HRW: Rights under attack in Iran

Essential human rights, especially the right to free speech, were under attack and being undermined by a number of unelected bodies in Iran, an international human rights organisation has stated.

Human Rights Watch, a New York-based NGO, released its “World Report 2017” where it said that human rights had faced a particularly harsh onslaught in the Shia theocracy, especially at the hands of official organisations such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Although Iranian officials and parliamentarians had made “minimal efforts” to defend citizens’ rights, they were systematically undermined whenever they sought to do so by the IRGC and other bodies within the regime.

According to HRW, Iran’s security apparatus, intelligence services and judiciary had all been involved in crackdowns against citizens. Several Iranian dual nationals, journalists and charity workers had all been arrested, with some accused of being part of an “infiltration network” without any evidence being provided.

Iranian authorities accused these citizens of being part of a Western-led plot to undermine the Islamic Republic to subvert and influence the hardline country and its values, as defined by the regime.

“Dozens of other activists, human rights defenders, and social media users were arrested for expressing peaceful dissent, particularly on social media,” HRW found. “Revolutionary courts have handed down increasingly harsh prison sentences to activists – more than 10 years in some cases.”

“Security forces and the judiciary have become the primary obstacles to justice in Iran, in contradiction to their stated purpose of upholding justice,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Undermining citizens’ basic freedoms and overriding their legal protections signify a lack of confidence in their own ability to govern with legitimacy.”

Other vulnerable segments of society have faced increasing pressures. Iranian women face discrimination in personal status matters related to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody.

In 2016, numerous prominent human rights defenders and activists, including Narges Mohammadi, Mohammad Seddigh Kaboudvand and Abdolfatah Soltani remained behind bars. Prominent opposition figures such as Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard and Mehdi Karroubi have been under house arrest without charge or trial since February 2011, HRW said.