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Iranian human rights activist and Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi in an interview with Kurdistan 24 presenter Aware Hewrami, Paris, Sept. 16, 2018. (Photo: Kurdistan 24)

Kosar Nawzad

The first Iranian to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Shirin Ebadi is a human rights activist, lawyer, and former judge. Listed by Forbes magazine as one of the “100 most powerful women in the world” for 2004, she is currently in exile from her native country. 

On Sunday, she sat down with Kurdistan 24 to discuss the latest developments in Iran, which this, the first of a two-part article, will cover. Look for the second part, in which she will share her thoughts on the regime’s recent attack on the headquarters of two Iranian Kurdish opposition parties inside the Kurdistan Region.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Shirin Ebadi, in an exclusive interview with Kurdistan 24, said that Tehran’s response to protesters expressing their “discontent” with the downward trend of living conditions and satisfaction with the government, only serves to worsen the situation and shows that Iran fears a “free election.”

“The rial has lost most of its value and this has caused an increase in poverty. Many goods like baby diapers and some types of medicine are hard to acquire,” Ebadi said, referring to the current economic crisis in which Iran finds itself.

Pointing to the state of affairs and the collapsing currency, she stated that “public discontent with the government” is at its highest level and warned that Tehran will not be able to continue on its current path indefinitely.

“One day, these conditions have to change.”

However, “the Iranian government, at times of public demonstrations on the streets, instead of listening to the words of the people, responds with violence; arresting them, suppressing them, and even killing a number of them.”

Ebadi believes such behavior “makes conditions worse.” Even if “people go home to avoid getting arrested or killed, this does not pacify them. In fact, after a while, protests continue elsewhere.”

“No!” she responded firmly when asked whether it was in the public interest for the regime to remain in power.

Regarding efforts to support a peaceful transition to democracy, Ebadi pointed to a project she has advocated for with her colleagues, who “called on Iran to agree to a referendum, supervised by the United Nations, for people to decide whether they want the current government before it collapses.”

“They did not accept,” she said.

Read the full interview here on Kurdistan 24 website 

By Shirin Ebadi and Tawakkol Karman

September 18, 2018

Imprisonment, torture and rape: Why Myanmar must be referred to the ICC (source: USC SHOAH Foundation)

Fazel Hawramy September 14, 2018

The patience of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) with Iranian Kurdish groups operating from northern Iraq was wearing thin. Spiraling violence in western Iran between Iranian Kurdish fighters and security forces had been claiming an increasing number of lives. Meanwhile, Iraqi Kurdish authorities were doing little to reign in the groups based on their territory. Simultaneously faced with escalating pressure from the United States, Tehran likely felt that something had to be done, that a message had to be sent. The apparent response was multi-pronged.

On Sept. 7, IRGC drones surveilled a six-member unit of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) in the mountains of western Iran. The fighters were surrounded by Iranian forces on a mountain near the village of Palangan. PJAK sources believe at least three of the fighters were eventually killed. There has been no information about the others.

At dawn the following day, three Iranian Kurdish political prisoners were paraded in a prison near Tehran before being sent to the gallows. Meanwhile, Iran had deployed seven missile batteries near Azarshahr, in East Azerbaijan province, opposite a fort across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan.

When the missiles were launched, a group of senior officials of the opposition Iranian Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK) had gathered for an important meeting at its Iraqi headquarters, a sprawling fort built by the Russians in 1977 for President Saddam Hussein’s army. PDK and fellow Kurdish opposition groups were on alert, as assassinations of their members had risen this year after Iran implemented a campaign targeting the border area where the parties are based.

In a July 26 letter, written by several Kurdish opposition parties to foreign missions in Iraqi Kurdistan, including the US Consulate, the groups had warned about possible attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan. “Now that the voices of discontent and protest are increasing in Iran, the Iranian regime is attempting to divert attention from its domestic crises in an effort to manipulate public opinion,” the authors stated. The letter was shared with Al-Monitor by the representative of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) in Sulaimaniyah.

Read the full report here on Almonitor website

8 September 2018

Amnesty International

In response to the news that three Iranian Kurdish men, Zaniar Moradi, Loghman Moradi, and Ramin Hossein Panahi, were executed this morning in Raja’i Shahr prison, Karaj, Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s  Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said:

“We are horrified by the news that the Iranian authorities have executed these men, despite widespread condemnation of their death sentences and calls from UN human rights experts and other bodies to halt their executions.

“The trials of all three men were grossly unfair. All were denied access to their lawyers and families after their arrest, and all said they were tortured into making “confessions”. In sentencing them to death despite these massive failings in due process, the Iranian authorities have once again demonstrated their brazen disregard for the right to life.

“We call on the international community to strongly condemn these executions and urge the Iranian authorities to respect their obligations under international law. The Iranian authorities must take steps to ensure that everyone has a fair trial, that torture and other ill-treatment are absolutely prohibited, and that the practice of forced ‘confessions’ is stopped once and for all.

“They must also immediately impose an official moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.”

Fazel Hawramy August 23, 2018

Five-year-old Alireza Pourdad was scared, lying in a hospital bed in the burn ward between two adults who had been burned beyond recognition. Alireza had been injured in a blaze in his parents’ tent in a shantytown outside the Iranian capital in May 2012, and was in critical condition.

Alireza’s parents are ethnic Balochs from Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan, near the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Like many others in Iran — most of them Balochs — who have no identity cards for legal and historical reasons, they had left their hometown 15 years earlier in search of work. As day laborers, the couple traveled between Tehran and Gorgan near the Caspian Sea throughout the year looking for seasonal work. Because they lacked the ID cards necessary to rent a home and access government services such as monthly cash subsidies and education, they were left living in deplorable conditions on Tehran’s outskirts. To add to their misery, the police conducted raids there a few times a year in efforts to clear the area of stateless families, leaving tents burned and residents beaten.

Without ID cards, Alireza’s parents, Maryam and Nader, had no way of proving that Alireza was their child, and so were refused entry to the hospital once he was admitted and they had returned from searching for work. The security guards reported the parents to the police, who arrested them promptly on suspicion of being illegal Afghan immigrants. It would take six months before they were released.

Zohreh Sayadi, a children’s rights activist, spent time with Alireza at the hospital and read him stories. Sayadi, an ethnic Baloch herself, for the past two years had been commuting between Tehran and the shantytown, engaging with families and teaching children how to read and write.

“One day as I was reading ‘The Ugly Duckling’ to Alireza,” Sayadi said. “He raised his head and said, ‘I am tired,’ and then he died.” In a photo given to Al-Monitor, Alireza is seen wearing a green sweater and looking into the camera holding a toy — a duckling. The photo is inscribed with the words: “Date of death: 18/6/2012.”

Read the article here

August 23, 2018 – The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) urges the Iranian Judiciary to turn the three-day furlough it has granted to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe into permanent and unconditional release.

“Three days of temporary release after almost three years behind bars under bogus charges is far too little and too late,” said CHRI’s Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi.

“Iran’s judiciary should immediately free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to end the tragic saga she and her family have been suffering through,” he added.

Two and a half years after being arrested by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in April 2016, the Iranian British dual national was released on an unexpected and temporary leave from prison on August 23, 2018.

“Her lawyer is hopeful this can be extended,” said Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, on August 23 in an email sent to CHRI, adding that she is currently with her four-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and her parents in the city of Damavand.

“This was a very happy surprise after a number of false dawns recently, which had been increasingly unsettling,” he added before thanking the UK’s new Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt “for all his recent efforts and considerations.”

It is standard practice in Iran for political prisoners to receive extensions or permanent release after being granted a brief leave from prison.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe is not under house arrest but has been prohibited from giving interviews, leaving the country, or visiting the UK embassy in Iran as conditions of her furlough. She was also required to sign a document stating that she would return to the prison after the furlough period ends.

According to the Free Nazanin campaign, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s father had asked that she be given furlough for a month (her legal entitlement is currently 29 days) so that she and Gabriella could rebuild their relationship. The deputy prosecutor responded, “Let us take her out first, and then decide on a number of days after that.”

On July 24, 2018, a judge had told Zaghari-Ratcliffe that she would not be permanently released until the UK paid an old debt it owes Iran.

“Judge Abbasi has confirmed what we have been suspecting for some time,” said Ratcliffe in a statement sent to CHRI at the time. “His statements confirm that Nazanin is being held in prison as a bargaining chip. But to express it so bluntly is shocking to us.”

…

Read the full article on CHRI website here 

GENEVA (22 August 2018) – Sanctions must be just, and must not lead to the suffering of innocent people, says United Nations Special Rapporteur Idriss Jazairy.

“The reimposition of sanctions against Iran after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, which had been unanimously adopted by the Security Council with the support of the US itself, lays bare the illegitimacy of this action,” Mr. Jazairy observed.

“This illegitimacy was confirmed by the opposition of all other permanent members of the Security Council and indeed of all international partners. The UN Charter calls for sanctions to be applied only by the UN Security Council precisely to ensure such wanton attacks on nations are avoided.

“International sanctions must have a lawful purpose, must be proportional, and must not harm the human rights of ordinary citizens, and none of these criteria is met in this case,” the UN expert stressed.

“These unjust and harmful sanctions are destroying the economy and currency of Iran, driving millions of people into poverty and making imported goods unaffordable,” Mr. Jazairy stressed, while questioning whether the United States would provide food and medicines to the millions of Iranians no longer able to afford them.

“The current system creates doubt and ambiguity which makes it all but impossible for Iran to import these urgently needed humanitarian goods. This ambiguity causes a ‘chilling effect’ which is likely to lead to silent deaths in hospitals as medicines run out, while the international media fail to notice,” Mr. Jazairy said.

“I appeal to the United States to demonstrate its commitment to allow agricultural commodities, food, medicine, and medical devices into Iran by taking real and concrete steps to ensure that banks, financial institutions and companies can quickly and freely be assured that relevant imports and payments are permitted,” he said.

The expert applauded efforts by the international community to reject economic bullying. “I am grateful for the efforts of the European Union in tackling this injustice, both through diplomatic efforts and through legislation to protect European companies from American sanctions. I sincerely hope that the international community can come together to see that the world does not become a battleground for generalized economic war,” said Mr. Jazairy.

The expert highlighted the UN Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, which urges States to resolve their differences through dialogue and peaceful relations, and to avoid the use of economic, political or other measures to coerce another State in regard to the exercise of its sovereign rights.

Read the full statement here

Ottawa—20 August 2018

The Nobel Peace Laureates of the Nobel Women’s Initiative call for an immediate ceasefire to stop armed hostilities in Yemen, and for the creation of an international investigative committee into the August 9 Saudi and Emirates-led coalition air attacks on Yemeni civilians. We are deeply dismayed by the air-strike, which hit a bus full of little children, killing 51 people, including 40 children, and injuring 79, including 56 children.

This level of violence and disregard of international humanitarian law in Yemen can no longer be tolerated. The air strike marks a tragic new low in the long list of war crimes committed against innocent civilians—including innocent children— in Yemen.

We call on all Saudi-UAE coalition allies­­—including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy and Canada—to stop the provision and sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which, as reported by Amnesty International, is directly responsible for the destruction of civilian lives. Such attacks continue to render access to humanitarian assistance nearly impossible for the people of Yemen.

We strongly condemn all human rights violations and crimes perpetrated towards civilians in Yemen and call on all parties—including Iran and the Saudi and Emirates-led coalition— to abide by international humanitarian law and immediately cease armed attacks on innocent civilians.

We call upon the United Nations Security Council to take urgent action to protect civilians, and bring all perpetrators to international justice.

We express our full solidarity with the Yemeni people, and call for the urgent negotiation of a nonviolent solution to the current political crisis, which is the only path to true and sustainable peace in Yemen.

Signed by:

Mairead Maguire
Nobel Peace Prize, 1976

Jody Williams
Nobel Peace Prize, 1997

Dr. Shirin Ebadi
Nobel Peace Prize, 2003

Tawakkol Karman,
Nobel Peace Prize, 2011

Leymah Gbowee,
Nobel Peace Prize, 2011

Download full statement here