On August 5, 2021, several human rights organizations sent a joint submission to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women warning about the increasing persecution and prosecution of women human rights defenders in Iran. The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR), International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI), Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre, Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights (ABC) in Iran and PEN America produced a report shedding light on the dire situation of women human rights defenders in Iran that include “arbitrary prison sentences, torture in detention, banishment to harsher prisons far from their families, and added sentences on the verge of release.”
Human Rights activists attend the birthday party of jailed Iranian Human Rights lawyer Nasrin … [+]
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According to these organizations, more than 500 women human rights defenders, including lawyers, journalists, educators, among others, are unjustly imprisoned in Iran today. Who are these women human rights defenders?
Among them there are human rights lawyers, including Nasrin Sotoudeh and Soheila Hejab. Nasrin Sotoudeh is a tireless defender of human rights and of those most persecuted in Iran, including religious minorities and opposition leaders. This work resulted in her being arbitrarily detained and sentenced on several occasions. For example, on March 11, 2019, she was sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes on seven charges, in addition to another five-year sentence in absentia. The charges included membership in a group peacefully advocating against the death penalty, interviews with foreign media, participating in peaceful gatherings, giving a speech outside of a U.N. office, and appearing in public without the hijab. In 2020, this sentence was reduced to 27 years and no lashes. Soheila Hejab was sentenced for her political and women’s rights activism, most recently in March 2020 for “propaganda against the state,” “forming a group for women’s rights,” and “demanding a referendum for changing the constitution.” She received 18 years in prison for advocating for human right.
Among them there are human rights defenders such as Hoda Amid, a human rights lawyer, and Najmeh Vahedi, a sociologist, who delivered educational workshops for women on equal rights in marriage. In October 2020, Amid was sentenced to eight years in prison and Vahedi to seven years for “collaborating with the hostile American government against the Islami Republic of Iran on women and family issues,” and working “in line with the project of infiltration by weakening the foundation of the family with the aim of overthrowing [the government].”
Among them there are journalists such as Marzieh Amiri and Sepideh Gholian who were charged, among others, with “assembly and collusion”, “propaganda against the state” for their reporting.
The list goes on.
The joint submission to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women makes several recommendations to the Islamic Republic of Iran calling upon it to address the situation of women human rights defenders, including to “end the use of national security charges to indefinitely sentence women leaders and human rights defenders, including lawyers, journalists and activists” and “end the infliction of punitive measures on women rights defenders, including extending prison sentences on the verge of release and banishment into prison exile.”
The call is more urgent now than ever. As the organizations emphasize: “[their] lives are at immediate risk, as the country suffers a fifth wave of Covid-19, exacerbated by nationwide water and electricity shortages.” As they stress, imprisoned human rights defenders are excluded from Iran’s temporary release program. This is a clear sign that the crackdown on human rights defenders in Iran will not cease. The U.N. Commission on the Status of Women but also other U.N. bodies must act and ensure that the situation is addressed as a matter of urgency. Where a State unleashes a crackdown against human rights defenders, human rights of all are under threat.
