Amnesty International Report 1994 - Iran

Political arrests, torture, unfair trials and summary executions were reported throughout the country. Prisoners of conscience were among those detained or serving long prison terms after unfair trials. Judicial punishments of flogging and amputation of fingers continued to be implemented. At least 93 people were executed, including political prisoners. Several government opponents were abducted or killed outside Iran in circumstances suggesting that they may have been victims of extrajudicial executions involving Iranian officials. President 'Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was elected to a second four-year term of office. His government continued to face armed opposition from the Iraq-based People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), and organizations such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) in Kurdistan and Baluchi groups in Sistan-Baluchistan. Government forces raided opposition targets inside Iraq, and the PMOI claimed responsibility for attacks on various installations within Iran. There were continuing reports of arbitrary arrests, as well as the detention, torture and execution of suspected government opponents. Those arrested included current and former officers of the armed forces and security police who were detained in October. Among them were Colonel Nasrollah Tavakkoli Nayshaboury. The precise reasons for their arrest were unclear. Some reports stated that those detained were connected with a critical open letter addressed to the government and the Islamic Consultative Assembly earlier in the year, others suggested that they may have been involved in a coup attempt. They were believed to have been released in November. Other political prisoners were serving long prison terms following unfair trials: they included supporters of the PMOI; at least 24 followers of Dr 'Ali Shari'ati; members of left-wing organizations such as the Tudeh Party, Peykar and Razmandegan; supporters of Kurdish organizations such as the KDPI and Komala; and members of other groups representing ethnic minorities such as Baluchis and Arabs. In August Resalat newspaper reported a senior prison official as stating that a total of 99,900 prisoners were held during the Iranian calendar year ending in March 1993. However, no figures were made public regarding the number of political prisoners nor the number of prisoners executed. Members of the Shi'a and Sunni clergy continued to be subject to harassment and arrest. At least five followers of Ayatollah Hossein 'Ali Montazeri were reportedly arrested in February, after he had publicly criticized the authorities. Their fate remained unknown at the end of the year. Journalists continued to be imprisoned, among them 'Abbas 'Abdi, editor-in-chief of Salam newspaper, who was reportedly held in prolonged incommunicado detention following his arrest in July. In December, after a secret trial before an Islamic Revolutionary Court, he was given a one-year prison term and a suspended sentence of 40 lashes. He was allegedly charged with offences against national security. Naser 'Arabha, a journalist sentenced in 1992 to six months' imprisonment for violating press laws (see Amnesty International Report 1993), was released. However, Manouchehr Karimzadeh, a cartoonist for the science magazine Farad, had his one-year prison term overruled by a second court and increased to 10 years' imprisonment on account of his caricature depicting a football-playing amputee who allegedly resembled the late Ayatollah Khomeini. He was reportedly convicted of insulting the former leader. He was believed to be a prisoner of conscience. Other political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, some arrested many years before, remained in prison. They included Mehdi Dibaj, a prisoner of conscience held since 1984, apparently for converting from Islam to Christianity. He was reportedly sentenced to death on charges of apostasy in 1986. After the case was examined by other courts it was referred to Criminal Court No. 1 in Sari, which reportedly confirmed the death sentence for apostasy in December 1993. He was given 20 days in which to appeal against the sentence. Approximately 10 members of the Baha'i faith were also imprisoned. Three were believed to have received death sentences. One of the three was subsequently released and the others, Behnam Mithaqi and Kayvan Khalajabadi, appealed against their sentences to the Supreme Court, but no final decision had been reached by the end of the year. Several amnesties were declared during 1993. On 1 April, for example, on the occasion of Islamic Republic Day, 1,682 prisoners convicted by public, military and Islamic Revolutionary courts had their prison terms reduced by Ayatollah Khamene'i, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Republic. No further details were made available, and it was not known whether political prisoners were among those who benefited. Arasto Shabani, arrested in 1990 (see Amnesty International Report 1993), was reportedly released from prison in November but was sentenced to a five-year term of internal exile. Political trials continued to fall far short of international standards for fair trial. Trial hearings were almost always held in camera, inside prisons. Proceedings were summary with hearings often lasting only a few minutes. Reports consistently indicated that political detainees were denied access to legal counsel at any stage of judicial proceedings, despite official assurances to the contrary. Torture and ill-treatment of prisoners continued to be reported to extract confessions or statements to be used as evidence at trial. Methods most commonly used were beatings, particularly on the back and on the soles of the feet, and suspension. Former political prisoners consistently reported being kept blindfolded in incommunicado detention for prolonged periods, and subjected to beating with cables and batons. Amputation and flogging as judicial punishments remained in force. In December seven people convicted on repeated counts of theft had the fingers of their right hands amputated in the province of Gilan. In June, during a nationwide crack-down on "vice and moral corruption", a number of women were reported to have been sentenced to flogging. The punishment laid down by law for infringing the dress code is 74 lashes. They were among hundreds of women who were reported to have been arrested in Tehran for allegedly failing to conform to the strict dress laws of the Islamic Republic. Flogging was frequently imposed for a wide range of other offences, often in conjunction with prison sentences. At least 93 people were executed, some of whom were hanged in public. In previous years many executions for non-political offences, such as drug-trafficking and murder, were reported in the Iranian press. These figures alone amounted to hundreds each year. In 1993, however, far fewer executions were reported by the Iranian news media, apparently as a result of government directives designed to prevent such reports being used by the UN Special Representative on Iran and other human rights bodies in criticism of Iran's use of the death penalty. Over 20 Baluchis were reported in the press and by unofficial sources to have been executed between December 1992 and February 1993. Some were said to have been detained without charge or trial for over a year; others had reportedly been charged with drug-trafficking, armed robbery or counter-revolutionary activities. No information was available about their trials. In December a 15-year-old girl, Mitra Zahraie, was sentenced to death and 20 lashes, having been convicted of murder and other offences by a court in Qazvin. Among the prisoners executed on political grounds was Mohsen Mohammadi Sabet, who was executed in Rasht Prison in August after being held incommuni-cado in solitary confinement for about 10 months. Salim Saberniah and Mustafa Ghaderi, two alleged members of Komala who had been convicted of undertaking activities against the Islamic Republic, were reportedly sentenced to death and had their sentences confirmed by the Supreme Court in March. They were held in Tabriz Prison. By the end of the year no further information had come to light regarding their situation. There were further reports of government opponents being abducted or killed outside Iran in circumstances suggesting that Iranian officials or people acting on their behalf were responsible (see Amnesty International Report 1993). In May 1993 German prosecutors investigating the murder in Berlin in September 1992 of Sadegh Sharafkandi, the Secretary General of the KDPI, and three other Iranians (see Amnesty International Report 1993) stated that the ringleader of the Berlin attack was an agent of the Iranian secret service and that he had received orders from his superiors in Tehran to carry out the killings. The Iranian authorities continued to deny categorically accusations of involvement in any of the killings. Trial proceedings began in Germany at the end of October and were still in progress at the end of the year. The pattern of attacks on opposition activists suggested that at least some might have been victims of extrajudicial executions by Iranian government agents. On 16 March Mohammad Hossein Naghdi, representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and former Chargé d'Affaires at the Iranian Embassy in Rome, Italy, was killed by two gunmen in Rome. Also in March, two members of the Naroui tribe, Haibat and Dilavar, were killed outside their home in Karachi, Pakistan. In June Mohammad Hassan Arbab (also known as Mohammad Khan Baluch), a PMOI activist, was assassinated in Karachi. In August Mohammad Ghaderi, a former member of the KDPI, was abducted from his home in Kirshahir, Turkey. His badly mutilated body was discovered 10 days later. Also in August Bahram Azadifar, a KDPI member, was killed in his home in Turkey, reportedly by two men dressed as Turkish policemen. There were reports that people arrested in connection with the abduction in Turkey of 'Abbas Gholizadeh in December 1992 (see Amnesty International Report 1993) had confessed to his abduction, adding that they had been instructed several months later to bury his body. There was no further information by the end of the year. Swiss authorities investigating the murder of Kazem Rajavi in Geneva in 1990 (see Amnesty International Report 1991) had sought the extradition from France of two Iranian nationals in connection with his murder. Their investigation had reportedly revealed evidence of Iranian officials' involvement in the killing. Although the French court of appeal agreed with the request, the French authorities announced in December that the two men had been returned to Iran. The threat of extrajudicial execution extended to many Iranian nationals abroad, as well as to non-Iranians such as the British writer Salman Rushdie and individuals involved in publishing or translating his novel, The Satanic Verses, which provoked a fatwa (religious edict) calling for his killing in 1989. Amnesty International continued to press for the release of all prisoners of conscience. It urged the government to introduce safeguards to ensure that political detainees would receive fair and prompt trials and expressed grave concern about the continuing reports of torture. Throughout the year Amnesty International appealed for an end to executions. The government replied to certain inquiries, although most of Amnesty International's requests for information on particular cases failed to produce a substantive response. The authorities again denied that any of Dr Shari'ati's followers were in prison. In November Amnesty International published a report, Iran: Victims of human rights violations, highlighting a number of individual cases and calling on the authorities to bring its human rights law and practice fully into line with international standards. Amnesty International had planned to discuss its concerns with government and judicial officials in Tehran in January 1993, but was unable to go ahead owing to government objections. By the end of the year, there was no change in this situation, despite repeated public statements by Iranian officials suggesting that Amnesty International had been invited to visit the country. In a written statement to the UN Commission on Human Rights in February, Amnesty International described its concerns in Iran, including mass executions, unfair trials, torture and the detention of prisoners of conscience. The Commission voted to extend the mandate of the UN Special Representative on the situation of human rights in Iran: however, he was denied access to the country by the Iranian authorities for the second consecutive year. The UN Human Rights Committee continued its examination of Iran's second periodic report regarding implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in April and July. It deplored the high number of executions, particularly after unfair trials, and also condemned the fatwa imposing a death sentence on the British writer Salman Rushdie.