Iran Human Rights Monitor has released its report about the horrific human rights violations taking place in Iran during April and it makes for disturbing reading. As always, we will provide a summary and you can read the full report here.
The human rights abuses plaguing Iran last month ranged from arbitrary killings to torture to inhumane treatment of prisoners to suppression of minorities, but the most disturbing was the number of executions, particularly the secret executions of two juvenile offenders.
Executions
At least 27 people were executed in April, including 17-year-old cousins Mehdi Sohrabifar and Amin Sedaghat.
The teenagers were executed on April 25 in Shiraz, following what Amnesty International called an “unfair trial”, and this provoked anger from human rights defenders and the United Nations, with the UN human rights chief stressing that it is illegal under international law to execute children.
Amnesty said that the teenagers’ bodies showed lash marks, indicating that they had been flogged and reported that the pair were kept in a juvenile correction centre and not informed about their execution until the day of, pointing to a family visit the day before where their imminent deaths were not brought up.
Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa director, said in a statement: “The Iranian authorities have once again proved that they are sickeningly prepared to put children to death, in flagrant disregard of international law… It seems they cruelly kept these two boys in the dark about their death sentences for two years, flogged them in the final moments of their lives, and then carried out their executions in secret.”
Iran is the world’s biggest executioner per capita and the top executioner of children. Last year, Iran executed at least 253 people, including seven juvenile offenders. There are at least 90 minors still on death row.
Torture and inhumane punishment
The Regime continued to mistreat prisoners of conscience in order to punish them or extract “confessions”, which amounted to torture.
Human rights defenders
Nader Afshari was sentenced to one years’ imprisonment and 74 lashes after being convicted of “disrupting public order” and “propaganda against the state”. This is in addition to Afshari’s four-month sentence for spreading anti-state propaganda handed down in February.
At least 63 volunteers were arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for providing help to flood-stricken victims in Khuzestan, while at least 25 internet activists were arrested for reporting on the devastating floods.
Inhumane treatment of prisoners
Denial of treatment
The Regime deprived the following political prisoners of adequate medical care:
Alireza Shirmohammad-Ali, who was assaulted by two prison agents when he asked for medical care for abdominal pain.
Mojtaba Dadashi, who has gone on hunger strike to protest the denial of urgently needed medical care to treat his respiratory tract infection.
Denial of regular visits
Human rights activist Atena Daemi was denied visitation from her family, but no reason was given.
Violation of regulations on the principle of separation of crimes
Sufi political prisoner Sima Entesari was beaten by a violent inmate who claimed that she was promised a case review if she carried out the attack. Political prisoners should be held in a different ward than violent criminals.
Religious and ethnic minorities
Iran continued its systematic repression against religious and ethnic minorities by sentencing at least one Baha’i to jail and arresting at least 88 Ahwazi Arabs, 12 Kurdish people, three Baluchi people and three people from Iran’s Turkic minority.
Source » ncr-iran