Category Archive: Articles
Iran detains three more activists after Iranian-Canadian dies in jail
25 February 2018 DUBAI (Reuters) – Iranian security forces have detained three more environmental activists on spying charges, the judiciary said on Sunday, weeks after a first wave of arrests and the death in detention of an Iranian-Canadian head of a wildlife group. “Three people were recently arrested in (southern) Hormozgan province. I cannot legally […]
Forced Confessions in Iran’s House of the Dead
By ERVAND ABRAHAMIANFEB. 22, 2018 New York Times “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons,” Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote in “The House of the Dead,” his semi-autobiographical novel about inmates in a Siberian prison camp. Iran continues to fail the Dostoyevsky test. The Evin Prison in Tehran, where a […]
Iranian women must remain united to advance rights
Leila Alikarami February 15, 2018 A new form of protest in Iran against mandatory veiling has received much attention in the press and social media in recent weeks. The bold waving of veils on sticks by women who have no apparent affiliation with any movement has not only provoked questions among politicians and even forced some […]
Iran protests are fire under ashes
LONDON, United Kingdom (Kurdistan 24) – After heavy government crackdown, the seemingly spontaneous nation-wide protests in Iran have been silenced, but a Nobel Peace Prize winner says the rage is ever present and will flame up at the next chance. Late in December 2017, Iranians took to the streets to protest the sluggish economy. The […]
FOUR NOBEL PEACE LAUREATES URGE IRAN TO RESPECT THE RIGHTS OF PROTESTERS
Ottawa – January 11, 2018 Nobel Peace Laureates Shirin Ebadi, Jody Williams, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman, urge the Islamic Republic of Iran to conduct credible independent investigations into the use of violence, especially lethal violence, and mass arrests in reaction to protests held in 75 cities across the country, beginning on December 28, 2017. […]
From Burmese Dissident to Mystifying Politician Why won’t my fellow Nobelist Aung San Suu Kyi help a Muslim minority?
By SHIRIN EBADI In advance of a United Nations envoy’s visit to the country, Burmese officials in June instructed U.N. officials to refer to Burma’s Muslim minority as “people who believe in Islam in Rakhine state.” This is the latest chapter in what has become a tragic campaign to reassure Buddhist nationalists that the government […]
International Rights and Mechanisms
Human rights as we know them are a reflection of certain fundamental universal notions, which provide a set of global benchmarks for how humanity should conduct itself. The principle of the universality of human rights is the cornerstone of international human rights law. This principle, as first emphasized in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights […]
Violence Against Women Is Not An Issue That Can Be Denied
Leila Alikarami “A lot of people still do not want to accept there is violence in our society and this is tantamount to denying the existence of a problem.” Shahindokht Molaverdi, the Vice President in charge of women and family affairs, made this statement and described the situation of violence against women in Iran as […]
CEDAW and the quest of Iranian women for gender equality
LEILA ALIKARAMI 18 December 2014 Iran’s moderate president Hassan Rouhani has a chance to enact one of his campaign promises to promote women’s right by signing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW urges its signatories to address laws, practices and customs that discriminate against women. Today, 18 […]
