UK Vows To Protect Iran International Journalists From Threats

The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists said on Tuesday only 30 of the 57 detained journalists have been reportedly released so far.

According to the Federation, five journalists were serving their sentences in Iranian prisons before protests erupt following the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in police custody in mid-September.

In the past months, the International Federation of Journalists issued several statements calling on the Iranian authorities to end arrests of journalists and to release those imprisoned immediately.

Anthony Bellanger, Secretary General of the Federation of Journalists said, “We ask the Iranian authorities not to use the coverage of national protests as an excuse to suppress the media. Every citizen in Iran has the right to know what is going on.”

He went on to say that “Our colleagues should be released immediately and be allowed to report the events freely.”

“We remind the Iranian authorities that freedom of expression is a fundamental right of all Iranian citizens, including journalists,” underlined Bellanger.

Niloufar Hamedi, Elahe Mohammadi, and Ehsan Pirbornabash are among the journalists who are still in custody.

There are no exact figures on the number of people arrested during the protests, but some sources say nearly 20,000 people have been detained.

The United States requested the vote after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman died in hijab police custody in September with deadly blows to her head. The incident triggered nationwide anti-regime protests during which more young women were killed.

The 54-member UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) will vote on a US-drafted resolution to "remove with immediate effect the Islamic Republic of Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women for the remainder of its 2022-2026 term."

The 45-member Commission on the Status of Women meets annually every March and aims to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. A US official told Reuters they had "consistently seen growing support" to remove Iran.

Iran, 17 other states and the Palestinians argued in a letter to ECOSOC on Monday that a vote "will undoubtedly create an unwelcome precedent that will ultimately prevent other Member States with different cultures, customs and traditions ... from contributing to the activities of such Commissions."

But Western countries and human rights defenders say Iran’s laws and policies severely discriminate against women and that is a universal rights issue.

Only five of the signatories to the letter are currently ECOSOC members and able to vote on Wednesday.

According to some documents obtained by Iran International, the Iranian regime is exerting pressure on academic figures to send letters to numerous global bodies to urge them to vote against the move. Among the documents are an official letter from an advisor of the head of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad to her colleagues with the list of emails of UN missions and a list of points to be mentioned in the correspondence by the professors.

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The 54-member UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) will vote on whether to oust the Islamic Republic from the commission on December 14.

In the documents, a list of email addresses of UN missions of many countries as well as rights groups were provided, and university professors were asked to write to them in an attempt to prevent Iran’s expulsion initiated by the United States and supported by others. Samples letters were also given to the academics to use them as templates, but they were asked to change the wordings of the letters a bit so that it would not be obvious that they were part of a state-orchestrated campaign. 

The sample letters are a collection of the regime’s propaganda lines blaming foreign powers for the current wave of protests that began in mid-September following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in custody of hijab police. Such hackneyed lines include blaming other countries for instigating the rallies, blaming the US for using UN mechanisms as political tools, and blaming sanctions by Western countries as the main reason behind the country’s economic woes. 

The academics were also asked to mention the claims that women and men enjoy equal rights in the Islamic Republic and that Iranian women have been present in all economic fields and have made great achievements. Such bogus claims were also read out during a UN Human Rights Council meeting late in November held to discuss the deteriorating situation in Iran, especially with respect to women and children. 

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The equality of men and women in Iran is evidently untrue. The Islamic Republic’s constitution clearly states that women are considered as inferior to men in terms of inheritance, testifying in courts and in many other areas according to the Islamic law or sharia. Women in Iran are not allowed to travel abroad without the permission of a male guardian, their share in inheritance is half of what male family members receive -- the financial compensation paid to the victim or heirs of a victim in cases of death, is also half of that of a man. 

Among the other points that the academics were asked to mention in their letters to members of the commission is warning them that the expulsion of the Islamic Republic sets a precedent that may be used against other members in the future. 

The first step by the United Nations to hold the Islamic Republic accountable for its crackdown on protesters was creating a fact-finding mission by the Human Rights Council and the second move can be the vote to kick the regime off the Commission on the Status of Women. The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council voted on November 24 to launch an independent investigation into the regime’s deadly repression of protests that has killed around 500 civilians, including about 60 children. 

Late in November, the United States circulated a draft resolution on the move, that denounces Iran's policies as "flagrantly contrary to the human rights of women and girls and to the mandate of the Commission on the Status of Women." The US-drafted resolution would "remove with immediate effect the Islamic Republic, which has just started a four-year term on the 45-member commission. 

In an interview with MSNBC Sunday US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley said, “it makes no sense for Iran to be sitting on a commission whose role is to promote the rights of women when they are doing exactly the opposite.”

Responding to the Iranian authorities’ public execution of Majidreza Rahnavard, Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said Monday “the horrific public execution…exposes Iran’s judiciary for what it is: a tool of repression sending individuals to the gallows to spread fear and exacting revenge on protesters daring to stand up to the status quo.”

The Islamic Republic hanged a second protester, Majidreza Rahnavard in less than a week in public on Monday after charging him with the alleged killing two members of security forces.

Eltahawy further added that the arbitrary execution of the youth “lays bare the extent of the Iranian authorities’ assault on the right to life and their disregard for even maintaining a façade of meaningful judicial proceedings.”

Amnesty urged the international community to take all necessary measures to pressure the Iranian authorities to stop executions and annule death sentences.

The body has identified 20 people at risk of execution in connection with the protests among them 11 sentenced to death.

Three individuals, according to Amnesty, have undergone trials on capital charges and are either at risk of being sentenced to death or may have already been sentenced to death, with no publicly available information on their status.

Six others may be awaiting or undergoing trial on charges carrying the death penalty, stated the international human rights organization.

Ye-One Rhie, a member of the Bundestag who has undertaken political sponsorship of imprisoned dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi said in a series of tweets Monday that she has written this to the Iranian ambassador, the EU special representative for human rights, the council of Europe commissioner for human rights, and the high commissioner for human rights about Toomaj’s case and expressed her great concerns for his well-being.

The 32-year-old rapper who was violently arrested in late October and currently in detention in Dastgerd Prison is awaiting a verdict which many fear could be a death sentence for “corruption on earth”. In her tweets, Rhie underlined that the authorities have deprived Toomaj of any contact with the lawyer he and his family wish to represent him. His lawyer, Amir Raesian, says he has not been allowed access to the case files yet.

The number of German MPs taking political sponsorship of Iranian protesters is growing. Carmen Wegge has declared herself the sponsor of Armita Abbasi, a young woman of 20, who was missing since her arrest on October 10 before being taken to a hospital in Karaj on October 18 by security forces with multiple injuries including internal bleeding and evidence of repeated rape.

Political patronage or sponsorship (politische patenshaften in German) is a way for German parliamentarians to select a specific political prisoner and use their political weight to campaign for the prisoner’s freedom. This is mainly done by addressing the ambassador and the relevant government and international institutions dealing with human rights.

“It is the special responsibility of politicians to make the human rights situation around the world an issue – not just in their own. The violation of human rights must not be accepted anywhere, because all people are free and born with equal rights,” the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) recently quoted Iran's Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi as saying who added that politicians in other countries should actively raise human rights issues in bilateral talks with the Iranian government. 

Clara Anne Bünger, founder and board member of Equal Rights Beyond Borders, a Greek-German human rights organization enforcing the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in Greece, Germany, and throughout the EU, has taken on the political sponsorship of the 22-year-old Mohammad Ghobadlou who has been sentenced to death on the charge of “corruption on earth” by the notorious Revolutionary Court judge Abolghasem Salavati.

In a video message circulated on social media two weeks ago, Ghobadlou’s mother called for help for her son before it was too late. She said the court refused to allow his defense lawyer to attend the secret trial. “They sentence him to death in the first session of the court,” she said.

“The EU must ensure that judges like him never find a safe place in the EU,” Bünger said in a tweet.

Salavati and other judges of the Revolutionary Court are famous for harsh sentencing including many death sentences in high-profile trials of political figures and activists, journalists and others over the years and lack of due process in these cases.

Judge Salavati who has recently sentenced Ghobadlou and at least five other protesters to death was sanctioned by the European Union in 2011 and by the US Treasury Department in 2019 for human rights abuses.

Two other Bundestag representatives, Lukas Benner, and Maryam Blumental, have also jointly undertaken to politically sponsor Mahan Sadrat (spelled incorrectly as Sedarat in some sources). The 22-year-old who has been convicted of “waging war against God” in a sham trial and sentenced to death is at imminent risk of execution. Mahan denied being in possession of a knife in court which the prosecutor claims he used to “cause an environment of insecurity and fear” to the people.

Another young man, Mohammad-Mehdi Karami, is being sponsored by Helge Limburg. “The regime in Iran assumes that he was involved in a killing. In truth he should die because he stands up for democracy and human rights. His execution would be a judicial killing,” Limburg tweeted Monday.

Mostafa Nili, a well-known lawyer who has represented many activists, prisoners of conscience and protesters in the past is being sponsored by Norbert Röttgen. Nili was arrested on November 7 by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Intelligence Organization (SAS) along with Hassan Younesi, another human rights lawyer.