II. Attacks on Civil Society

The “Iran Proxy” Affair and Local Rights Groups

In December 2010, the Iranian authorities started arresting members of a Tehran-based NGO which had been monitoring human rights violations in Iran for nearly five years. These were among the first steps in a government operation which was to culminate in the trial of 30 or more activists for alleged involvement in a foreign plot against Iran under the cover of human rights activism: the so called “Iran Proxy” affair. Along with other trials of opposition figures and alleged plotters such, the “Iran Proxy” trial cast a chilling shadow over Iranian civil society—which the Ahmadinejad government was already subjecting to severe repression.    

The NGO in question was the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR). The security forces arrested two CHRR members, Saeed Kalanaki and Saeed Jalalifar, on December 1, 2009 and detained them in Evin prison. On the evening of December 20, 2009, security forces arrested three more CHRR members, Shiva Nazar Ahari, Koohyar Goudarzi, and Saeed Haeri when they were on a bus about to leave Enqelab Square in Tehran for the city Qom, where they had planned to attend the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri a prominent opponent of the government.[36]

On January 1, 2010, the Ministry of Intelligence (MOI) contacted Hesam Misaghi, who worked with CHRR, and several of his colleagues by phone and summoned them for interrogation. The MOI agent informed Misaghi that a warrant for his arrest had been issued, and threatened to raid his home if he did not voluntarily report to the MOI office. Later that day, two other CHRR members who had been similarly summoned to the MOI office presented themselves and were promptly arrested.[37]

Misaghi ignored the MOI summons and went into hiding Because of the increasingly tense security situation inside Iran (including at least one threatening phone call from the MOI to Misaghi’s family demanding that he turn himself in), his membership with the CHRR, his Baha’i background, and his work on protection of Iran’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, Misaghi decided to leave the country and entered Turkey with his colleague Sepehr Atefi in January 2010.[38]

On January 2, 2010, the security forces detained two more members of CHRR, Parisa Kakaei and Mehrdad Rahimi, when they responded to a summons to report to the Ministry of Intelligence (MOI) in Tehran. During their detention the seven CHRR detainees faced severe pressure to confess falsely to having links with the banned Mojahedin-e Khalq organization.[39] None of the detainees were initially allowed access to lawyers or were formally charged.

On March 2, 2010, another one of Misaghi’s colleagues, Navid Khanjani, was arrested in Esfahan. The next day, March 3, security agents raided the homes of Misaghi and Atefi and presented their family members with arrest warrants indicating that the two were wanted for the crime of moharebeh, or “enmity against God.” The punishment for this crime is death. The individuals who arrested Khanjani informed him that they knew Misaghi and Atefi had escaped to Turkey, and that they would do everything in their power to bring them back to Iran.[40]

The extent of the government’s operation against NGOs heralded by these arrests became clear on March 13, 2010, a week before the Iranian New Year, when Tehran's Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office announced that security forces had arrested 30 people they said were involved in a CIA-funded project to destabilize the government with “cyber warfare.” The prosecutor's office maintained that a network of opposition groups implemented a project code-named “Iran Proxy” under the cover of local human rights organizations, including CHRR and two other groups:, the Center for Defense of Human Rights (CDHR), and Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA).[41]

Less than two weeks after the announcement by the Tehran prosecutor’s office a member of HRA told Human Rights Watch that security forces arrested 15 of its members and attempted to arrest 29 others. Among those arrested was Farideh Rafiee, the sister of the group's former executive director, Keyvan Rafiee, who currently lives outside Iran. HRA maintained that Farideh Rafiee herself was not an HRA member.[42]  

The government denounced all three groups publicly and accused the “network” of hacking into state-owned websites; organizing and supporting foreign opposition and terrorist groups, including the banned Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK); conducting illegal protests; publishing false information; and engaging in “psychological warfare” and espionage. All three groups issued statements denying any involvement with the alleged "Iran Proxy" project and confirmed their financial independence from foreign governments. The Center for Defense of Human Rights, which had been forced to close in December 2008 but maintained its website, called the attacks a "frame job against human rights activists and civil society."[43]

The authorities provided no evidence to support their allegations.[44] Revolutionary courts have nonetheless tried, convicted and sentenced some of those arrested on politically motivated national security charges in separate trials based largely on forced confessions. Others remain out of prison on bail or are awaiting summonses to serve their prison terms. Of the eighteen members of CHRR, three including Shiva Nazar Ahari, Koohyar Goudarzi, and Saeed Jalalifar, recieved lengthy prison terms and are either behind bars, or can be summoned to prison at any time.[45] Five others in the group left Iran for Turkey and have since been resettled in Europe (see below for the story of Hesam Misaghi a CHRR member who fled to Turkey). A few members of the HRA are also serving prison sentences, and at least five CDHR members, including some of the most prominent rights lawyers in the country, have also been arrested in recent years and are currently in prison.[46]

Minority Rights Activists

As well as clamping down on Tehran-based rights groups like CHRR HRA, and CHRD, Ahmedinejad’s government increasingly applied a “security framework” in its approach to NGOs working on minority rights, accusing them, too, of being “tools of foreign agendas.”[47] The NGO councils that had been established under the Khatami government to promote and regulate NGOs were now tasked with suppressing the work of minority rights activists, especially those working on Kurdish, Azeri, and Ahwazi Arab issues, by denying permits to NGOs to operate and often refusing to provide written explanations for rejecting applications as required by law. [48] But even those minority rights organizations that were able to register and obtain permits still faced harassment and worse.

The Human Rights Organization of Kurdistan (HROK) is an example. Founded in 2005 by journalist Sadigh Kaboudvand, the group grew to include 200 local reporters throughout the Kurdish regions of Iran and provided timely reports in the now banned newspaper Payam-e Mardom (Message of the People), of which Kaboudvand was the managing director and editor. Intelligence agents arrested Kaboudvand on July 1, 2007, and took him to Ward 209 of Evin Prison, which is under Ministry of Intelligence control and is used to detain political prisoners. They held him without charge in solitary confinement for nearly six months. [49]

In May 2008, Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court sentenced Kaboudvand to 10 years in prison for “acting against national security” by establishing the HROK, and another year for "widespread propaganda against the system by disseminating news, opposing Islamic penal laws by publicizing punishments such as stoning and executions, and advocating on behalf of political prisoners.” In October 2008, Branch 54 of the Tehran Appeals Court upheld his sentence.[50] Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called on the Iranian authorities to unconditionally free Kaboudvand and provide him with access to urgent medical care.[51]

Due to geographic proximity, the Iranian authorities’ sensitivity to ethnic rights issues, and cross-border cultural kinship, the majority of the ethnic minority rights activists who fled to Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan[52] since 2005 are Iranian Kurds.

Women’s Rights Activists

Since Ahmadinejad became president in 2005, the government has also stepped up repressive measures against women’s rights organizations and activists. Security forces and judiciary officials have routinely subjected women’s rights activists to threats, harassment, interrogations, and imprisonment.

In June 2006, after security forces attacked men and women gathered in Tehran to protest discriminatory gender-based laws, women’s rights activists launched the One Million Signatures Campaign, a grassroots effort aimed at collecting signatures in support of a petition opposing Iran’s gender-biased laws, including those that govern marriage and inheritance, compensation for bodily injury or death, and a woman's right to pass on her nationality to her children. Campaign members initiated a website and held regular workshops in Tehran and other cities in order to educate the public about legal challenges facing women and girls in the country.[53]

The campaign both inspired and supported women’s rights activists working outside of Tehran. Many began working with the campaign or adopted its model of grassroots activism to educate the public and promote women’s issues in their hometowns. Local Kurdish women’s rights activists were among those who embraced the campaign’s model.

Within months of the campaign’s launch, security forces began arresting volunteers who were out in the streets collecting signatures. Sussan Tahmasebi, one of the campaign’s cofounders, was charged with spreading propaganda against the state and threatening national security after she organized a protest in support of women’s rights in June 2006. She was tried on March 4, 2007, and sentenced to 2 years in prison, 18 months of which was suspended. Tahmasebi appealed the ruling and was freed on bail pending the appeal, which is ongoing.[54]

On the day of her trial, women’s rights activists held a demonstration outside of the Tehran Revolutionary Court to protest increasing pressure on women activists. Tahmasebi left the court as security forces began to arrest the protesters and was arrested a second time, along with 32 others, and charged with threatening national security, assembly and collusion against national security, and disobeying the orders of police. She was later acquitted of these charges but continued to endure harassment by security forces, who searched her home and subjected her to numerous interrogations. She was banned from traveling on several occasions between December 2006 and January 2009.[55]  Tahmasebi left Iran in 2010 and is currently in the United States.

Student Activists

Iran’s universities have increasingly become targets of government efforts to consolidate power and stifle dissent. Since 2005, President Ahmadinejad’s administration has pursued a multi-phased campaign to neutralize dissent at universities and “Islamicize” higher education. This campaign, spearheaded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Intelligence, includes imprisoning student activists; barring politically active students and members of Iran’s Baha’i community from higher education; using university disciplinary committees to monitor, suspend, or expel students; increasing the presence on campuses of pro-government student groups affiliated with the Basij; and restricting the activities of student groups.[56]

In 2009, the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Research declared illegal one of Iran’s largest and most important student groups, Tahkim-e Vahdat(the Office for Consolidating Unity).[57] During the crackdown that followed the disputed June 2009 presidential election, security forces attacked Tehran University and killed several students on June 14. In the months that followed authorities arrested more than 200 students, including several high-ranking members of Tahkim. Many of these arrests took place in November and early December 2009.[58]

As of May 2012 there were at least 32 students in prison throughout the country as a result of their political activities or affiliation with banned student groups, according to sources close to Tahkim.[59] Authorities held scores of students incommunicado for weeks before prosecutors filed charges against them and lawyers gained access to them. Many told human rights groups that security and intelligence agents had tortured and forced them to confess to crimes they had not committed. The Judiciary prosecuted the students in closed trials in Iran's revolutionary courts.[60]

Many of the students in prison held leadership positions in well-known student organizations critical of the government, including Tahkim. Majid Tavakoli, an Amir Kabir University student, belonged to the school’s Islamic Student Association and publicly criticized the government. In 2010 a revolutionary court sentenced Tavakoli to eight-and-a-half years in prison on various national security charges including “conspiring against national security,” “propaganda against the state,” and “insulting the Supreme Leader” and president. He is in Tehran’s Evin prison.[61]

On December 30, 2009, authorities arrested Bahareh Hedayat, the first secretary of the Women’s Commission of Tahkim and the first, and so far the only, woman elected to Tahkim’s central committee. They charged her with various national security crimes, including “propaganda against the system,” “participating in illegal gatherings,” and “insulting the president.” In May 2010, a revolutionary court sentenced her to nine-and-a-half years in prison.[62]  Security forces arrested Milad Asadi, also a Tahkim central committee member, on November 30, 2009. A judge known as Judge Moghiseh from Branch 28 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced him to seven years in prison for similar national security-related “crimes.”[63] 

Hedayat is serving her sentences in Tehran’s Evin prison, but authorities released Asadi after he and several other political prisoners were granted a pardon by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in September 2011.

The Ahmadinejad administration also targeted other student organizations and their members, including Advar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat (Tahkim’s alumni group) and the Committee to Defend the Right to Education (CDRE). Several leaders of Advar are in Evin prison, including Ahmad Zeidabadi,Abdollah Momeni, Ali Malihi, Ali Jamali, and Hasan Asadi Zeidabadi. Security forces arrested Zeidabadi and Momeni, the group’s secretary-general and spokesperson respectively, in the aftermath of the election protests in 2009. Zeidabadi, Momeni, and Malihi are each currently serving sentences of 14 years and 11 months on various national security charges such as “participation in illegal gatherings,” “propaganda against the state,” and “insulting the president.”[64]

Zia Nabavi, a co-founder of CDRE, is serving a 10-year sentence in Ahvaz’s Karun prison. Ministry of Intelligence agents arrested Nabavi on June 15, 2009, and prosecutors charged him with various national security related crimes, including links to and cooperation with the banned Mojahedin-e Khalq organization (MEK).[65]Mahdieh Golroo, a student activist and another member of CDRE, was in prison since November 3, 2009, but has since been released. In April 2010, a revolutionary court convicted her of national security crimes and sentenced her to 28 months in prison.[66] Another cofounder of CDRE, Majid Dorri, is serving a six-year prison sentence for his student activities.[67]

Several hundred others have been expelled from campus because of their political activism or religious affiliation. Since 2005, authorities have barred more than 350 students from university education on political and religious grounds, according to a recent report by the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran.[68]  

Nabavi, Golroo, and Dorri formed CDRE in 2008 after authorities barred them from continuing their university studies. It is one of several student groups that publicized and resisted the government's policy of preventing students from continuing their higher education on political or religious grounds. Another similar group is the Population to Combat Educational Discrimination, which largely addressed the government's official policy of preventing Baha’is admission to or expelling them from universities once it becomes known that they are Baha’is. In 2009, authorities also prevented Ali Qolizadeh and Mohsen Barzegar, two recently arrested members of Tahkim-e Vahdat, from continuing their studies.[69]

According to a recent Tahkim report, since March 2009 there have been 436 arrests, 254 convictions, and 364 cases of deprivation of education against students. Tahkim also alleges that the judiciary summoned at least 144 students for investigations, and that officials have closed down 13 student publications.[70] As a result of these pressures, dozens of student and student activists, many of whom were deprived of continuing their education, left Iran to pursue their education elsewhere.

Journalists and Bloggers

Since President Ahmadinejad took power in 2005, dozens of journalists and bloggers have left the country because of increasing limitations on the press and threats against them. According to Reporters Without Borders, more than 76 journalists were forced into exile in and authorities have shut down at least 55 publications since 2009.[71]According to Reporters Without Borders as of August 2012 there were at least 44 journalists and bloggers in prison, making Iran one of the largest jailer of journalists in the world.[72] The Judiciary imposed harsh sentences on journalists and bloggers based on vague and ill-defined press and security laws such as “acting against the national security,” “propaganda against the state,” “publishing lies,” and insulting the prophets or government officials such as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or President Ahmadinejad.[73]

In September 2010, a revolutionary court sentenced Hossein Derakhshan, a prominent Iranian blogger, to 19-and-a-half years in prison for espionage, “propaganda against the state,” and “insulting sanctities.”[74] On January 17, 2012, Iran’s Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence for Saeed Malekpour, a blogger holding Canadian permanent resident status, convicted of “insulting and desecrating Islam” in October 2011. In December 2012 Malekpour’s lawyer announced that his client had repented and the Judiciary had therefore suspended his death sentence.[75] The judiciary has sentenced at least three other individuals, Mehdi Hashempour, Vahid Asghari, and Mehdi Alizadeh, to death on internet-related charges including “running obscene websites.”[76]

The government blocks many websites that carry political news and analysis, slows down internet speeds to hinder web access, and jams foreign satellite broadcasts. In March 2011, authorities announced that they were funding a multi-million-dollar project to build what they called a halal (i.e. permissible according to Islamic law) national internet in Iran to protect the country from socially and morally corrupt content. On January 4, 2012, local newspapers printed new regulations issued by Iran’s new cyber police unit that gave internet cafes 15 days to install security cameras and begin collecting personal information from customers for tracking purposes. Internet users and rights groups are concerned that an increase in recent interruptions to internet connectivity and blocked sites may be evidence that Iran is testing their new national intranet. [77]

On September 21, 2010, a revolutionary court sentenced Emad Baghi, the prominent writer and rights activist who founded the Association to Defend Prisoners’ Rights, to six years in prison for an interview he had conducted in 2007 with dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, which the BBC had rebroadcast in 2009. [78] An appeals court later overturned five years of Baghi’s sentence and prison officials released him on June 20, 2011.

Human Rights Lawyers

Since 2005, and especially since June 2009, authorities have imprisoned, prosecuted, or harassed dozens of defense lawyers. In August 2011, Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi said at least 42 lawyers had faced government persecution since 2009. Several lawyers are currently serving prison sentences on politically motivated charges, while others like Ebadi have effectively been forced into exile, in Ebadi’s case after authorities shut down her Center for Defenders of Human Rights (CDHR) and declared it illegal.[79]

They have also resorted to other methods to prevent lawyers from practicing their profession freely. Such measures include unwarranted tax investigations under which the authorities freeze the lawyers’ bank accounts and other financial assets and which could lead to the disbarring of a lawyer.[80] Authorities have also limited the independence of the Iranian Bar Association by barring lawyers from running for high-level office in the association on discriminatory grounds, including their imputed political opinions and their human rights activities. For example, in 2008, Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, Hadi Esmailzadeh, Farideh Gheyrat, and Abdolfattah Soltani, all members of the Center for Human Rights Defenders, were disqualified by the judiciary from running in the election for the association’s Central Board because of their activities as human rights defenders.[81]

In September 2010, authorities arrested Nasrin Sotoudeh, who represented numerous political prisoners. On, January 9, 2011, Iranian authorities sentenced Sotoudeh to 11 years in jail for charges that included “acting against the national security” and “propaganda against the state.” She was also barred from practicing law and from leaving the country for 20 years. In September 2011, the Judiciary reduced her sentence to six years imprisonment.[82]

High-level Iranian officials denied accusations that Sotoudeh was arrested for her activities as a lawyer. In 2010 Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of the Human Rights Council of the Judiciary, said that Sotoudeh had engaged “in a very nasty campaign” against the government, referring to interviews with her by foreign Persian-language media outlets in which she spoke in defense of her clients. On January 20, Sadegh Larijani, the head of the Judiciary, repeated the government's warning that lawyers should refrain from giving interviews that “damage our Islamic system of governance.”[83]

Since her arrest Human Rights Watch had other rights groups have repeatedly called on the Iranian authorities to release her unconditionally, and allow her regular visitation rights by her family. In November 2012 the European Parliament awarded Soutoudeh and the Iranian filmmaker, Jafar Panahi, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.[84]

In February 2011, a revolutionary court sentenced Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, cofounder and spokesperson for the Center for Defenders of Human Rights, to nine years in prison and banned him from teaching in universities and practicing as a lawyer for 10 years.[85] On April 28, 2012, Dadkhah learned that an appeals court had affirmed the lower court’s ruling. Authorities notified him that he would soon be summoned to serve his prison term.[86] Authorities transferred him to Evin prison on September 30, 2011. In February 2011, another revolutionary court sentenced Khalil Bahramian to 18 months in prison on charges of “propaganda against the state” and “insulting the head of the judiciary,” and imposed a 10-year ban on his practicing law.[87]

On March 4, 2012, Abdolfattah Soltani was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison on national security charges after two court sessions. The court’s judgment bars Soltani from practicing law for 20 years after his release because “the accused has used the law as a tool and cover to commit … crimes.” The sentence also requires Soltani, a Tehran resident, to serve his term “in exile” in a prison in the town of Borazjan, more than 600 kilometers south of the capital, in Bushehr province, because “his presence inside a Tehran prison will cause corruption.”[88] Authorities had previously alleged that Soltani, who had earlier spent time in Evin prison, improperly provided legal advice to other prisoners.[89]

Branch 26 of Tehran’s revolutionary court convicted Soltani of several national security charges, including “propaganda against the state,” assembly and collusion against the state, and establishing the CDHRs , the nongovernmental organization that Soltani co-founded with Ebadi in 2003 which the government says is illegal. The court also convicted Soltani of “receiving funds through illegitimate means,” referring to a human rights prize from the German city of Nuremberg which he received in 2009. [90] An appeals court later reduced Soltain’s prison sentence to 13 years but upheld the 20-year ban on practicing law. [91]

At least eight other lawyers, including Ebadi, Mohammad Mostafaei, Mohammad Olyaeifard and Shadi Sadr, have been forced to leave the country as a result of repeated arrests, detention, and harassment. Mohammad Mostafaei fled Iran after authorities repeatedly summoned him for questioning and detained his wife, father-in-law, and brother-in-law.[92]. Mostafaei represented high-profile defendants such as Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman sentenced to death by stoning, and numerous juvenile detainees on death row.[93] He is currently residing in Norway. Another one of Ashtiani's lawyers, Houtan Kian, is also in prison.[94]

More recently, Olyaeifard, another prominent Iranian lawyer who represented many high profile cases before Iran’s civil and revolutionary courts, was forced to leave the country after serving a one year prison sentence for “propaganda against the state,” imposed by the authorities because he spoke out against the execution of one of his clients during interviews with international media.[95]