Human Rights Watch Honors Iranian Journalist and Blogger

On November 8, Human Rights Watch will honor Omid Memarian, an Iranian human rights activist who has creatively used the internet to press for a more open and democratic political regime in Iran.

Wife confirms that Akbar Ganji is confined to special section of Evin prison

Reporters Without Borders today reiterated its outrage at the treatment of journalist Akbar Ganji after his wife, Massoumeh Shaffii, and one of his lawyers visited him on 17 October and confirmed that he is still physically and psychologically debilitated after his hunger strike and that he has been put in a “special” wing of Tehran’s Evin prison where inmates are often tortured.

“As a journalist and prisoner of conscience, Ganji has no place in a high security wing,” the press freedom organisation said. “We again call for his immediate and unconditional release and at the same time we urge the authorities to let independent international organisations visit him at once in Evin prison to verify his condition and the torture allegations.”

Shaffii said after visiting her husband that his situation “was even worse that anything we could have imagined.” She also said he need treatment to his left shoulder.

Ever since his transfer back to Evin prison from Milad hospital on 3 September, Ganji has been in solitary confinement in this special wing. Only Revolutionary Guards can go there. Former detainees say torture sessions are common in this section of the prison.

While the uncertainty continues about the fate of Ganji, the former editor of the weekly Rah-e-No and Iran’s leading prisoner of conscience, the intelligence ministry has been summoning independent journalists and representatives of journalists’ associations for questioning.

Some have been threatened during these interrogation sessions and all have been notified of a ban on talking about the appointment of Revolutionary Guards to key positions in national and local government. Many journalists now fear that a new wave of arrests may be imminent.

from Reporters Without Boarders ,24/Oct/2005

Iran - 2005 annual report from Reporters Without Boarders

Journalists thrown in jail

Iranian journalists are constantly being arbitrarily arrested and often can only win freedom by paying exorbitant bail. Thirteen journalists were imprisoned during 2004 and at the end of the year 10 were still being held.

Freelance journalist Ensafali Hedayat, working for several reformist papers, was arrested on 16 January by order of the revolutionary court in the northwestern city of Tabriz and on 11 May jailed for 18 months. At the end of the year, he was still being held at the city’s intelligence headquarters despite paying bail for his release pending his appeal against the sentence. He was in very poor condition.

Journalists are still sometimes held in the notorious Evin prison even when they are in bad health. Siamak Pourzand, 75, seriously ill and bedridden, has been there since 30 March 2003 despite a heart attack that put him in a coma for three days in March 2004. The journalist, who worked for several independent papers, was kept in solitary confinement for months and physically and psychologically tortured to get him to make a televised confession. He had been arrested in November 2001 and sentenced in May 2002 to eight years in prison for "undermining state security by having links with monarchists and counter-revolutionaries."

Mohsen Sazgara, publisher of the reformist dailies Jameh, Neshat and Tous (since suspended), was sentenced on appeal on 8 March 2004 to a year in prison. He had been jailed on 15 June 2003 and then freed on bail of six billion rials (580,000 euros) three months later. A week before his release, he was charged with "undermining national security," "insulting the Supreme Guide" and "anti-government propaganda."

Reza Alijani, editor of the monthly Iran-e-Farda and winner of the 2001 Reporters Without Borders - Fondation de France Prize, learned on 1 May that his appeal against a verdict in a 2001 case had been heard in the absence of him and several colleagues accused with him. He was sentenced to four years in prison, Hoda Saber, one of the paper’s managers, to five and half years and Taghi Rahmani, of the weekly Omid-e-Zangan, to seven years. All had been held since 14 June 2003 for no official reason.

Abbas Kakavand, formerly with the hardline daily Ressalat, was arrested on 7 June for "publishing false news" in articles posted on the Internet website gooya.com attacking corruption and political payments to leading hardliners. He was freed on 10 June after paying bail of 100 million rials (11,600 euros) but awaits trial on charges arising from various complaints against him, including some by the Imam Khomeiny Foundation. A score of people suspected of working with reformist news websites, including Rouydad, blocked by Judge Mortazavi in late August, were arrested in September and October. Among them were site technicians and seven journalists - Javad Gholam Tamayomi, Omid Memarian, Shahram Rafihzadeh, Hanif Mazroi, Rozbeh Mir Ebrahimi, Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh and Fershteh Ghazi. All except Tamayomi were freed on bail in November and December but the authorities continued to hound them. Memarian, Rafihzadeh and Ebrahimi were summoned and phoned regularly by state security agents.

Babak Ghafori Azar, of the economic daily Hayat-e now, was arrested on 7 September after police searched his home. He was freed on 21 September. Rafihzadeh, culture editor of the newspaper Etemad, was also picked up on 7 September by the morality squad, a section of the Teheran police close to the intelligence ministry. Mazroi, formerly with several reformist papers, was arrested on 8 September after answering a summons to the Teheran prosecutor’s office. He was freed on 11 November after paying bail of 150 million rials (13,000 euros). The families of journalists arrested or exiled are watched and often harassed. Said Motallebi, father of Sina Motallebi, who has fled to the Netherlands, was arrested and held for nine days in September. At least 60 journalists were summoned during the year, either officially by a court, to answer complaints usually from the justice ministry, or unofficially by police or intelligence officials.

The government media launched a campaign against some journalists at the end of the year. The publisher of the daily Kayhan, Hossin Shariatmadry (in an article called "The House of the Spider") accused several journalists working in exile for the BBC, Radio Farda, Rouydad and gooya.com of belonging to a Prague-based "enemy network" and of collaborating with US intelligence agents. He also alluded, without naming them, to Mazroi, Rafihzadeh and Ebrahimi.

Shariatmadry, who has tortured and interrogated countless political detainees at Evin prison, was appointed to run Kayhan by Supreme Guide Khamenei.

Iran - 2005 annual report from Reporters Without Boarders

The triumph of impunity

The judiciary showed blatant hypocrisy in the case of Zahra Kazemi, the Canadian-Iranian photographer beaten to death in prison in July 2003. She had been arrested on 23 June that year while photographing prisoners’ families outside Teheran’s Evin prison and probably died on 10 July. After trying for a week to hide the cause of her death, the authorities, under pressure from the Canada and other countries, admitted she had died while being tortured. The judiciary, also under pressure from an Iranian parliamentary enquiry, named as her killer an intelligence ministry agent who had interrogated her. He was charged but acquitted on 24 July 2004 after a sham trial. The family’s lawyer, Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, had asked for court evidence from Mohammad Bakshi, a prison guard under the authority of Judge Mortazavi, and from five senior justice officials who had interrogated her. The court refused the request and the trial was hurried through in two days. The hardliners then switched back to the line that Kazemi had died "accidentally."

Iran - 2005 annual report from Reporters without boarders

Since the massive crackdown in 2000 which resulted in the justice ministry closing down nearly 100 reformist newspapers supporting President Mohammad Khatami, the ruling hardliners and mullahs have hammered away at press freedom. Journalists are threatened or summoned to the justice or intelligence ministries, sometimes unofficially. Many buy their freedom by paying enormous bail that often forces their families into debt or to sell their belongings. Even then, they remain the target of prosecution or under threat of suspended jail sentences.

Parliament has been dominated since 20 February 2004 by the hardliners and President Khatami has effectively yielded power to the country’s conservative Supreme Guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Dangerous topics for the media to raise include relations with the United States, nuclear matters, Islam, religion, morals and dissident mullahs. The presidential elections due in mid-2005, as well as rivalry between reformists and hardliners and also within each camp make the political climate very poisonous. Journalists must walk a difficult tightrope between the shifting political divisions.

The judiciary, controlled by the hardliners, remains the chief instrument of persecuting the media. Teheran prosecutor-general Judge Said Mortazavi, the bane of all journalists, displayed exceptional hypocrisy in the case of murdered Canadian-Iranian photographer Zahra Kazemi. More than a dozen newspapers were suspended temporarily or permanently in 2004. Early in the year, eight reformist dailies - Yas-e no, Sharq, Nassim-e Sabah, Tosseh, Aftab-e Yazd, E’temad, Hambastegi and Mardomsalari - were threatened by justice authorities after they reported on a sit-in by reformist MPs in front of parliament. Mortazavi asked the culture and Islamic guidance ministry to warn the papers and accused them of "sowing discord." He also threatened on 8 February that any paper reporting on a planned boycott of the elections would be immediately suspended.

The monthly Aftab, produced since 2000 by a group of writers and intellectuals, was suspended on 11 July for "insulting the Supreme Guide" and printing "false news." A week later, the daily Vaghayeh ettefaghieh was suspended indefinitely for the same reason and also for "propaganda against the regime."

The daily Jomhuriat was suspended after only 12 issues after publisher Javad Khorami Moaghadam refused Mortazavi’s order to sack his editor, Emadoldin Baghi, a prominent reformist journalist and fervent freedom of expression campaigner.

Kurdish and Azeri-language papers were also suspended during the year for supposedly "spreading separatist ideas and printing false news." By the end of the year, only a handful of independent newspapers and magazines remained in the whole country.

Foreign journalists also had to say what they intended to report and where they wanted to go before (if they were lucky) being allowed into the country. Once in, official surveillance restricted their activities and movements. Dan DeLuce, Teheran correspondent for the British daily The Guardian, was deported in May after making an unauthorised trip to the southwestern city of Bam, where an earthquake killed 26,000 people on 26 December 2003. He returned in February 2004 to cover a visit to the city by Britain’s Prince Charles and then went again after being refused permission by the authorities to investigate the population’s anger at government reconstruction efforts.

Greece: Human rights violated on the margins of society

Foreigners shot on the border, asylum-seekers detained in metal containers, Roma forcibly evicted from their homes in Athens -- these are some of the examples of consistent pattern of human rights violations, Amnesty International reveals in a report today.

The report, Out of the spotlight: The rights of foreigners and minorities are still a grey area, highlights the failure of the Greek authorities to combat discrimination.

"People living on the margins of society -- asylum-seekers, migrants, Roma and members of other minorities -- are the most likely victims of discrimination in all its forms. Most often, their tormentors are representatives of the state," Olga Demetriou, Amnesty International's researcher on Greece, said.

Amnesty International's report focuses specifically on the failure of the state to comply with international human rights law and standards regarding access to the asylum process, the detention of migrants and protection from discrimination and ill-treatment.

"Thousands of people from Albania, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere come to Greece seeking refuge. Some are shot and killed on the border, others are charged with 'illegal entry' straight away and detained without having the chance to apply for refugee protection. The conditions of detention in particular areas of the country do not adhere to international law and standards," Olga Demetriou said.

On the island of Chios the authorities have used a metal container to detain people. They have repeatedly detained others, including pregnant women and children, and failed to protect women and children who were victims of trafficking. Some migrants have been abused by police officers.

Y.S., an Iraqi national of 24, who had been arrested and detained upon entry into Greece stated: “there is no phone here and I have not spoken to my parents since I came here... they do not know whether I am dead or alive... my mother has a heart problem, and I have not been able to phone and let her know... we have not died but I wish I had." He claimed that for the first month of his detention he slept on cardboard and that people in his dormitory room had "insects" on their skin.

The report documents the mechanisms that contribute to this failure and urges the Greek authorities to meet their obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of marginalized people.

Over the last two decades, Greece has rapidly transformed from a traditional emigration country to one attracting migrants, thus marking the border between the global south and the European Union. This rapid transformation has brought to the surface the inadequacies in the country's laws governing migration as well as in practices violating the human rights of refugees. Specifically, the Greece's legal framework fails to adhere to international human rights law and standards in two respects:
At no stage of the process does it provide for an independent review of a rejected application on the substance of the claim;
It lacks provisions explicitly safeguarding against the risk of refoulement.

Although there has been a sharp increase in the number of people seeking refuge, Greece has some of the lowest asylum application rates in Europe. At the same time it has some of the lowest refugee rates. According to a global overview of refugee populations in 2004 conducted by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Greece has the lowest rates of refugee recognition (0.3 per cent for the first nine months of the year) and granting of protection status (0.9 per cent) out of 148 countries considered.

"The rapid transformation of Greece into a country attracting migrants cannot be an excuse for its authorities to turn their back on the needs of refugees and to ignore their international obligations," Olga Demetriou said.

Living also on the margins of society, Roma and other minority groups bear the brunt of direct or indirect discrimination. In Athens and Patras, Romani residents were forcibly evicted from their houses, taking on much of the financial burden of the resettlement themselves. Roma have also been the target of racist abuse, which in some cases the authorities have tended to overlook. Members of minorities have their rights to freedom of expression, religion and association violated due to gaps in national anti-discrimination legislation, as well as the failure by the Greek authorities to adopt relevant international legislation and standards.

"In the last few years the Greek authorities have admitted that they have not been effective enough in responding to the needs of migrants and minorities. This ineffectiveness is having a negative impact on the way these vulnerable groups are perceived and treated in the country. It is creating a climate for tolerance of racism and xenophobia within the wider Greek population," Olga Demetriou said.

"Everybody in Greece, whether a member of the majority, the minorities or a refugee must enjoy the human rights to which they are entitled. It is the responsibility of the Greek authorities to make sure that this happens."

Watch a slideshow of images related to the report

Amnesty International,10/05/2005

Lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani, detained incommunicado since two months

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), and the League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI) reiterate their deepest concern about the situation of Mr. Abdolfattah Soltani, lawyer at the Bar of Tehran and a founding member of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC), who has been detained in solitary confinement since July 30, 2005, at the prison of Evin, Tehran.

THE OBSERVATORY (FIDH - OMCT) - LDDHI

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), and the League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI) reiterate their deepest concern about the situation of Mr. Abdolfattah Soltani, lawyer at the Bar of Tehran and a founding member of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC), who has been detained in solitary confinement since July 30, 2005, at the prison of Evin, Tehran.

Geneva-Paris, September 30, 2005. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), and the League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI) reiterate their deepest concern about the situation of Mr. Abdolfattah Soltani, lawyer at the Bar of Tehran and a founding member of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC), who has been detained in solitary confinement since July 30, 2005, at the prison of Evin, Tehran.

Mr. Abdolfattah Soltani was arrested while he was taking part in a sit-in at the Bar of Tehran in order to protest against an arrest warrant issued against him by Mr. Saïd Mortazavi, Tehran Prosecutor, three days before, as well as against the search and seizure of his personal and professional belongings.

Mr. Soltani was accused of “espionage”, without any other precisions. Since the beginning of his detention, he has been denied the right to have access to a lawyer and to receive the visit of his family.

The Observatory and the LDDHI believe that his arrest is linked to the role played by Mr. Soltani in Ms. Zahra Kazemi’s trial, an Iranian-Canadian photographer who died in July 2003 from torture and ill-treatment during her detention in Iranian custody, and brought before Tehran Court of Appeal to establish the circumstances of her death and the responsible parties. On July 25, 2005, during a hearing in camera of the Court of Appeal, Mr. Soltani, lawyer of Ms. Zahra Kazemi’s family, put into question the independence and fairness of the trial, pointing out that the main officials allegedly involved in the case had not been indicted by the court, including Mr. Saïd Mortazavi.

The Observatory and the LDDHI recall that in October 2003, the Article 90 Commission of the Majlis (Iranian Parliament) released its report of enquiry into Mrs Kazemi’s death, which concluded that Prosecutor Mortazavi and other members of the judiciary were directly involved in her death, as a result of violent interrogation in Evin prison.

The Observatory and the LDDHI are deeply concerned about Mr. Soltani’s arbitrary detention, which is part of a general repressive movement against human rights lawyers by Iranian authorities. In this regard, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, after his visit in Iran in November 2003, expressed concern regarding the fact that “lawyers do not benefit from immunity from prosecution with regard to what they say in court in defence of their clients or for statements they make on a case”.

Moreover, in July 2002, Mr. Soltani had already been convicted for having underlined in his defence pleadings the fact that his clients had been subjected to ill-treatment during their interrogation. He was sentenced to four months in jail by the Court of Tehran and released in June 2003 (See Observatory Annual Report 2003).

The Observatory and the LDDHI consider that the detention of Mr. Soltani blatantly violates the provisions of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, in particular article 1 which stipulates that “everyone has the right, individually or in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection an realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international level”, and article 9.3(c), which provides that everyone has the right “to offer and provide professionally qualified legal assistance or other relevant advice and assistance in defending human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

Because detained in solitary confinement, the Observatory and the LDDHI fear that Mr. Soltani faces increased risks of being subject to ill-treatment and acts of torture.

The Observatory and the LDDHI therefore urge the Iranian authorities to ensure the immediate and unconditional release of Mr. Abdolfattah Soltani.

The Observatory and the LDDHI also urge them to conform with the provisions of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, and more generally, with the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other regional and international human rights instruments to which Iran is a party .

For more information, please contact:
FIDH: 00 33 1 43 55 25 18
OMCT: 00 41 22 809 49 39 LDDHI : 00 33 1 40 94 14 50

From International Federation for Human Rights . 30/09/2005