Cases of harrassment, torture, imprisonment, assault and religious persecution in Iran.
August 6, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – An Iranian Christian couple in their 60s died last week from injuries sustained when secret police raided a house church service hosted at their house and severely beat them, a source told Compass. Less than a week after Abbas Amiri’s funeral, his wife died from similar injuries and stress from her husband’s death, according to Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN) Click here to read more.
July 30, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – A diabetic Iranian Christian jailed for two months is in critical condition due to lack of medical treatment, even as new reports of arrests against Christians surfaced this week. The Iranian government has ratcheted up pressure in the last two weeks on underground churches in what seems to be a concerted effort to hound Christians and discourage their meetings throughout the country, sources told Compass. Click here to read more.
July 29, 2008: (Human Rights Watch) – The Iranian judiciary should immediately halt all executions of juvenile offenders and Iran’s parliament should move swiftly to ban such executions, a group of human rights organizations said today. The groups, which include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, joined by six other international and regional human rights organizations – named below – strongly condemned Iran’s continuing execution of juvenile offenders in a joint statement. Click here to read more.
July 21, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – Days after his release from a month of interrogations and severe torture under secret police custody, Iranian Christian Mohsen Namvar has fled across the border into Turkey with his family. Traveling by train, the badly beaten Christian arrived July 2 in eastern Turkey with his wife and son. Click here to read more.
July 9, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – Iranian authorities have detained two converts to Christianity in the southern city of Shiraz for eight weeks on suspicion of “apostasy,” or leaving Islam. In Iran, apostasy is a crime that can be punishable by death. Mahmood Matin, 52, and Arash Bandari, 44, remain imprisoned in a secret police detention center known by its address, Sepah Street 100, located in the center of Shiraz since their arrest on May 15. Click here to read more.
July 3, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – After four weeks in police custody, Iranian Christian Mohsen Namvar was released “temporarily” last week to return to his home in Tehran. A doctor summoned to Namvar’s home after his release last Thursday (June 26) administered medicines and serum to treat the badly beaten prisoner. Arrested on May 31 from his home in Tehran, the convert from Islam was kept incommunicado until his release. “They put a great deal of pressure on his body and his mind,” an Iranian Christian told Compass. “No one knows exactly what they did to him during those four weeks.” Click here to read more.
June 25, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – Security police officials in Tehran this month tortured a newly converted couple and threatened to put their 4-year-old daughter in an institution after arresting them for holding Bible studies and attending a house church. A Christian source in Iran said that 28-year-old Tina Rad was charged with “activities against the holy religion of Islam” for reading the Bible with Muslims in her home in east Tehran and trying to convert them. Officials charged her husband, 31-year-old Makan Arya, with “activities against national security” after seizing the couple from their home on June 3, forcing them to leave their 4-year-old daughter ill and unattended. Authorities kept them in an unknown jail for four days, which left them badly bruised from beatings, said the source. Click here to read more.June 9, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – Iran continued a wave of arrests against Christians in recent weeks, detaining a Tehran house church leader who was previously held and tortured for religious activity ... Eight policemen arrested Mohsen Namvar, 44, from his Tehran home on May 31, refusing to provide any reason for his arrest. The officers confiscated a number of the Christian’s personal belongings including his computer, printer, CDs, books and money. His location remains unknown. Click here to read more.
June 23, 2008: (HRW) Iranian judicial authorities should guarantee two Kurdish women’s rights activists transparent court proceedings when their cases come up for a hearing, Human Rights Watch said today. Activist Hana Abdi is appealing a five-year prison sentence, while Ronak Safarzadeh is on trial on charges that could lead to a death sentence. Human Rights Watch urges Iranian authorities to ensure fair and open court proceedings for both women. The government’s previously documented patterns of restricting freedom of association and expression using broad security laws raise concern that the officials are prosecuting both women only on the basis of their involvement in Kurdish rights and women’s rights activism. Click here to read more.
June 5, 2008: (Human Rights Watch) Iranian authorities should immediately grant three men detained on politically motivated charges access to proper medical care, Human Rights Watch said today. Cleric Ayatollah Kazemi Boroujerdi, journalist and activist Mohammad-Sadiq Kaboudvand, and prominent human rights defender Emad Baghi are in poor health and urgently require specialist medical attention... Boroujerdi espouses an interpretation of Islam that calls for the separation of religion and politics. It appears likely that the authorities have targeted him for his critical views about the current form of the Iranian government. Click here to read more.
June 3, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – Two Iranian converts to Christianity jailed for the past few weeks have been released by security police, who demanded valuable property deeds as bail collateral. Click here to read more.
May 28, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – Iranian police are refusing to release a Muslim convert to Christianity arrested 17 days ago in the southern city of Shiraz. Former Muslim Mojtaba Hussein has had no known charges filed against him. In spite of appeals from family members, Hussein, 21, remains jailed in an undisclosed location since he was arrested along with his father, brother and sister on May 11. Click here to read more.
May 21, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – Police in the southern Iran city of Shiraz this month cracked down against known Muslim converts to Christianity, arresting members of three Christian families and confiscating their books and computers. Click here to read more.
March 18, 2008 (Committee to Protect Journalists) Iranian authorities should immediately disclose the legal status of Afghan journalist Ali Mohaqiq Nasab who was arrested in the north-central city of Qom 10 days ago, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Click here to read more.
March 3, 2008: (IFEX) The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by the one-year jail sentence handed down in absentia to an Iranian-American journalist working for U.S.-backed Radio Farda by a Revolutionary Court on Saturday. Click here to read more.
February 13, 2008: (IFEX) – Amin Ghazaei, leader of the group Students for Freedom and Equality (Daneshjouyan-e Azadi Khah va Beraber Talab), was arrested in Tehran on 14 January by Intelligence Ministry officers along with 14 other students at a meeting, in what appears to be a worrying pattern of recent arrests of student activists. He is reported to be held without charge in solitary confinement in Section 209 of Evin Prison, and to have been tortured. There is concern for his health as he reportedly suffers from a peptic ulcer, heart problems, and asthma. Click here to read more.
February 8, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – The Iranian parliament may mandate the death penalty for citizens who leave Islam, a human rights group announced this week. For the first time in Iranian history, a proposed penal code demands the death penalty for “apostates,” according to a February 5 statement by the Institute on Religion and Public Policy (IRPP). “Apostasy was always illegal, but the court could hand down a jail term, hard labor or the death penalty,” said IRPP President Joseph Grieboski. “Now apostasy [would only] get the death penalty.” Click here to read more.
January 7, 2008: New York (Human Rights Watch) --"The Iranian government is relying on its broadly worded 'security laws' to suppress virtually any public expression of dissent, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. It uses these laws to subject those arrested to prolonged incommunicado detention without charge, solitary confinement, and denial of access to counsel." Click here to read more. |
QUICK LINKS TO CASE STORIES
Iranian Christians die from injuries in police raid
Diabetic Iranian imprisoned Christian critically ill
Iran should halt executions of children, says HR groups
Beaten Christian flees Iran
Iranian converts still detained two months later
After arrest/beating, Iranian Christian released temporarily
Kurdish activists need transparent court proceedings
Iranian converts tortured
Tehran house-church leader arrested
Iran denies political prisoners medical care
Two Iranian converts released
Iranian police won't release Muslim convert
Southern Iranian city crackdown against converts
Iranian should disclose info on detained Afghan journalist
Iranian-American journalist sentenced
Leader of Students for Freedom arrested
Iran may mandate death penalty for apostates
Iran relying on security laws to suppress dissenters |
