certain hard-line elements in the Government and society, which viewed such reforms as a threat to the survival of the Islamic republic.
Many members of religious minority groups, including the Baha'is, evangelical Christians, Sabian Mandaeans and Sunni clerics were killed in recent years, allegedly by government agents or directly at the hands of authorities.
Apostasy is a crime in Iran which carries the death penalty.
The Government frequently charged members of religious minorities with crimes such as "confronting the regime" and apostasy, and conducted trials in these cases in the same manner as threats to national security.
Many dissidents and ethnic and religious minorities left and continue to leave the country due to a perception of threat from the Government.
In July 2002 the Government permanently dissolved the Freedom Movement, the country's oldest opposition party, and sentenced over thirty of its members to jail terms ranging from 4 months to 10 years on charges of trying to overthrow the Islamic system. Other members are barred from political activity for up to 10 years, and ordered to pay fines in amounts up to more than $6,000.
Although reliable statistics are not available, international observers believe that hundreds of citizens were detained in 2002 for their political beliefs.
No estimates are available regarding the number of political prisoners. However, the Government often arrests, convicts, and sentences persons on questionable criminal charges, including drug trafficking, when their actual "offenses" are political.
Discrimination against women was reinforced by law through provisions of the Islamic Civil and Penal Codes, in particular those sections dealing with family and property law. Shortly after the 1979 revolution, the Government repealed the Family Protection Law, a hallmark bill adopted in 1967, that gave women increased rights in the home and workplace, and replaced it with a legal system based largely on Shari'a practices. In 1998 the Majles passed legislation that mandated segregation of the sexes in the provision of medical care.
The Government enforced gender segregation in most public spaces, and prohibited women from mixing openly with unmarried men or men not related to them. Women must ride in a reserved section on public buses and enter public buildings, universities, and airports through separate entrances. Women are prohibited from attending male sporting events, although this restriction did not appear to be enforced universally. While the enforcement of conservative Islamic dress codes varied, what women wore in public was not entirely a matter of personal choice. The authorities sometimes harassed women if their dress or behavior was considered inappropriate, and women may be sentenced to flogging or imprisonment for such violations (see Section 1.c.). The law prohibits the publication of pictures of uncovered women in the print media, including pictures of foreign women. There are penalties for failure to observe Islamic dress codes at work.
Harsh punishments are carried out, including stoning and flogging. The UNSR reported the stoning deaths of two women and the sentencing to death by stoning of at least one other during 2001. He cited press reports of the May 2002 stoning death of an unnamed 35-year-old woman at Evin Prison in Tehran, who was arrested 8 years earlier on charges of appearing in pornographic films. The UNSR reported that a woman was sentenced in June to death by stoning for the murder of her husband. He also reported that the Supreme Court upheld the sentence of death by public stoning of 38-year-old Maryam Ayoubi, who was convicted for the murder of her husband. Her sentence was carried out in Evin Prison in July. The law also allows for the relatives of murder victims to take part in the execution of the killer.
Women must obtain the permission of their husband, father, or other male relative to obtain a passport. Married women must receive written permission from their husbands before being allowed to leave the country.