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Human Rights Crisis in Iran

 
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Spenta



Joined: 04 Sep 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:01 pm    Post subject: Human Rights Crisis in Iran Reply with quote

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/06/07/iran8774.htm
Iran: Torture Used to Suppress Dissent

June 07, 2004
Human Rights News
Human Rights Watch


"Like the Dead in Their Coffins"
Torture, Detention, and the Crushing of Dissent in Iran


June 2004 Vol. 16, No. 2(E)

The Iranian government has intensified its campaign of torture, arbitrary arrests, and detentions against political critics, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Iran's outgoing reformist parliament in May passed legislation to prohibit torture, but without effective implementation, the law remains an empty gesture.

The 73-page report, "Like the Dead in Their Coffins: Torture, Detention, and the Crushing of Dissent in Iran," provides the first comprehensive account of the treatment of political detainees in Tehran's Evin Prison and in secret prisons around the capital since the government launched its current crackdown in 2000. Human Rights Watch has documented systematic abuses against political detainees, including arbitrary arrest, detention without trial, torture to extract confessions, prolonged solitary confinement, and physical and psychological abuse.

"Claims that reforms in Iran have put an end to torture are simply false," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division. "More than ever, journalists, intellectuals and activists are afraid to voice opinions critical of the government."

The Iranian government's use of these harsh techniques has largely squelched the country's political opposition and independent media. Faced with increasing political pressure for reform in the past four years, the government has intensified its campaign against dissent. As of June, the government has closed virtually all independent newspapers, several key journalists and writers have fled the country, many prominent writers and activists have been imprisoned, and scores of student activists have been intimidated into ending their involvement in peaceful political activity.

While newspaper closures in Iran have received wide media attention, the story of the abuses that journalists, intellectuals and protestors have endured in detention has never been fully told.

The report documents the systematic use of prolonged solitary confinement as a tool to break the will of dissidents, and as a means to extract forced confessions. Individuals interviewed for the report, including a number of writers and journalists, told Human Rights Watch about brutal interrogations in which they were blindfolded, physically threatened, and forced to recant their political views. Former detainees also described basement solitary cells where they were left for weeks at a time without any human contact, and threats by judges that if they did not confess, they would be held in solitary confinement indefinitely.

Student activists told Human Rights Watch about physical torture experienced at the hands of plainclothes security and intelligence agents. The report documents cases of beatings, long confinement in contorted positions, kicking detainees with military boots, hanging detainees by the arms and legs, and threats of execution if individuals refused to confess.

The report also describes in detail the plainclothes intelligence agencies that work for the judiciary and are directly responsible for detaining and torturing those who criticize the government. These agencies often operate outside of, or parallel to, the established administrative structure of government and report directly to Iran's religious leadership. The members of these "parallel forces," whom former detainees describe as foot soldiers in the campaign against dissent, have not been held accountable for their acts.

Human Rights Watch documented the participation of judges in interrogation rooms—often in secret prisons—overseeing abusive and coercive interrogations, interceding with detainees and urging them to sign false confessions, and even issuing threats of their own. A number of judicial authorities, especially Chief Prosecutor Said Mortazavi, have blatantly abandoned their duty to fairly administer justice and instead are known for ordering the torture of political detainees.

A number of former detainees reported that they were treated more harshly after requesting the aid of defense counsel, or inquiring as to the legal status of their cases.

The report called on the European Union to increase pressure on Iran to take strong steps to end torture and ill-treatment in detention and restore freedom of expression. The ongoing EU-Iran human rights dialogue will have its next meeting in Tehran on June 14 and 15. The dialogue, entering its third year, has failed to achieve any tangible results. In fact, the human rights situation in Iran has markedly deteriorated since the inception of the dialogue.

"The European Union's weak response to continuing human rights violations in Iran is deeply disturbing," said Whitson, "It's time for the European Union to condemn Iran's record of persecution and torture and to set real benchmarks that the government must meet."

Human Rights Watch called on the Iranian government to release all political prisoners and effectively prohibit torture immediately.

Background

The current crackdown began in April 2000 after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei gave a speech targeting the independent press for being a "stronghold for the enemy." In 2002 and 2003, the Iranian government turned the focus of its repression on political activists. It responded to a series of student protests across Iran with several thousand arrests. The government's campaign of repression fed on itself: as more and more newspapers were closed down, there were fewer and fewer avenues to publicize abuses by the government. The rapid decline in publicly available information about the government's practices gave Iranian authorities an even freer hand to engage in abuse, and the government took full advantage of the lack of scrutiny.

Testimonies from "Like the Dead in Their Coffins"

Hossein T., an Iranian university student and activist

Twice they took me to the courtyard in Evin, where the executions are carried out. They tied my feet. They took off my blindfold. One man was saying: "Tell me why you lied. Tell me what you did." They hung me from my feet, and they put a bag over my head. For what I think was 30 minutes, they were kicking me and hitting me. They hit my chin, and the skin broke. Blood began to fill the bag that was tied over my head. Blood began to drip on the floor, and this is when they stopped.

The second time they took me in there, they hung me from my hands. They used a baton to beat my torso. They broke my hand, and I fell unconscious. When I regained consciousness, they said, "If you say you lied, we will stop." I could not speak. It is not because I am brave that I did not confess, it is because I couldn't talk.

Massoud B., an Iranian journalist and writer

In the first few hours, it is very hard. You have never been this close to walls in your life. You don't want to sit, because it is chalk, and you are not used to sitting on chalk. You stand. You pace. You start to get dizzy. After you get dizzy, you lean on a wall. After three or four hours, your legs get tired, and you sit. And then you scream and no one hears you.

And you feel like they are holding you, like they are physically holding on to you. Your hair and nails grow faster. A lot of prisoners say that solitary is like being like "the dead in their coffins" because we had heard that the dead's nails grow in their coffins. Even if they had given me something to read, they had taken my glasses. Even if I had had my glasses, there wasn't enough light.

In Brussels, Jean-Paul Marthoz: +32-2-732-2009

In London, Urmi Shah: +44-20-7713-2788

In Washington D.C., Joe Stork: +1-202-612-4327

Summary:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/1.htm#_Toc73505636

Recommendations:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/2.htm#_Toc73505637

To the Office of the Leader :
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/2.htm#_Toc73505638

On Unlawful Arrest and Detention :
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/2.htm#_Toc73505639

On Torture and Ill-Treatment:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/2.htm#_Toc73505640

On Administration of Justice:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/2.htm#_Toc73505641

To the Guardian Council :
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/2.htm#_Toc73505642

To the European Union:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/2.htm#_Toc73505643

To the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel and Inhuman Punishment :
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/2.htm#_Toc73505644

Background :
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/3.htm#_Toc73505645

Methodology:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/3.htm#_Toc73505646

Arbitrary Arrest and Detention:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/4.htm#_Toc73505647

Detention Centers and Ill-Treatment:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/5.htm#_Toc73505648

Evin Prison :
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/5.htm#_Toc73505649

Parallel Forces and Illegal Detention Centers:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/5.htm#_Toc73505650

Prison 59:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/5.htm#_Toc73505651

Edareh Amaken:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/5.htm#_Toc73505652

“White Torture”: The Use of Solitary Confinement:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/5.htm#_Toc73505653

Interrogations:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/5.htm#_Toc73505654

The Students:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/6.htm#_Toc73505655

Encounters with the Judiciary:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/7.htm#_Toc73505656

Denial of right to counsel and right to prepare a defense:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/7.htm#_Toc73505657

Non-Public Trials:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/7.htm#_Toc73505658

Denial of the Right to Appeal:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/7.htm#_Toc73505659

Testimonies:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/7.htm#_Toc73505660

Massoud Behnoud:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/7.htm#_Toc73505661

Mohsen M.:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/7.htm#_Toc73505662

Ebrahim Nabavi:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/7.htm#_Toc73505663

Ali K.:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/7.htm#_Toc73505664

Rewarding Injustice:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/7.htm#_Toc73505665

The Independent Press and the Prisoners:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/8.htm#_Toc73505666

The Article 90 Commission:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/8.htm#_Toc73505667

A Bleak Future:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/9.htm#_Toc73505668

Acknowledgments:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/9.htm#_Toc73505669



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The title of the Report, Like the Dead in Their Coffins", is a quote from a survivor of the infamous Prison 59, where he received 'white torture', in a passage about this type of torture he writes:

Quote:
One writer described the impact of solitary imprisonment:

In the first few hours, it is very hard. You have never been this close to walls in your life. You don’t want to sit, because it is chalk, and you are not used to sitting on chalk. You stand. You pace. You start to get dizzy. After you get dizzy, you lean on a wall. After three or four hours, your legs get tired, and you sit. And then you scream and no one hears you.

And you feel like they are holding you, like they are physically holding on to you. Your hair and nails grow faster. A lot of prisoners say that solitary is like being like “the dead in their coffins” because we had heard that the dead’s nails grow in their coffins. Even if they had given me something to read, they had taken my glasses. Even if I had had my glasses, there wasn’t enough light.

There is no sound. Once in a while, you would hear the call to prayer…After three days, it becomes so, so difficult. Different people break at different times. We used to talk about when people would “break” [boridan]. Some people broke after a few days, some could last much, much longer. It is absolute silence [sukuteh motlaq]. After three days, I just wanted any words. Even if it was swearing, even if it was a harsh interrogation.56


From:
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/5.htm#_Toc73505651


Last edited by Spenta on Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:10 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Spenta



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.afp.com/english/home/
Iran Intensifies Torture of Political Critics

June 07, 2004
Agence France Presse
AFP

Iran has stepped up its suppression of political opposition with an intense campaign of torture and arbitrary arrests, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report released Monday.

The 72-page report documents systematic abuses of political detainees in Tehran's Evin Prison and in secret jails around the capital since the government launched its current crackdown in 2000.

"Claims that reforms in Iran have put an end to torture are simply false," said Sarah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division.

"More than ever, journalists, intellectuals and activists are afraid to voice opinions critical of the government," Whitson said.

The report argued that anti-torture legislation passed by Iran's outgoing reformist parliament in May had not been effectively implemented.

The long list of maltreatment documented in the report included arbitrary arrest, detention without trial, torture to extract confessions, prolonged solitary confinement, and physical and psychological abuse.

"The Iranian government's use of these harsh techniques has largely squelched the country's political opposition and independent media," Human Rights Watch said.

As of June, the Iranian government had closed virtually all independent newspapers, several key journalists and writers had fled the country, many prominent writers and activists had been imprisoned, and scores of student activists intimidated into abandoning peaceful political activity.

Individuals interviewed for the report, including a number of writers and journalists, told Human Rights Watch about brutal interrogations in which they were blindfolded, physically threatened, and forced to recant their political views.

Former detainees also described basement solitary cells where they were left for weeks at a time without any human contact, and threats by judges that if they did not confess, they would be held in solitary confinement indefinitely.

The report documents cases of beatings, long confinement in contorted positions, kicking detainees with military boots, hanging them by the arms and legs, and threats of execution if individuals refused to confess.

A number of former detainees reported that they were treated more harshly after requesting the aid of defense counsel, or inquiring as to the legal status of their cases.

Human Rights Watch called on the European Union to step up pressure on Iran during the next round of their long-running human rights dialogue in Tehran on June 14 and 15.

"The European Union's weak response to continuing human rights violations in Iran is deeply disturbing," said Whitson, "It's time for the European Union to condemn Iran's record of persecution and torture and to set real benchmarks that the government must meet."
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Spenta



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Iran: Police Arrest 13 Teenagers In Mixed Party

June 07, 2004
Ansa
ANSA - English Media Service



TEHRAN -- Iranian police broke up a mixed party attended by teenagers of both sexes arresting 13 of the participants, while 10 others managed to escape, the Bastab website reported on Monday.

The teenagers were dancing in couples, drinking alcohol and taking drugs, a police spokesman said.

The party was organised in an aluminium plate factory owned by the father of one of the arrested teenagers in the town of Varamin, some 50 kilometres south-west of Tehran. This was the first time a similar event managed to escape the tight control imposed by the police on mixed parties in apartments and houses in Tehran.

The teenagers were betrayed by their luxury cars which attracted the attention of the locals.

Islamic law in Iran bans mixed parties, especially if the women are not covered from head to toe, the consumption of alcohol and dancing. These kind of parties are common in Tehran and other major Iranian cities.(ANSA).
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Spenta



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Report: 'Climate of Fear' Still Exists in Iran

June 06, 2004
The Washington Post
Karl Vick



ISTANBUL -- Iran's hard-line conservative rulers have succeeded in stifling public criticism through illegal arrests, systematic beatings and "white torture" in secret prisons, according to a new report by an international watchdog group.

Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, concluded that hard-liners have intimidated critics by shuttering dozens of newspapers, arresting student protesters by the thousands and operating jail facilities beyond the reach of Iran's elected reformers. "White torture" is the term political prisoners use for excruciating confinement alone inside tiny, artificially lit cells for weeks at a time.

The title of the 65-page report, "Like the Dead in Their Coffins: Torture, Detention and the Crushing of Dissent in Iran," refers to the rows of solitary cells in which detainees were confined. The cells typically measure three feet by six feet.

"In the first few hours it is very hard. You have never been so close to walls in your life," said Massoud Behnoud, a journalist who eventually fled overseas.

The report details the "climate of fear" noted in a United Nations human rights report issued in January. The U.N. report mentioned a downward trend for human rights in Iran that diplomats and other observes trace to 2000, when political reformers swept into parliament with promises to ease the grip of religious conservatives on daily life and reform a corrupt economy.

The reformists' electoral victory provoked hard-liners to fight back by using the appointive offices that remained under the control of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme authority in Iran's theocracy. This year one appointed body, the Guardian Council, was widely condemned for disqualifying 2,400 reform candidates from parliamentary elections in February, assuring a conservative victory. Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, whose son is married to Khamenei's daughter, was elected parliamentary speaker on Sunday.

The human rights report also documented a parallel, four-year effort by Iran's conservative judiciary to stifle the public discussion that fueled the reform movement.

"By targeting the leadership of the student activist community and the most influential writers and newspaper editors, the government was able to chill expression among the larger public," the report stated.

Students were more likely than journalists to suffer beatings in prisons controlled by the judiciary or Revolutionary Guard Corps, the report said, noting that more than 4,000 were rounded up by plainclothes agents in demonstrations last July. Last June, a Canadian photographer, Zahra Kazemi, was beaten to death while being interrogated in a Tehran prison. Canada recalled its ambassador over the incident. Documents showed that Said Mortazevi, a widely feared prosecutor, tried to cover up the death; Mortazevi remains in office.
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Spenta



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Human Rights Watch: Iranian Judges Have "Shut Down" Dissent

June 06, 2004
The Associated Press
The Jerusalem Post



Iranian judges have detained and tortured writers, student leaders and political activists in secret prisons and muzzled reform-minded newspapers to "shut down" dissent, Human Rights Watch said in a report Monday that holds out little hope the trend can be reversed.

"There is widespread agreement that the political environment has become increasingly abusive and defined by force," Human Rights Watch said in a 73-page report based on interviews with former political prisoners.

The report, "Like the Dead in Their Coffins: Torture, Detention, and the Crushing of Dissent in Iran," echoed the pessimism of Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami, who has all but conceded defeat in his struggle with hard-liners. Khatami's calls for expanding democratic rights and easing strict Islamic social rules were applauded by many Iranians, but denounced by hard-liners as a betrayal of the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the shah and brought clerics to power.

The Iranian judiciary is seen as firmly in the hands of hard-liners, led by Iran's supreme and unelected leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. New York-based Human Rights Watch said the judiciary was "at the center of the human rights violations" documented in its report.

During his first four-year presidential term, Khatami had managed to relax some of the country's strict Islamic laws and allow greater media freedoms. By the time of Khatami's second-term victory in 2001, hard-liners were fighting back, shutting down more than 100 liberal publications and detaining dozens of activists and writers for criticizing unelected hard-line clerics.

"The Iranian authorities have managed, in the span of four years, to virtually silence the political opposition within the country through the systematic use of indefinite solitary confinement of political prisoners, physical torture of student activists and denial of basic due process rights to all those detained for the expression of dissenting views," Human Rights Watch said.

"A small group of judges accountable only to (Khamenei) has shut down public dissent," the group added, saying the judges had vigilantes and security agents at their disposal to detain and interrogate dissidents, hid their activities in secret prisons and shut down newspapers that had spoken up for political prisoners.

Asked Sunday about reports of human rights violations, judiciary spokesman Naser Hosseini said torture had decreased significantly in Iran since the judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, in April ordered a ban on the use of torture to obtain confessions. Shahroudi's ban was seen as the first public acknowledgment of the practice in the country.

Despite Hosseini's assurances, Iranian reformist lawyer Mohsen Rahami said human rights violations remained a concern.

Human Rights Watch, describing the future as "bleak," said: "The authorities have largely succeeded in their campaign to send a message to the broader public that the costs of voicing peaceful political criticism are unbearably high."

Human Rights Watch interviewed former political prisoners outside Iran. Many were afraid to allow their names to be used or speak openly inside Iran. They described beatings and long stays in windowless, soundproof solitary cells described as "coffins."

One student leader and outspoken critic of the government said he was psychologically tortured by being told during his detention that his parents had had a car accident as they rushed to jail to post bail for him. His father, he was told, had been killed.

"If you had not done this, your father would not have died. This is justice for what you did," the student said he was told. He realized it was a lie only when he saw his parents in court later.

The report was issued a month before the anniversary of a 1999 raid on a Tehran University dormitory that killed one person and touched off days of anti-government protests. The anniversary is usually marked by student protests - and attempts by security forces and pro-government vigilantes to suppress demonstrations.

Human Rights Watch singled out Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, a former judge, in its report. As a judge, Mortazavi ordered the closure of scores of reformist newspapers. Human Rights Watch said he "has been personally involved in a number of coercive interrogations, threats against individual arrestees, and has even allegedly given the order for individual arrestees to be physically abused."

Reformists in Iran have publicly accused Mortazavi of illegally detaining a Canadian photojournalist of Iranian origin and then covering up facts surrounding her death in custody last July.

In April, Iran's unelected clerics honored Mortazavi as "best manager" in the judiciary, under whose umbrella prosecutors fall.
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 2:52 pm    Post subject: Iranian Human Rights Abuses At Worst Level Since 1997 Reply with quote

Compatriots:

I published this today. Feel free to distribute.

http://netwmd.com/articles/article575.html

Andrew L. Jaffee, Publisher
netWMD.com, LLC

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 3:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote


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Spenta



Joined: 04 Sep 2003
Posts: 1829

PostPosted: Wed Jun 09, 2004 10:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear Friend of Iran,

Thank-you, for spreading the word about Iran's horrifying Human Rights Abuses.
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