Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Iran.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Iran. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** Family Says Son
Died After Torture By Iranian Security Agents Ardeshir Tayebi,
based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda www.rferl.org/a/iran-protester-killed-torture/32169796.html?ltflags=mailer [accessed 9 Dec 2022] The family of a
22-year-old Iranian protester says their son has died in a detention center
after being tortured for hours following his arrest during a protest in the
western Iranian city of Dehgolan. The protests, which
have snowballed into one of the biggest threats to the clerical establishment
that has ruled since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, started after
22-year-old Mahsa Amini
died on September 16, three days after being detained in Tehran by the
morality police for allegedly breaching Iran's strict rules on head scarves. Activist reports
also indicate that hundreds of people have been arrested and scores injured,
with many people missing after being detained by security forces. 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Iran U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/iran/
[accessed 25 July
2021] DISAPPEARANCE There were reports
of politically motivated abductions during the year attributed to government
officials. Plainclothes officials seized lawyers, journalists and activists
without warning, and government officials refused to acknowledge custody or
provide information on them. In most cases the government made no efforts to
prevent, investigate, or punish such acts. TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT Although the
constitution prohibits all forms of torture “for the purpose of extracting
confession or acquiring information,” use of physical and mental torture to
coerce confessions remained prevalent, especially during pretrial detention.
There were credible reports that security forces and prison personnel
tortured and abused detainees and prisoners throughout the year. Commonly reported
methods of torture and abuse in prisons included threats of execution or
rape, forced tests of virginity and “sodomy,” sleep deprivation,
electroshock, including the shocking of genitals, burnings, the use of
pressure positions, and severe and repeated beatings. Human rights
organizations frequently cited some prison facilities, including Evin Prison in Tehran, Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj, Greater Tehran Penitentiary, Qarchak Prison, Adel Abad Prison, and Orumiyeh
Prison for their use of cruel and prolonged torture of political opponents,
particularly Wards 209 and Two of Evin Prison,
reportedly controlled by the IRGC. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Prison conditions
were harsh and life threatening due to food shortages, gross overcrowding,
physical abuse, and inadequate sanitary conditions and medical care. Prisoner
hunger strikes in protest of their treatment were frequent. Physical
Conditions: Overcrowding, long a problem in prisons with many prisoners
forced to sleep on floors, in hallways, or in prison yards, became
particularly acute following mass arrests during the November 2019 protests,
according to comments by local government officials referenced in a July
report by UNSR Rehman. Iranian Mullahs'
Torture Epidemic: UN, EU, Biden Administration Continue Appeasing Anyhow Majid Rafizadeh, Gatestone Institute,
International Policy Council, 2 September 2021 www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17714/iran-torture-epidemic [accessed 2
September 2021] There are reports
of slow public hangings-to-death on cranes, amputations of fingers by special
guillotines, electric shocks, and rape, in addition to various methods of torture
such as flogging, amputation, beating detainees with cables, sticks, rubber
hosepipes, knives, batons, punching and kicking and forcing political
prisoners into stress positions for a long period of time, and depriving them
of water, food and medical care. Navid Afkari, the champion wrestler who was executed last year,
wrote in a letter: "For around 50
days I had to endure the most horrendous physical and psychological tortures.
They would beat me with sticks and batons, hitting my arms, legs, abdomen,
and back. They would place a plastic bag on my head and torture me until I
suffocated to the very brink of death. They also poured alcohol into my
nose." In another
instance, a man was tied to a tree in public and flogged 80 times for having
drunk alcohol a decade earlier, when he was 14 or 15. An accused thief, who
allegedly stole some livestock, saw his hand cut off. Tehran Prison Abuse
Revealed In Security Footage Leak Stuart Greer,
RFE/RL's Radio Farda, 24 August 2021 www.rferl.org/a/tehran-prison-abuse-revealed-in-security-footage-leak/31426247.html?ltflags=mailer www.rferl.org/a/iran-evin-prison-abuse/31425523.html?ltflags=mailer [accessed 24 August
2021] A self-described
hacking group has called for nationwide protests in Iran and the release of
political prisoners after it obtained security-camera footage showing abuses
at Tehran's notorious Evin prison. Videos sent to
RFE/RL's Radio Farda and other media by the group, Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice), showed guards beating and
dragging prisoners. In a rare admission, the head of the country's prisons
apologized for the "unacceptable behavior" and promised "to
deal seriously with the wrongdoers." (Warning: this video contains
disturbing content) Bodies of 'beaten
and tortured' Afghans recovered at Iran border Officials allege 55 migrants were forced into a
river by Iran's border guards, with some of them beaten and tortured Agence France-Presse AFP, 8 May 2020 www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/bodies-beaten-tortured-afghans-recovered-iran-border-200508144011710.html [accessed 10 May
2020] "Out of 55
Afghan migrants who were forced into the river, we have so far recovered 18
bodies," Abdul Ghani Noori, the governor of Gulran district bordering Iran, told AFP news agency. He said six migrants
were still missing while others survived. The bodies "bear signs of
beating and torture," Noori said. "Based on the
accounts of survivors and the marks on the bodies of the victims, they were
first lashed with wire cables by the Iranian border guards and then forced at
gunpoint to jump into the river," he said. Afghanistan's
Independent Human Rights Commission said last week the Iranian guards made
the migrants cross the Harirud river and "as a
result, a number of them drowned". Freedom House Country
Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/iran/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 17 May
2020] F3. IS THERE
PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR
AND INSURGENCIES? Former detainees
have reported being beaten during arrest and subjected to torture until they
confess to crimes dictated by their interrogators. Some crimes can be formally
punished with lashes in addition to imprisonment or fines. Prisons are
overcrowded, and prisoners often complain of poor detention conditions,
including denial of medical care. Hunger strikes by political prisoners to
protest mistreatment in custody remained common in 2019. Woman wins $36
million claim over Iran prison torture Paul Peachey, The
National, 13 September 2018 www.thenational.ae/world/europe/woman-wins-36-million-claim-over-iran-prison-torture-1.770141 [accessed 16
September 2018] Businesswoman says
she was tortured and threatened with execution at Evin
jail Ms Azadeh was interrogated every day for six weeks, pushed
down a flight of stairs and left with a dislocated shoulder. She was whipped
by one jailer who told her “he enjoyed seeing her suffer,” according to court
documents. At one point she was falsely told that her mother, who lived in
Iran, had died. Her fiancé was also detained. During the
sustained period of torture, she was twice blindfolded, bundled into a car
and lined up against a wall. “She heard
instructions being given to a firing squad to fire after which she heard several
gun shots,” the court papers said. “The last thought she had was: ‘I am going
to die and no one will know’. Former political
prisoner murdered under torture Iran Human Rights
Monitor HRM, 10 June 2018 iran-hrm.com/index.php/2018/06/10/iran-former-political-prisoner-murdered-under-torture/ [accessed 10 June
2018] A former political
prisoner from Oshnavieh, was killed under torture after being arrested and
transferred to the Detention Center of Khoy’s city.
Rahman Ghorbani was arrested on Saturday June 2,
2018 by the security forces of Iran and transferred to Khoy
city’s Detention Center. According to an informed source, Ghorbani
lost his life due to numerous electric baton strikes and heart failure during
the torture. Iran detains
ex-prosecutor convicted in 2009 torture case Nasser Karimi, Associated Press AP, Tehran, 22 April 2018 www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iran-detains-ex-prosecutor-convicted-in-2009-torture-case/2018/04/22/ef1b33f0-465a-11e8-8082-105a446d19b8_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.df9ee337008a [accessed 24 April
2018] www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-04-22/iran-detains-ex-prosecutor-convicted-in-2009-torture-case [accessed 4 January
2019] Iranian police have
arrested a former prosecutor known as the “torturer of Tehran,” who faces a
two-year jail term over the death of prisoners following protests in 2009,
Iranian media reported on Sunday. Canada has blamed Mortazavi for the death in custody of Iranian-Canadian
photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in 2003. Iranian
reformists accused Mortazavi of trying to stage a
cover-up because it was he who reported that Kazemi
had died of a stroke. A government
committee probing her death later found that she had died of a fractured
skull and a brain hemorrhage from a blow to the head. No charges were filed
against Mortazavi. UN rights
investigator decries Iran clampdown, torture, floggings Channel NewsAsia, 05 Mar 2018 www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/france-terrorist-attack-islamic-state-trebes-supermarket-10071772 [accessed 24 March
2018] [accessed 4 January
2019] FLOGGINGS,
AMPUTATIONS --
Jahangir called for a halt to flogging and amputations. More than 100
flogging sentences were handed down in Iran last year, 50 of which are
believed to have been carried out, as well as five out of 19 sentences of
amputation, she said. Life inside Iran’s
prisons: Ex-inmate reveals torture in cells as Brit Nazanin
loses hope Vickiie Oliphant, Sunday
Express, 25 November 2017 [accessed 25
November 2017] Although only
locked up for a week, he claims he suffered horrific treatment while inside -
including depriving him of food, light and suffering from beatings. He said he was kept
in solitary confinement for his whole sentence, and they didn't give him
anything to eat and just water to drink.
He said: "The place was so small, two meters by two meters. I
didn't know if it was day or night, dark and dirty but when birds started to
sing I thought it was morning.
"They even didn't let me sleep.
"Every morning I heard that some people were lashed and screaming
from another part of the prison. The lashing had continued until noon." And he was
repeatedly interrogated, with prison guards trying "to play good cop bad
cop role". 'Stuck in a black
hole of evil': My torture in same Iranian prison as Nazanin
Zaghari-Ratcliffe Marina Nemat, a former prisoner, Sky News, 14 November 2017 [accessed 14
November 2017] They tied me to the
bare wooden bed. I was lying down on my stomach. They lashed the soles of my
feet with a length of cable that looked like a garden hose but was not
hollow. This is the most common
method of torture in the Middle East. Why? Because our nerve ends are in our
feet. With every strike,
my nervous system would explode, and then it was magically put back together
again, and I was wide awake for the next.
A place beyond pain. I began
to count the strikes, but I forgot how to count. They eventually stopped
beating me and made me sit up. I
looked at my feet, and I laughed out loud. My feet looked like overgrown
party balloons with toes on them, indigo blue. I looked like a cartoon character.
They thought I was resisting, so they beat me more. Torture is not
really designed to get information, because the tortured tells the torturer
what he wants to hear; torture is designed to kill the human soul.” Iranian Resistance calls
for international inquiry into torture of Sunni political prisoners before
execution Iran Focus, London,
17 August 2016 [accessed 17 August
2016] Their statement
read: “The execution of political prisoners, particularly after their brutal
torture, is a crime against humanity toward which silence is absolutely unacceptable.” It then goes on to
describe the horrors that these Sunni prisoners were subject to. The day
before their execution, the prisoners were led out in shackles with bags over
their head. The statement said:
“[When the families went to see their relatives at the morgue, the bodies of
their relatives] were blue and black from the beatings, the hands and feet of
some of them were broken, and their bones had stuck out.” Marine veteran sues
Iran for being tortured as hostage Jeff Schogol, Marine Corps Times, 10 May 2016 www.gamespot.com/articles/former-game-developer-details-the-horrible-torture/1100-6439787/ [accessed 10 August
2016] For the first 17
months, Hekmati was kept in solitary confinement in a small cell where the
Iranians whipped the bottoms of his feet, tased him
in the kidney area, put him in stress positions for hours, hit him with
batons, threw water on his floor to keep him from sleeping and kept a bright
light on 24 hours a day to induce sensory deprivation, his lawsuit says. “Mr. Hekmati’s captors would force him to
take lithium and other addictive pills and then stop giving him the pills to
invoke withdrawal symptoms,” the lawsuit says. “He was denied proper medical
care and suffered severe malnutrition.” After spending more
time in solitary confinement, the Iranians moved Hekmati to another prison
where the inmates were mostly “drug dealers and hardened criminals,” the
lawsuit says. “His conditions
were even more brutal. His cell was infested with rats, which he had to kill
himself using a broomstick. His skin was eaten by lice, fleas and bed bugs.
He suffered from recurring lung infections and constant stomach problems due
to malnutrition.” IRAN: Young worker
killed under torture after being arrested during New Year festivities Foreign Affairs
Committee, National Council of Resistance of Iran NCRI, 23 March 2015 [accessed 7 April
2015] Mr. Mohsen Maleki, 25, who worked in a sweet shop
was arrested on March 17, but his body was handed over to his family the next
day with fractures, hematomas and injuries covering his face and various
parts of his body. According to eye-witnesses,
he was completely healthy before his arrest. Every year since
2011, the security forces had routinely summoned Mr. Maleki
to police headquarters prior to the Fire Festival to threaten him not to hold
the ceremony. This year, following
his summoning by regime elements, Mr. Maleki
refused to report to the police headquarters. Subsequently, he was apprehended by
elements of the security forces and transferred to the security forces’
headquarters. Hours after arrest, he
lost his life due to the battering and savage torture he suffered at the
hands of officers. Iran:
Juvenile offender to be executed in a week gives harrowing torture account Amnesty
International News, 12 February 2015 www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/iran-juvenile-offender-to-be-executed-in-a-week-gives-harrowing-torture-account [accessed 29 March
2015] [accessed 27 July
2017] A young Iranian man
set to be hanged on 19 February gave a harrowing account of how, as a
teenager, officials tortured him for 97 days to make him “confess” to a
crime, before sentencing him to death. In a letter seen by
Amnesty International, Saman Naseem,
now 22 years old, described how he was kept in a 2 x 0.5 metre
cell and constantly tortured before being forced while blindfolded to put his
fingerprints on “confession” papers. He was forced to admit to acts that lead
to his conviction for membership of an armed opposition group and taking up
arms against the state. He was 17 years old at the time “During the first
days, the level of torture was so severe that it left me unable to walk. All
my body was black and blue. They hung me from my hands and feet for hours. I
was blindfolded during the whole period of interrogations and torture, and
could not see the interrogation and torture officers.” “They repeatedly
told me that they had arrested my family members including my father, my
mother, and my brother. They told me that they would kill me right there and
would cover my grave with cement. When I wanted to sleep during nights, they
would not let me rest by making noises using different devices, including by
constantly banging on the door. I was in a state between madness and
consciousness. I could not have any contact with my family during this time.
During the trial, even the presiding judge threatened me with more beatings a
number of times and my lawyers were removed under pressure.” Human
Rights Watch World Report 2015 - Events of 2014 Human Rights Watch,
29 January 2015 www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/...
or
www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2015_web.pdf [accessed 18 March
2015] IRAN FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY
AND ASSOCIATION
- Scores of people held for their affiliation with banned opposition parties,
labor unions, and student groups were in prison. The judiciary continued to
target independent and unregistered trade unions. On May 1, police attacked
and arrested at least 25 workers who were protesting poor wages and labor
conditions outside the Labor Ministry and a Tehran bus terminal. Police took
the workers to Evin Prison before releasing them.
Several of them face charges related to illegal gathering. Hardline former
judge in Iran disbarred over torture deaths of protesters The Associated Press
AP, Tehran, 16 November 2014 [accessed 26 January
2015] A parliament probe
in 2011 found Mortazavi responsible in the
torturing to death of at least three anti-government protesters detained during
mass protests in the wake of Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in 2009. At
the time, he was responsible for Kahrizak prison in
the Iranian capital Tehran. Iranian Agents
Allegedly Kidnap and Torture Activist in Netherlands KRmagazine, Latest News, Middle
East and North Africa, 18 March 2014 www.krmagazine.com/2014/03/18/iranian-agents-allegedly-kidnap-and-torture-activist-in-netherlands/ [accessed 21 March
2014] www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4215/netherlands-iran-agents [accessed 4 January
2019] An Ahwazi Arab-Iranian poet and human rights activist living
in the Netherlands, Mr. Saeed Mousa Mosavi,
was kidnapped and beaten by agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran after he
returned to his home in the evening. According to a
report by Karim Dahimi that was widely reported in
Farsi, on March 6, 2014, Mosavi stated that during
his ordeal, he was stripped naked, videotaped and tortured with electric
shocks. The agents apparently knew about Mosavi’s
daily activities, and interrogated him about Ahwazi
activists who had visited him at his home. He was also questioned about
several specific Iranian-Arab activists. The assault on Mosavi is not the first time an Ahwazi
activist has been targeted by the Iranian regime outside Iran. Previously in
the Netherlands, the house of another Iranian Ahwazi
was set on fire after he was directly threatened by agents of the Iranian
government. Pastor Saeed After
Beatings and Torture: “I did not recognize myself” Jordan Sekulow, The American Center for Law and Justice ACLJ,
Iran, 22 March 2013 aclj.org/iran/pastor-saeed-after-beatings-torture-did-not-recognize-myself [accessed 23 March
2013] Pastor Saeed writes
that he cannot even recognize himself after all the beatings and torture he
has endured: “My hair was shaven, under my eyes were swollen three times what
they should have been, my face was swollen, and my beard had grown.” After multiple
beatings in interrogations at the hands of the radical Islamic regime, Pastor
Saeed wrote that the nurse who was supposed to treat injured inmates told him
“‘in our religion we are not suppose to touch you,
you are unclean. . . . Christians are unclean!’” He explained, “they would not give me the
pain medication that they would give other prisoners because I was unclean.” Hell Holes:
Torture, starvation and murder the norm at world’s worst gulags Perry Chiaramonte, Fox News, 1 March 2013 [accessed 2 March
2013] EVIN HOUSE OF
DETENTION, IRAN
- Nicknamed Evin University for the large amounts
of academic and political prisoners held there, Evin
prison is one of the world’s most brutal detention facilities. “When you clear the
gates, you are immediately blindfolded and brought underground,” Marina Nemat, a former inmate, told FoxNews.com in a previous
article about Evin. “They take you for interrogation.
They take you to a hallway and sit you down. You are there for a long time.
If you move or say anything you are beaten. You must sit perfectly still,
while still blindfolded, and you can wait for hours, days or even weeks.” Former inmates tell
of being rousted from their cells in the night, blindfolded and taken before
firing squads, only to get a last minute "reprieve," and be
returned to their cages.
Closed-circuit televisions show religious propaganda and recorded confessions
from the leaders of opposition groups who had broken under torture, and food
is scarce. Iran steps up
arrests, torture, executions: U.N. Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters, Geneva, 28 February 2013 www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/28/us-iran-rights-un-idUSBRE91R1I120130228 [accessed 15
Aug 2013] Iran has stepped up
executions of prisoners including juveniles as well as arrests of dissidents
who are often tortured in jail, sometimes to death, the United Nations
reported on Thursday. In twin reports
issued in Geneva, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. special
investigator on human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, voiced concern at what
they called an apparent rise in the frequency and gravity of abuses in Iran. "The
Secretary-General remains deeply troubled by reports of increasing numbers of
executions, including of juvenile offenders and in public; continuing
amputations and flogging; arbitrary arrest and detention; unfair trials,
torture and ill-treatment; and severe restrictions targeting media
professionals, human rights defenders, lawyers and opposition activities, as
well as religious minorities," Ban reported. The Islamic
Republic, which is under economic sanctions for its disputed nuclear program,
has failed to investigate "widespread, systemic and systematic
violations of human rights", Shaheed's report said. He called for the
"immediate and unconditional release" of detained human rights
advocates, journalists and lawyers. A prisoner killed
under torture National Council of
Resistance of Iran NCRI, 10 February 2013 www.ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/human-rights/12833-iran-a-prisoner-killed-under-torture- [accessed 11
February 2013] He was in his
father’s house in Genaveh in mid
January when Revolutionary Guards raided the house, arrested him and
transferred to Genaveh prison. He was tortured in Genaveh prison for two days and then transferred to Borazjan city prison. In Borazjan prison he was transferred to solitary
confinement after 12 days of torture. Three days later
while he was quite ill and his body deeply infected because of the wounds, he
was transferred to the hospital and his family was told that they could visit
him in hospital in Borazjan. To his family’s
surprise, Amir was unconscious and his body was mostly infected and covered
by bruises. As Amir became
conscious for a short period, he revealed some of the tortures he went
through during the 15 days of torture. He said he was
beaten in his head by batons and in his stomach by a metal rod. He said the strikes
were so severe that all his intestines had been damaged. In the last moments
of his life in the hospital, he asked if he could see his son. The severances
of the injuries were so much that he died before having the chance to see his
son for the last time. This is the fourth
case of killing prisoners under torture which has surfaced in recent months.
Prior to Amir, Sattar Beheshti,
a blogger from Robat Karim located in the vicinity
of Tehran; Keramatollah Zareian,
a university student in Tehran; and Jalil Savidi, a plumber from city of Ahwaz had been killed
under torture. Student activist
murdered under torture Foreign Affairs
Committee, National Council of Resistance of Iran NCRI, 12 January 2013 www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/12669-iran-student-activist-murdered-under-torture [accessed 12 January
2013] Keramatollah Za’erian, 27, was studying theatre directing at Tehran
University. Prior to his last arrest
in November, he had been arrested three times for his active participation in
2009 uprisings. One month after the
arrest, after killing him under torture, the MOIS agents took his body to his
residence in Tehran. The medical
examiner’s report described the cause of death to be severe torture and
spinal cord injury. Kaveh
Kermanshahi, Iranian Activist Human Rights Watch,
13 Dec 2012 www.hrw.org/news/2012/12/13/kaveh-kermanshahi-iranian-activist [accessed 13 January
2013] The Iranian
activist Kaveh Kermanshahi
was free on bail in 2010 when an Iranian court sentenced him to four years in
prison for his work on Kurdish and women’s rights. Kermanshahi,
who was 26 at the time, decided he couldn’t return to prison, where he had
been tortured, interrogated, and held in solitary confinement for four months
after he was arrested earlier that year. He decided to leave Iran for Iraqi
Kurdistan. Kermanshahi had already paid a
high price for his activities. He was beaten on two separate occasions by his
interrogator in prison. Once
unfortunately I was severely beaten by the prosecutor himself who had come to
the detention facility to inform me of the charges against me,” he said. He didn’t think he could withstand four
more years in prison – the psychological distress weighed heavily on him, and
the surgeries he had for a cleft lip left him more vulnerable to the beatings
that he believed would come. He also
worried about how future imprisonment would affect his family. Kermanshahi, an only child, had been “disappeared” when
he was arrested. No one knew where he was. His mother and other family
members repeatedly went to the prosecutor’s office and prison trying to glean
information about where he was being held. In response, the authorities
arrested his mother, his 75-year-old aunt, and two cousins, interrogating and
threatening them for hours. They were freed only after they promised to stop
trying to find out where he was. Eventually
authorities did tell his family where he was, and his mother handed over the
deed to their land to post bail – a common occurrence in Iran. The court found Kermanshahi
guilty of spreading propaganda against the state as a result of his work with
the Human Rights Organization of Kurdistan, which pressed the government to
end discrimination against Kurds, and through his blog. He was also found
guilty of contacting families of political prisoners. AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL From an old article -- URL not available Article was published
sometime prior to 2015 The security forces
continued to torture and otherwise ill-treat detainees with impunity.
Commonly reported methods included beatings, mock execution, threats, confinement in small spaces and denial of adequate medical
treatment. Saeed Sedeghi, a shop worker sentenced to death for drug
offences, was tortured in Evin Prison after his
scheduled execution was postponed following international protests. He was
hanged on 22 October. At least eight
deaths in custody may have resulted from torture, but none were independently
investigated. Sattar Beheshti, a blogger, died in the custody of the Cyber
Police in November after lodging a complaint that he had been tortured.
Contradictory statements by officials called into question the impartiality
of a judicial investigation. His family were
pressured by security forces to keep silent. ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 6 Civil Liberties: 6 Status: Not Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/iran [accessed 13 January
2013] LONG URL
ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 12 May
2020] Ahmadinejad awarded
the powerful ministries of Information and the Interior to hard-liners who
had been implicated directly in the extrajudicial killings of dissidents and
other egregious human rights abuses. He quickly began a wide-ranging purge of
the administration, including the dismissal of 40 of Iran’s most experienced
diplomats and seven state-bank directors. The president and many of the new
appointees were veterans of the Iran-Iraq War. His government also
tightened restrictions on media and announced plans to impose more stringent
controls. Human rights suffered, with increasing reports of arrest, torture,
and execution. Sharia was more strictly enforced than under Khatami. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61688.htm [accessed 13 January
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61688.htm [accessed 4 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The constitution
prohibits torture. In April 2004 the judiciary announced a ban on torture,
and the majles passed related legislation, approved
by the guardian council in May 2004. Nevertheless, there were numerous
credible reports that security forces and prison personnel tortured detainees
and prisoners. On December 16, the
UN General Assembly adopted a human rights resolution on Iran that expressed,
among other points, serious concern at the continuing use of torture and
cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, such as floggings and
amputations, as well as public executions. It also called on the country to
uphold the moratorium on executions by stoning and legally abolish the
practice. The penal code
includes provisions for the stoning, or lapidation,
of women and men convicted of adultery. In 2002 the head of the judiciary
announced a moratorium on stoning. There were several subsequent reports of
sentences of stoning imposed by judges, including two during the year, but no
proof of these sentences being carried out. A woman's rights group claimed
"Fatemeh" was sentenced to stoning in May
for adultery and murder. On October 15, domestic press reported that "Soghra" was sentenced to death by stoning for
adultery, as well as given a 15-year prison sentence for complicity in murdering
her husband. In June a court
sentenced a man to have his eyes surgically removed for a crime he committed
12 years earlier, when he was 16. The Integrated Regional Information
Networks (IRIN) of the UN Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs quoted
human rights specialists as saying that while such unusual sentences were
occasionally passed by Islamic courts, they were rarely implemented; rather
they were used as leverage to set blood money. Nonetheless, in November
domestic press reported prison authorities amputated the left foot of a
convicted armed robber. Some prison
facilities, including Tehran's Evin prison, were
notorious for the cruel and prolonged torture of political opponents of the
government. Additionally, in recent years authorities have severely abused
and tortured prisoners in a series of "unofficial" secret prisons
and detention centers outside the national prison system. Common methods
included prolonged solitary confinement with sensory deprivation, beatings,
long confinement in contorted positions, kicking detainees with military
boots, hanging detainees by the arms and legs, threats of execution if
individuals refused to confess, burning with cigarettes, sleep deprivation,
and severe and repeated beatings with cables or other instruments on the back
and on the soles of the feet. Prisoners also reported beatings about the
ears, inducing partial or complete deafness, and punching in the eyes,
leading to partial or complete blindness. HRW noted that student activists
were physically tortured more than critics within the system. It also noted
abuse sometimes occurred in the presence of high-level judges. As reported by
a radio broadcast on May 5, Judiciary Head Shahrudi
complained about security forces' treatment of some detainees. He said judges
must conduct interrogations and confessions without a judge present were
inadmissible. In February 2004
Amnesty International (AI) reported that it had documented evidence of
"white torture," a form of sensory deprivation. Amir Abbas Fakhravar (see section 1.e.), a political prisoner, was
sent to the "125" detention center, controlled by the revolutionary
guards. According to AI his cell had no windows, and the walls and his
clothes were white. His meals consisted of white rice on white plates. To use
the toilet, he had to put a white piece of paper under the door. He was
forbidden to speak, and the guards reportedly wore shoes that muffled sound.
The Committee against Torture has found that sensory deprivation amounts to
torture. According to
domestic press, in July Abbas Ali Alizadeh, the
head of the Tehran judiciary and head of the supervisory and inspection
committee to safeguard civil rights, provided Judiciary Chief Shahrudi with a detailed report, as a follow-up to Shahrudi's directive on respect for citizenship rights.
This unreleased report was described in detail in the media and outlined
abusive human rights practices in prisons, including blindfolding and beating
suspects, detainees left in a state of uncertainty, and prolonged investigations.
For example, authorities jailed a 13-year-old in the worst detention center
for stealing a chicken, jailed a woman in her 80s for financial difficulties,
and arrested a woman for drug charges against her husband. Separately in July
according to domestic press, the deputy national police commander for
criminal investigation said police would investigate any reports of torture.
He said torture was against regulations, but its existence in the criminal
investigation departments was undeniable, and that forensic and scientific
advances have made torture unnecessary. In an effort to
combat "un-Islamic behavior" and social corruption among the young,
the government relied on a "morality" force, referred to merely as
"special units" (yegan ha-ye vizhe), to complement the existing morality police,
"Enjoining the Good and Prohibiting the Forbidden" (Amr be Ma'ruf va Nahi
az Monkar). The new force
was to assist in enforcing the Islamic Republic's strict rules of moral
behavior. Credible press reports indicated members of this force chased and
beat persons in the streets for offenses such as listening to music or, in
the case of women, wearing makeup or clothing regarded as insufficiently
modest or accompanied by unrelated men (see section 1.f.). There was no
further action in the 2004 case of the person who died in February after
receiving 80 lashes, the November death of a 14-year old Kurdish boy after
receiving 85 lashes, or punitive amputations in September and October All
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ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, " Torture by Police, Forced
Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st
Century- Iran", http://gvnet.com/torture/Iran.htm, [accessed
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