In an open letter that has been widely published in the media, Fatemeh Alvandi, the mother of Mehdi Mahmoudian, declared Tehran Prosecutor responsible for her son’s dangerous physical condition, due to damages he sustained during his detention. Mahmoudian is a journalist, a member of the Participation Front Information Committee, and a human rights activist. Go to ICHR Iran.

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry is manipulating the judicial process by forcing the issuance of harsh and long sentences for activists regardless of the lack of credible evidence against them, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today. Go to ICHR Iran.

Free Iran: An article for those who favor realpolitik and claim that promoting human rights is a luxury America cannot afford – like those who advocate engaging the regime in Tehran.  Realpolitik has its own set of unintended consequences.

Ignoring human rights in favor of stability is backfiring not just in Kyrgyzstan, but all over Central Asia — big time.

Go to Foreign Policy.

Irwin Cotler, is a Canadian Member of Parliament and Special Counsel on International Justice and Human Rights for the Liberal Party. He is a Professor of Law (on leave) at McGill University and the former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada.

…The massive domestic human rights violations — unmasked since the fraudulent June 12, 2009 election — have intensified ever since, with a pattern of arrests, detentions, beatings, torture, kidnapping, disappearances, extra-judicial killings, all replete with Stalinist show-trials and coerced confessions. Iran has jailed more journalists than any other country in the world; and has executed more prisoners than any other county, except China, including juvenile offenders.

…In the matter of Iranian human rights violations, governments should regularly display public condemnation of actions of the Iranian leadership; provide moral and diplomatic support for the democratic movement in Iran; impose limits and travel restrictions on Iranian officials engaged in repression; keep the issue on the international agenda in any and all bilateral meetings with Iran; hold Iran to account before the UN Human Rights Council (incredibly, not one resolution of condemnation has ever been adopted against Iran); and work to ensure that Iran is not elected to the council in voting this month… Go to original article.

In August 2006, Akram Mahdavi’s husband was killed. She recently wrote a letter to Haj Kazem, the director of Rajai Shahr prison. Mahdavi stated that she “cannot endure the tortures in prison anymore.” She has demanded for her case to be reviewed as soon as possible. She has also requested to be executed if she does not receive a pardon from the victim’s family. Go to original article.

Iran’s Minister of Justice announced last Wednesday that plans are under way to form a special court for Iranians abroad and that the court will commence work soon. During an appearance at High Council of Coordination with Iranians Abroad, Morteza Bakhtiari said on Sunday that the Council has appropriate authorities based on Articles 127 and 128 of Iranian Constitution.

According to Article 127 of Iranian Constitution, the President can, based on necessity and with approval from the Cabinet, appoint a special representative or representatives with specific authorities. In such cases, decisions made by the representative or representatives will be the same as those made by the President and the Cabinet….

Also:

Australian:  Iranian embassy in Canberra ’spying on activist students’

Go to ICHR Iran.

The relentless pursuit of human rights is the essence of democracy. And, without democracy, human rights cannot, by definition, prevail.

With that premise in mind, the establishment of the clerical regime in Iran has grossly compromised both democracy and human rights. Since its inception, this regime has oppressed the Iranian people, and 2009 was one of the most challenging for millions of my compatriots — a year in which the world witnessed the most flagrant violations of both political and human rights of our citizens.

Yet every time the people attempt to in some way soften the regime, the results yield a swift and unforgiving government response. This is precisely why few would argue today that the thought of reforming this regime — whether it be a domestic attempt or a foreign expectation — has proven to be unrealistic and unattainable. The very nature of clerical leadership, the very essence of its existence is in direct conflict with the principles of democracy and human rights. This regime’s survival depends on denying what the people of Iran demand for themselves. Thus, it is my longstanding belief that so long as this regime remains in power, Iran will not reverse its course.

Go to Huffington Post.

NIGDE, Turkey — Light snow was falling when the two young men set out on horseback for the border to flee Iran. By the time they were deep in the mountains, it had become a blinding blizzard, the temperature had dropped below freezing, and they were barely alive.

Hesam Misaghi and Sepehr Atefi were joining what has become an exodus of dissidents fleeing Iran’s political turmoil. For them that meant a harrowing journey through the country’s rugged northwest in the dead of winter, with the help of Kurdish smugglers.

At a river crossing, the ice broke beneath them and their horses stumbled in, soaking the two with freezing water.

“There was no feeling in my legs and hands,” recalled Misaghi, a tall, wiry 21-year-old. “I felt drunk. I didn’t know where I was. I was laughing from pain.”

Atefi, 20, spotted a van from a distance, grabbed Misaghi’s arm and dragged him toward it through the snow. “There was no life left in me to move forward, but we had to reach the highway,” he said.

The men, both Iranian human rights reporters, reached the van, begged a ride and made it to safety in Turkey.

At least 4,200 Iranians have fled their homeland since disputed presidential elections in June, according to a list compiled by activist Aida Saadat, who herself slipped across the border into Turkey in December. These refugees have scattered to the United States, Europe and Gulf nations like the United Arab Emirates.

Most of all, they have come to Turkey – around 1,150 of them, according to the U.N. refugee agency – taking advantage of the porous border and Turkey’s policy of not requiring a visa. Most of the new arrivals fled for political reasons, including those who took part in opposition protests after the vote. They bring the number of Iranians in Turkey to 4,440, as of February – including “undesirables” in the eyes of the clerical regime, such as homosexuals or members of the Bahai religion.

The danger these Iranians face back home is clear. A month after Atefi and Misaghi’s January escape, police raided their homes in the central Iranian city of Isfahan. Among the charges against them: “moharebeh,” or “waging war against God,” a crime punishable by death.

Police arrested their friend and colleague, Navid Khanjani, who was supposed to have fled with them but changed his mind at the last minute. With Khanjani’s arrest, eight people in the independent Committee of Human Rights Reporters have been jailed, and three remain in prison and could face execution.

In Turkey, the refugees are safer, but they live in limbo. Almost all brought little money and cannot work because of Turkish restrictions, so they cram into small, coal-heated apartments with minimal furniture.

Many Iranian refugees hope the UNHCR will arrange resettlement for them in the United States or Europe – a wait that could take years, as the refugee agency is also dealing with thousands of Iraqis who have fled here from their own wartorn homeland in recent years.

Go to Washington Post.

ISTANBUL, Turkey — The first time Siamak, a private sector employee who participated in Iran’s post-election protests, witnessed a killing was last June, one day after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned demonstrators he was escalating the government’s repression of street protests.

Siamak was out on the streets of downtown Tehran where groups of protesters seeking to link up with each other pelted the security forces with stones. Then, gunshots rang out.

“The first bullet hit an iron door and made a huge sound, the other got a guy near me on his arm, and the third one hit a middle-aged man in the chest and dropped him to the ground,” Siamak recollected as he sipped tea in an Istanbul cafe. He fled the country after several of his friends were arrested in Tehran in February.

“No one moved for three or four seconds,” Siamak said, remembering the shocked silence that temporarily blanketed police and protesters. “We didn’t even run.”

Ten people were killed that day, according to state-run television. It was the bloodiest day of clashes in the eight-month confrontation after Ashura, a nationwide religious festival during which 15 people lost their lives in clashes.

Human rights campaigners are calling these and other incidents “murder” and they are charging that Iran’s rate of state executions is much too high. Iran refuses to allow independent human rights monitors to visit the country. (Read a Q&A with Amnesty International about how the use of the death penalty is decreasing worldwide.)

“It’s murder, even under Iranian law,” said Renee Redman, the executive director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) which recently published a report on post-election abuses. “They’re breaking their own laws, using excessive force against largely peaceful demonstrators.”

Iran’s human rights record began deteriorating after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. Today Iran is second only to China in capital punishment — 270 people were hung in 2010 and another 12 so far in 2010. Total executions in the Persian year, which started on March 21, 2009, passed 440 according to the Mojahedeen-e Khalq (MKO) organization, a Paris-based opposition group whose tally is based on executions reported by state-run media.

On March 5, a U.S. State Department spokesman criticized “this disproportionate punishment” and urged Iran to free a student said to face the death penalty for participating in Ashura demonstrations.

Opposition websites reported that an appeals court confirmed a death sentence for 20-year-old Mohammad Amin Valian for “waging war against God” by throwing stones at security forces during December protests…

GlobalPost:  Interview: Death penalty decreasing worldwide

BOSTON — Amnesty International released its annual survey on the use of the death penalty. The report found 18 countries executed people in 2009. China is estimated to have executed the most people, but refused to release an official figure. In the 17 other countries 714 people were executed.

Iran had one of the highest uses of the death penalty in 2009, which is described in a dispatch by Iason Athanasidis.

GlobalPost asked Joshua Rubenstein, Northeast Regional Director of Amnesty International, about the report on the use of the death penalty worldwide.

What is most notable about the new figures on the death penalty?

It is interesting to note how confined the death penalty is. Amnesty International has been doing this survey for 30 years. When we started the majority of countries had the death penalty on their books. Judicial execution was widespread. Today 95 countries have abolished the death penalty. Another nine countries have abolished it for ordinary crimes but use it for war-time crimes like treason. A further 35 countries have stopped using the death penalty — meaning that they have not executed anyone for 10 years or that they have suspended, if not abandoned, the death penalty. So 139 countries of the 192 in the United Nations have abolished or moved away from the death penalty. This is a historic trend.

And there is no question that we have seen a vivid trend away from the death penalty in 2009. In Africa, Burundi and Togo abolished the death penalty. In Europe we saw no executions at all in 2009. Belarus is the only European country to still have the death penalty, and that country did execute someone in the first months of 2010, but Belarus did not execute anyone in 2009. In all the Americas, both North and South, the United States was the only country to use the death penalty. The U.S. executed 52 people in 2009. Of that 24 were in Texas. The use of the death penalty is dwindling.

Where is the death penalty being used?

China leads the world in executions. Amnesty International has refused to publish an exact figure, because the Chinese government has not given us an official figure, saying that it is a state secret. But we know that thousands have been executed in China. In 2008 China executed at least 1,700 people and it is unlikely that number has gone down. If they are using the death penalty, they should be able to make those figures public.

Other countries that do use the death penalty include Iran with 388 by hanging or stoning, Iraq with 120 by hanging, Saudi Arabia with 69 by beheading or crucifixion, and the United States with 52 by lethal injection or electrocution. The U.S. is virtually alone among recognized democracies to use the death penalty.

In Asia the death penalty is decreasing. India occasionally executes people but it did not carry any executions out in 2009. Thailand does occasionally execute people and Japan rarely.

In sub-Saharan Africa only Botswana and Sudan carried out judicial executions in 2009. Kenya commuted the death sentences of 4,000 prisoners who were on death row. That was the largest commutation of death sentences ever known.

When you look at Texas, the 24 executions there would rank it in the top 10 countries.

Go to original article.

Tehran is holding three hikers on trumped up charges. We know first-hand what they are living through.

By OMID MEMARIAN AND ROXANA SABERI

As the three Americans detained in Iran near the end of their eighth month in captivity, it has become increasingly clear that their case, like those of so many other prisoners in Iran, is not legal but political and a matter of human rights.

Since Sarah Shourd, 31, Shane Bauer, 27, and Josh Fattal, 27, were arrested by Iranian authorities who claimed they illegally crossed the border from neighboring Iraq last July, the three Americans have been almost completely cut off from the outside world. Swiss Ambassador Livia Leu Agosti, whose embassy represents U.S. interests in Iran, was able to visit the trio twice, but the last time was in late October. It was not until March 9—more than seven months after their arrests—that the three were permitted to call their families for the first time.

The hikers have been held in solitary confinement for a prolonged period. (Sarah still is, her family says, although she is allowed to meet with Josh and Shane at least once a day.) And although Sarah, Shane and Josh have a lawyer, they have not been allowed to meet with him even once, according to their families.

Go to WSJ.

As Hassan walked — well, more like sashayed — through the market in this southern Turkish city, the population on the sidewalk — elderly women in dark veils, men behind stalls selling Turkish pears five to a bag, children in woolly striped sweaters — all gawked.

“Yes, look! Look all you want,” Hassan said with a flourish, opening his arms in a benevolent gesture, as if their stares were rooted in adulation and not curiosity bordering on disgust. A portly, middle-aged woman narrowed her eyes and curled her lip at him.

“What?” said the 34-year-old Iranian refugee. “Is this the first time she’s seen a man wearing makeup? Maybe she should take notes. She could use a few beauty tips.”

Behind him, Farzan giggled. The slight 25-year-old sporting a shoulder sack that would be labeled a purse even in the male-bag capitals of Tokyo and Paris offered up a quick tale in his feminine lilt. “The other day I was buying some eggs, and the man would not even take the money from my hand,” he recounted. “He looked at me and said, ‘Put the money on the table,’ and spat on the floor. He gave me no change.”

“You should have thrown the eggs in his face,” lectured Hassan, anger flashing in his eyes, their color hazel by the grace of contact lenses. “We’re out of Iran now, and you will not take that kind of treatment anymore. Not in Turkey, not anywhere. You stand up for yourself. One life being less than human was enough.”

Go to Washington Post.

The Paris-based press watchdog Reporters Without Borders is sounding the alarm over the harsh conditions and lack of medical treatment of a number of imprisoned Iranian journalists, warning that their lives could be in danger.

Reporters Without Borders is warning that several Iranian journalists who have been imprisoned arbitrarily for weeks, now, are suffering from serious medical conditions and could die without immediate treatment. The Paris-based press watchdog complains that treatment is being withheld in many cases as an additional form of punishment.

Hundreds of journalists have been arrested in the aftermath of Iran’s disputed June 12 presidential election and many have been pressured to remain silent in order to obtain their conditional freedom.  Those who have stubbornly refused to comply remain incarcerated for the most part in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.

Reza Moini of Reporters Without Borders says that it is unacceptable that the Islamic Republic treats journalists in this manner and that his organization is holding government officials responsible for the lives of those journalists now being held:

He says that there are journalists that have been imprisoned for a number of months, now, and who are gravely ill. He stresses that many have been deprived of their basic rights, including medical treatment and visits by family members.  He calls attention to the cases of Emadoldin Baghi, Badrolssadat Mofidi, Mehdi Mahmudian and Mahommad Sadegh Kabovand who need immediate medical treatment, warning that his organization holds Islamic Republic officials responsible for the treatment and prompt release of these and other ailing journalists…

Go to VOA.

By Ali Sheikholeslami

March 30 (Bloomberg) — Iran executed more people last year than any other country except China, according to a report by Amnesty International.

The Islamic Republic accounted for 388 of at least 714 executions worldwide, excluding China, Amnesty said in its Death Sentences and Executions 2009 report published today. China, which doesn’t release figures, executed thousands of people, the report said.

The number of executions increased from a minimum of 672, excluding China, the year before as Iran stepped up political repression, Amnesty said. Almost a third of those killed in Iran were executed between the June 12 election and the Aug. 5 inauguration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president for a second term.

“To us that’s a way of sending a political message of ‘we will not tolerate any form of dissent’,” Claudio Cordone, interim secretary general of Amnesty International, said by phone.

Amnesty:  Iran executions send a chilling message

Go to Bloomberg.