Corporate report

Iran - country of concern: latest update 31 December 2014

Updated 21 January 2015

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Any incidents or events taking place after 31 December 2014 will be covered in future reports.

0.1 Latest update: 31 December 2014

There has been little change in the human rights situation in Iran between October and December 2014. However, over the past three months, there have been signs of increased public debate in Iran around human rights issues, specifically the death penalty, internet filtering and women’s issues; brought about by a number of high-profile cases. Nevertheless, this increase in public debate, while positive, has not yet resulted in a change to the human rights situation in Iran. There continues to be great international concern over the widespread use of the death penalty, restrictions on freedom of religion and belief, freedom of expression, and the rights of journalists, human rights defenders, women, and prisoners.

On 25 October, 26-year-old Iranian woman Reyhaneh Jabbari was executed. She had been found guilty of the murder of a former intelligence officer, whom she claimed had tried to sexually assault her. There were serious international concerns over due process during her trial. Her claims that there was a second man present in the house at the time of the assault were not fully investigated, according to Amnesty International. On 20 October, an 18-year-old was executed for a crime he committed as a minor. Fardin Jafarian was executed for killing his classmate during a street brawl when he was just 14 years old. This execution goes against Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Iran is a signatory, which states that “neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offenses committed by persons below eighteen years of age”. On a more positive note, during an interview with France 24 TV station on 8 December, Head of the Iranian Human Rights Committee Mohamad Javad Larijani said that Iran was trying to change the laws on drug trafficking, in which case the “number of executions in Iran would fall by 80 per cent”.

Debate in Iran over internet filtering has continued throughout the last three months. Just 12 days after the Judiciary gave the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) a one-month deadline to filter and effectively monitor the information on certain social media channels, ICT Minister Mahmoud Vaezi said that “our technical and technological assessments indicate that the number of social networks such as Viber, WhatsApp, or Tango is so high that closing them down is not the solution”. He went on to ask people to “use the networks wisely so that people can continue to use them in future”.

The case of the dual British-Iranian national, Ghoncheh Ghavami, who was arrested in June after trying to attend a volleyball match, continued throughout October and November. Ms Ghavami was charged with propaganda and activism against the Islamic Republic. She went on hunger strike while in prison a number of times, and there were serious concerns about her health and welfare while in prison. On 23 November, she was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, but immediately released on bail. Ms Ghavami will be appealing her sentence, which includes a three-year travel ban.

There was a spate of acid attacks against women in the province of Isfahan during October for not observing proper Islamic dress codes. Although it was originally claimed on social media that the government were behind the attacks, it is now largely believed that there was a single attacker, working to his own agenda. A number of Iranian clerics have branded the attacks un-Islamic. In response to the acid attacks, there were protests in Tehran and Isfahan on 25 October against the ineffective police and official response to the attacks. There was heavy anti-riot police presence at the protests in both Tehran and Isfahan, and there were reports of clashes in Isfahan, where the anti-riot police used tear gas, pepper spray and batons to disperse the crowd.

Discrimination against and harassment of religious minorities in Iran has continued. In October, three Christian pastors, including Behnam Irani, were sentenced to an additional six years in prison each for their involvement in the house church movement. The three pastors were already in prison, but have been handed down additional charges of “action against national security” and “creating a network to overthrow the system”. On Christmas Day, it was reported that security forces attacked a house church in Rudehan, near Tehran. Nine Christians were arrested, including the two priests who were conducting the service.

On 31 October, the UK contributed to the Universal Periodic Review of Iran’s human rights record at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The UK made a statement covering a number of human rights concerns, including the sharp increase in the use of the death penalty and restrictions on freedom of religion and belief, freedom of expression, due process, and women’s rights. The UK also tabled two recommendations which would make an important contribution to improving Iran’s approach to human rights: an immediate moratorium on the execution of juveniles and those who committed crimes not recognised as “most serious”; and allowing detainees access to a lawyer at all stages of pre-trial detention. Iran is expected to respond to these recommendations before the UN Human Rights Council in March 2015.

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