The question of Iran’s nuclear capabilities continues to dominate the news with discussion of potential US or Israeli hard or soft intervention. Meanwhile human rights abuses continue unabated a year after Ahmadinejad’s aggressive repression of opposition voices around the 2009 presidential elections.
The case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old widow and mother of two currently on death row in Iran for adultery, gained international attention last month. Her lawyer, Mohamma Mostafaei had to flee the country and is currently in exile in Norway. While the Iranian government, in the face of pressure, said she may not be stoned, she is still on death row and could be executed by other means. In early August Mohammadi Ashtiani “confessed” to both adultery and being an accomplice in the murder of her husband in 2006—a case she had already been acquitted for. Her lawyer said she was tortured into confessing, and human rights advocates bemoaned the corrupt state of the justice system in Iran.
This is an important case, and has rightfully entered public consciousness, but advocates in Iran say human rights abuses there are much more common than the what sporadically appears in the international media. One human rights activist who contacted me said in an email “I do believe, based on different articles that I read, that human rights violations have increased since the elections and the situation is constantly escalating.”
Last year Amnesty International recorded 388 executions in Iran, 5 of which were juvenile offenders. Political prisoners continue to languish in prison, many without charge, and 17 prisoners went on a three week hunger strike last month to protest prison conditions. Arjang Davoudi, who has been in prison since 2003 for political reasons is currently on the 43rd day of a hunger strike to protest abysmal conditions.
Earlier this year Kiana Firouz struggled to gain asylum in the UK despite facing persecution in Iran for her vocal support for LGBTQ rights. Her request was eventually granted, but her case highlights the difficulties Iranian homosexuals face.
Earlier this year Iran was barred from sitting on the UN human rights council, but was quietly elected to the Commission on the Status of Women, a questionable choice given the above-mentioned cases of Mohammadi Ashtiani and Firouz. While the UN and the international community continue to debate the nuclear threat, the human rights situation is deteriorating. Activists worry about the seeming blindness of high-level international organizations that continue to include Iran in rights-related decision-making positions.
