III. Refugees’ Stories

Protesters

Mohammad-Reza Bigdelifard

Mohammad-Reza Bigdelifard, now a refugee in Turkey, told Human Rights Watch that he, his wife, and his brother-in-law worked as volunteers for a civil society group that supported the presidential campaign Mir Hossein Moussavi.[96] They were in charge of voting research and polling in various neighborhoods in Tehran, and coordinated their work with media outlets such as the official Iran Labor News Agency.  In June 2009, Bigdelifard, his wife, and his brother-in-law joined several peaceful demonstrations in Tehran protesting the outcome of the presidential election.[97]

On Wednesday, June 17, Bigdelifard and his wife participated in a large demonstration at Tehran’s Haft-e Tir Square. Bigdelifard told Human Rights Watch that at one point during the demonstration, someone took a picture of the two of them standing behind a large banner that read: “Dust and Trash.”[98] Both Bigdelifard and his wife were wearing masks covering a portion of their faces.

The next day, Thursday, June 18, the picture was published widely in media outlets, including the reformist Iranian daily Etemad-e Melli, Hayat-e No, and websites such as the BBC. About a month later security forces raided Bigdelifard’s home in Tehran. They arrested him and confiscated his personal belongings, including his computer, documents, and CDs. Bigdelifard was handcuffed, taken to a parked car waiting outside, and blindfolded. He was transferred to an unknown location, possibly a secret detention facility, and kept there for approximately 34 days. He said he was blindfolded and cuffed most of the time.

Bigdelifard told Human Rights Watch that his captors routinely subjected him to physical and psychological torture. His captors regularly beat and whipped him, and he endured numerous interrogation sessions during which his interrogators accused him of having links with armed groups working to destabilize the state, as well as with opposition and reformist figures, and dissident sects. Authorities primarily relied on information gathered at his home during the day of the arrest in order to get him to confess to these trumped-up charges. Bigdelifard said that on several occasions authorities threatened him with execution, and carried out mock executions during which he (and several others) had nooses placed around their necks. On at least one occasion, authorities kicked the chair underneath his legs, but he simply fell to the ground.

Bigdelifard also told Human Rights Watch that his captors threatened him with sexual assault if he did not cooperate with interrogators and confess to his “crimes.”

One time my interrogator asked me to write down whatever he wanted me to. “If you don’t do what I say I’ll pull down your pants and fuck you,” he said. I refused. So he pushed me on a desk and pulled down my pants. I began to cry. He called someone else over. I could feel the warmth of someone’s penis against my back. I told him I’d write whatever he wanted. But he said it was too late.[99]

Bigdelifard said his interrogator did not act on the threat, but forced him to write down his confessions with his pants down.  

Bigdelifard was eventually released from detention through the efforts of his brother, who bribed an influential member of the Revolutionary Guards. As a condition of his release, he was instructed not to discuss his experiences with anyone, and ordered to leave the country at once. He lived in hiding in a city in northern Iran for approximately eight months prior to escaping to Turkey. His wife and brother-in-law, who had escaped arrest and were in hiding themselves, joined Bigdelifard for the cross-border journey to Turkey.[100]

Shahram Bolouri

Shahram Bolouri, 27, also participated in protests following the disputed 2009 presidential election. He told Human Rights Watch that he documented violence against peaceful protesters by security forces. He disseminated photographs and videos of the post-election violence and provided eyewitness accounts to various media outlets. Prior to his 2009 election activities, Bolouri was a member of the Kurdish Society, an NGO in Tehran, and cooperated with other civil society organizations.

On June 23, 2009, security and intelligence agents raided his home in Tehran and arrested him. They held him in Tehran’s Evin prison for almost 8 months, 45 days of which was in solitary confinement. Bolouri told Human Rights Watch that authorities kept him in wards 209 and 240, controlled by the Ministry of Intelligence, before transferring him to the general ward. Bolouri said interrogators and prison guards subjected him to severe psychological as well as physical ill-treatment and torture.

My solitary cell [in Ward 240] measured 2.5 by 1 meter. It had a toilet and no windows. Prison guards would often come in and order me to stand, sit, and perform odd tasks just because they could. One of them once said to me, “You look like an athlete. Select your sport. Stand up and sit down for me. One hundred times, and make sure you count!” He made me do this several times even though I had a busted leg. I was sweating profusely but they didn’t let me shower. After two weeks the same guy opened the door to my cell and said, “Why does it smell like shit in here?” He ordered me to go take a shower and wash my clothes.[101]

On February 16, 2010, more than six months after he was detained, authorities released Bolouri on bail in the unusually high amount of US$ 200,000 after preventing his family from posting the amount for weeks. Bolouri said that the financial and psychological pressure authorities put on his family was sometimes worse than what he endured in prison. Human Rights Watch has documented numerous other instances where authorities required families to post unusually high bail amounts as part of a systematic strategy to harass detainees and their families.

In October 2010, a revolutionary court in Tehran sentenced Bolouri to four years in prison on charges of “assembly and collusion against the state by participating in protests and communicating with foreign broadcasts and disseminating news.”[102] Bolour appealed, but in June 2011,  the Judiciary issued another ruling increasing his sentence to four years and six months. Bolouri decided to leave Iran after increasing pressures and harassment against him and his family following the appeals court ruling. He lodged a refugee claim with the UNHCR field office in Iraq on July 15, 2011, and is now seeking refugee status and resettlement in a third country.[103]

Media Byezid

Media Bayezid, a student activist and blogger previously expelled from Esfahan University after he participated in Student Day protests in 2005, joined Mehdi Karroubi’s presidential campaign in 2008. On the evening of June 12, 2009, Bayezid and others in Karroubi’s campaign were responsible for monitoring the vote count by the Ministry of Interior. He told Human Rights Watch that he and colleagues working for Mousavi’s campaign reported some voting irregularities to authorities. Instead of looking into them, Ministry of Interior officials warned both Karroubi and Mousavi’s campaigns that if there were any “disruptions” they would be held responsible.

Bayezid and others from Karroubi’s campaign went to Tehran to join post-election demonstrators after the official results were announced. He said he returned to Saqqez on November 7, which is when his problems began.

I got a call to meet someone at Payam-e Nur University in Saqqez when I returned who said he wanted to meet me. When I went there I noticed a green car with two persons who approached me. One of them said someone had complained that I was harassing them on the phone and I need to be questioned by [the police.] They put me in car, shoved my head down, and sped away. I later found out they were Ministry of Intelligence agents.[104]

 He continued:

We went to the local setad-e khabari[105] of the Ministry of Intelligence. I was blindfolded. The interrogator came into the room and began accusing me of having contacts with Kurdish guerrilla groups. My father was in Koya [Iraqi Kurdistan] and I had crossed the border illegally into Iraqi Kurdistan several times. He accused me of having contacts with PJAK [Kurdish Party for Free Life of Kurdistan] and other banned Kurdish parties.  When I refused to admit these contacts he slapped me and said, “This is not your aunt’s house!” Then he said they had been tapping my phone for a while and played recordings of my conversations.[106]

Bayezid said his interrogator questioned him for seven or eight hours. Authorities beat and harassed him several times during the 13 days they kept him at the Ministry of Intelligence detention facility. They eventually released Bayezid, but continued to summon him in for further interrogations until he decided to leave the country.[107]

Minority Rights Activists

Ahmad Mamandi

Hezha (Ahmad) Mamandi, a Kurdish rights activist, was one of the earliest members of the Human Rights Organization of Kurdistan (HROK). The judiciary initially sentenced him to an 11-year prison sentence in Evin prison on various national security-related charges. He told Human Rights Watch that intelligence agents had arrested him numerous times since 2005 because of his activities with HROK and other local rights groups.

I was at Azad University in Mahabad collecting signatures [in 2006] when several intelligence agents arrested me and another colleague, put us in a car, and drove us to the local detention facility. They interrogated me for two weeks. They asked lots of questions about HROK and its relations with America. They beat me several times, but were careful not to hit me in the face. I had no access to a lawyer. After two weeks they sent me and my colleague to a Mahabad revolutionary court. The court session lasted about two to three minutes. When we tried to speak to the judge he kicked us out of the courtroom. They transferred us to the central prison in Mahabad and I found out a bit later that we’d been sentenced to 20 months imprisonment for acting against the national security and disturbing the public.[108]  

Mamandi told Human Rights Watch that on appeal the Judiciary decreased his sentence to 10 months and authorities freed him in 2006. Upon release, he continued his underground activities with HROK, but after authorities arrested Kaboudvand and Saman Rasoulpour, two of the group’s leaders, in 2006 and 2007 respectively, the group scaled back its activities.

In 2010, after the execution of Farzad Kamangar and several other Kurdish activists, Mamandi and his colleagues at HROK helped organize a region-wide strike in Iran’s Kurdish areas. Mamandi said the strike was effective and angered the authorities. He discovered that Intelligence agents had identified him and several others as organizers of the strike.

Several days later, on May 22, 2010, Manandi fled to Iraqi Kurdistan.[109]

Amir Babekri

Amir Babekri was a teacher and journalist in Piranshahr, a Kurdish-majority city in West Azerbaijan province. Babekri joined the HROK in 2005 and worked on various rights issues affecting Iran’s Kurds. He told Human Rights Watch that agents from the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit arrested him at the primary school where he was teaching in December 2007.

Three armed men stuffed me into a Toyota and took me to a local detention facility. There they tried connecting me to Kurdish political parties. I rejected this. They threatened to send me to [the northwestern city of] Orumiyeh if I refused to cooperate. I told them to go ahead and do it. They hit me several times the last night I was there before being transferred to Orumiyeh but I was not tortured.[110]

At the Orumiyeh detention facility, he continued,

There were around 40 people in two separate rooms. The authorities had accused some of them with having ties to PJAK.[111] Every day there were interrogations, and we heard lots of screaming. I was interrogated for a total of 18 days, but they transferred me for questioning to another facility which was about five to six minutes away by car. I was blindfolded. There they subjected me and the others to various forms of ill-treatment. Sometimes they threw us out in the snow. Other times they would handcuff us to a wall and force us to stand on the tips of our toes. They also hit us over the head with batons.[112]  

Babekri said his interrogator asked him lots of questions about his contacts at HROK. He said he was finally forced to acknowledge his membership in HROK, but refused to give up names of others who worked in the HROK underground network. Authorities eventually charged Babekri with moharebeh, or enmity against God, membership in an illegal group, and illegally crossing into Iraqi Kurdistan. He told Human Rights Watch that his indictment in a revolutionary court in Orumiyeh lasted two to three minutes. He had no legal representation, and recalled there were several Revolutionary Guards officers present inside the courtroom.

After four months the Judiciary tried him during a 30-minute court session. This time he had a lawyer present.[113]They had dropped the more serious moharebeh charge, but he was convicted on the charge of “propaganda against the state” and membership of HROK. The judge sentenced him to one year three months imprisonment.

As a result of continuing pressure by local authorities and his inability to teach in Piranshahr, Babekri decided to leave Iran and lodged a refugee claim with UNHCR in Iraqi Kurdistan on July 15, 2009.[114]

Rebin Rahmani

Kurdish rights activist Rebin Rahmani told Human Rights Watch that security forces arrested him on November 19, 2006, in Kermanshah, the capital city of the western Iranian province of the same name. At the time he was involved in a project researching the prevalence of drug addiction and HIV infections in Kermanshah province. After his arrest, Rahmani spent approximately two months in detention facilities run by the Ministry of Intelligence, and was interrogated by intelligence agents in both Kermanshah and Sanandaj, the main city in the adjacent Iranian province of Kurdistan. He told Human Rights Watch that during his time in these two facilities there he was subjected to several rounds of interrogation accompanied by physical and psychological torture.

In January 2007, a revolutionary court sentenced Rahmani to five years’ imprisonment on charges of “acting against national security,” and “propaganda against the state.” The sentence was handed down after a 15-minute trial during which Rahmani had no access to a lawyer. In March of that year his sentence was reduced to two years on appeal.

After his appeal Rahmani was primarily kept in Kermanshah’s Dizel Abad prison, but was transferred to detention facilities operated by the Ministry of Intelligence on several occasions for additional interrogations. He told Human Rights Watch that during his interrogations he was again subjected to physical and mental abuse amounting to torture, and kept in solitary confinement for long periods of time in an attempt to force him to falsely confess to links to armed Kurdish separatist groups. Interrogators also threatened to arrest his family members, and eventually arrested his brother in June 2008 in part to put pressure on Rahmani. As a result of these pressures, Rahmani attempted suicide on two occasions. Intelligence authorities were not able to bring any additional charges against him, he said.

Upon his release from prison in the latter part 2008, Rahmani learned that he had been dismissed from university and could no longer continue his education. He told Human Rights Watch that he decided to join the local rights group, Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA), but used a pseudonym because he was afraid he would be rearrested by authorities. Prior to his eventual escape to Iraqi Kurdistan due to mounting pressure against him and his family, Rahmani interviewed victims and their families and prepared reports for HRA, most of which focused on rights violations perpetrated by the government in Iran’s Kurdish regions. He was also responsible for administering Kurdish-language content of the HRA website. [115]

During the crackdown in March 2010 against rights groups including HRA in Tehran and other major cities (described above), Rahmani escaped arrest because he was not identified as an active member of HRA at the time. But in May 2010, following his participation in a rally against the execution of several Kurdish political prisoners, local authorities put Rahmani under surveillance. In December 2010, security forces raided his house shortly after he attended a gathering outside Sanandaj prison to protest the imminent execution of Habibollah Latifi.[116]

Rahmani felt forced to escape to Iraqi Kurdistan and registered with the UNHCR office in Erbil on March 6, 2011.[117]

Fayegh Roorast

Fayegh Roorast, a Kurdish activist and law student at Orumiyeh University, told Human Rights Watch that prior to his arrest in January 2009 he cooperated with several rights and civil society groups such as HROK, HRA, and the One Million Signatures Campaign. He said Ministry of Intelligence agents began targeting him around the time when the judiciary sentenced Farzad Kamangar to death, in March 2008. [118] Roorast had conducted several interviews with foreign media outlets regarding the arrest of Kamangar, Zainab Bayazidi and other Kurdish rights activists. [119]

On January 25, 2009 intelligence agents attacked Roorast’s father’s shop and arrested his father. A little while later they entered Roorast’s home in Mahabad and seized his personal belongings, but did not arrest him at that time. Two days later Roorast as well as his brother, sister, and aunt were all summoned to the local Ministry of Intelligence office in Mahabad. He said officials accused all of them of working with banned Kurdish opposition groups, including the PJAK. Intelligence officials released the rest of his family but kept Roorast at the detention facility for about 17 days.

At the Mahabad Ministry of Intelligence facility they threatened and harassed me every day. My interrogator played good cop with me to urge cooperation, and bad cop when I refused to do what he wanted. He beat me and threatened to harm, even rape, members of my family. After five days of interrogations and beatings he said to me, “Until now you were only being interrogated. From now on I’m responsible for teaching you lesson.”[120] 

Roorast said that he was later transferred to a Ministry of Intelligence detention facility in Orumiyeh.

The authorities held me in solitary confinement for several days. There were three interrogation, or torture, rooms downstairs. I heard lots of horrible sounds coming from there. They took me there about 15 or 16 times. The place reeked of urine and feces. There they subjected me to all types of torture, including hanging me by my wrists on wall so I’d be forced to stand on my toes, applying electric shocks to the tips of my toes and fingers, and beating me up. They asked me why I had kept lists of prisoners’ names and why I’d collected signatures for the One Million Signatures Campaign.[121]

Roorast told Human Rights Watch that he refused to provide names. Authorities released him in early 2010. He left Iran for Iraqi Kurdistan later that summer.

Student Activists

Hesam Misaghi

On January 1, 2010, the Ministry of Intelligence contacted Hesam Misaghi, a student activist and member of the Committee of Human Rights Reporting (CHRR) by phone and summoned him for interrogation. The Ministry of Intelligence 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 ministry. Later that day, two other CHRR members who had been similarly summoned to the ministry presented themselves and were promptly arrested.[122]

Altogether at least seven members of CHRR were altogether arrested from 2009-10, some in connection with the so called “Iran Proxy” affair (see above). However, Misaghi ignored the summons and went into hiding. He entered Turkey with his colleague Sepehr Atefi in January 2010.[123]

In addition to his CHRR-related activities, Hesam Misaghi was involved with various student and civil society causes including work on protection of Iran’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Esfahan’s Sana’i University dismissed Misaghi after he received a letter from the Ministry of Science indicating that they knew he was from a Baha’i family. He became an activist after he was expelled from university in 2007. Several of Misaghi’s Baha’i colleagues who were either members or affiliates of CHRR, including Navid Khanjani and Sepehr Atefi, were similarly expelled from their universities because of their religious faith. The government allowed Khanjani and Atefi to sit for the national exam, but did not allow them to enroll in a university, claiming their files were incomplete. The Ministry of Science and the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution summarily dismissed their complaints.[124]

In response to these events, Khanjani, Misaghi and others in 2009 helped found the Population to Combat Educational Discrimination, to bring attention to the problems of the Baha’is and other students denied access to university education because of their religious and political beliefs. In cooperation with other human rights groups—Human Rights Activists in Iran, the Committee of Human Rights Reporters, and the Council to Defend the Right to Education—the students held meetings in various cities across Iran, including Tehran, Shiraz, Sari and Kermanshah, where they openly shared their experiences and shed light on the draconian role played by various government agencies tasked with implementing a secret 1991 directive from the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution calling for the government to deal with Bahais “in such a way that their progress and development are blocked.” [125]

Misaghi joined a local human rights NGO and became its spokesperson on the rights of students denied access to higher education for their political and religious beliefs. He was also a founding member of the Population to Combat Educational Discrimination. In 2008, security forces briefly detained Misaghi. Ministry of Science officials threatened him with arrest when he confronted them during his interrogation about the government’s systematic policy of expelling Baha’i students.

The government’s response to the activities of Misaghi and his colleagues was harsh, including pursuing their arrest for advocating on behalf of those seeking a college education. Late on the evening of March 2, members of the Ministry of Intelligence entered Navid Khanjani’s home in the city of Esfahan and arrested him. The next day, they conducted similar raids at the homes of Eeghan Shahidi, Sama Nourani, Hesam Misaghi and Sepehr Atefi. They arrested Shahidi and Nourani, but Misaghi and Atefi had fled to Turkey weeks before.  

At the time of Khanjani's arrest, security agents told him that they knew Misaghi, and Atefi were in Turkey and that the authorities would eventually succeed in bringing them back to Iran. Many of the human rights activists with whom these Baha’i students cooperated were also arrested and imprisoned for their activities.[126]

Yaser Goli

Student activist Yaser Goli was secretary of the Kurdish Democratic Student Union. In 2006, Ministry of Intelligence agents arrested him. He received a four-month suspended sentence. University authorities eventually prevented Goli from continuing his graduate studies as punishment for his political activities.[127] In addition to his activities with the Kurdish Democratic Student Union, Goli was involved with various civil society organizations such as One Million Signatures Campaign, the Azarmehr Society of Kurdish Women (a group that organizes capacity-building workshops and sports activities for women in Sanandaj and elsewhere in the province of Kurdistan), and the human rights committee of the Kurdish Democratic Student Union.

In late 2007, after he continued his activities and protested the university’s decision to ban him, security forces arrested Goli and transferred him to a detention facility in Sanandaj administered by the Ministry of Intelligence. During the next three months, Ministry of Intelligence agents repeatedly interrogated Goli, subjected him to physical and psychological torture, and held him in solitary confinement. In November 2008, a revolutionary court convicted Goli of crime of the moharebeh, or “enmity against God,” and sentenced him to 15 years’ imprisonment and “exile” at a prison facility in Kerman province (located in the south of Iran well over 1,000 kilometers from Sanandaj). Government authorities eventually allowed Goli temporary leave to treat a serious heart condition after his family posted bail.[128] Goli escaped Iran to Iraqi Kurdistan with his family in March 2010.[129]

Journalists and Bloggers

Amin Khawala

Journalist Amin Khawala provided information to Human Rights Watch about increasing pressures on reporters in Iran’s Kurdistan province. Khawala worked as a correspondent with the Saqqez News Center (SNC), an important news outlet in Saqqez, a Kurdish-majority city, covering local and regional news of concern to Iran’s Kurdish minority.[130]

Khawala told Human Rights Watch that since SNC began its activities in 2006, authorities pressured the outlet because of the sensitive nature of some of the news it covers, including publishing of the names of dozens of suspected smugglers shot dead by Iranian security and border agents in Kurdistan province, the names of high-ranking local government officials allegedly involved in corruption, and the names of local opposition and rights activists arbitrarily arrested by security forces. Khawala said authorities were also angered by SNC’s coverage of information regarding the results of the 2009 presidential elections in Kurdistan province, which challenged the government’s official position regarding the results.

Khawala told Human Rights Watch that authorities filtered the SNC website in April 2011 and security forces raided the home of Editor-in-Chief Atta Hamedi on January 4, 2011 and confiscated his personal belongings. Khawala added:

I was summoned and warned by the Ministry of Intelligence many times. They threatened me and said I had committed blasphemy as well as accusing me of being involved in criminal and terrorist activities. I had already been convicted and sentenced to a two-year suspended prison term by an Iranian revolutionary court in 2011. They threatened to reopen my file and send me to prison, so I had to escape to Iraqi Kurdistan.[131]

Khawala fled to Iraqi Kurdistan on March 3, 2011. Since then Iranian security forces have repeatedly harassed his family in order to force him to go back to Iran.

Abbas Khorsandi

Abbas Khorsandi, a blogger and political activist, founded the Iran Democratic Party, a small unregistered political party with a handful of members who publish articles on the internet. The group operated openly until agents from the Ministry of Intelligence arrested Khorsandi in January 2005 and accused him of forming an illegal party. Khorsandi told Human Rights Watch that after three months in prison he was released and ordered to dissolve the party. He refused and continued his activities with the group underground.

On September 9, 2007, intelligence agents arrested Khorsandi in Firuzkuh, a small town located approximately 140 km east of Tehran. Authorities held him at Evin prison for approximately three months, without access to his lawyer or family members. He told Human Rights Watch that authorities transferred him to section 209 of Evin prison, which is under the control of the Ministry of Intelligence, soon after his arrest. He said he faced two rounds of interrogations which included severe physical and psychological abuse amounting to torture. He was eventually forced to sign confessions regarding his activities as the secretary-general of the Iran Democratic Party. Based on these confessions, authorities charged him with “acting against the national security” and “forming an illegal organization.”

Prosecutors tried Khorsandi in Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court in March 2008 and sentenced him to eight years in prison on March 17, 2008. Branch 36 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court confirmed Khorsandi’s eight year sentence on appeal on July 12, 2008. He told Human Rights Watch that on May 18, 2009 he received a 10-day medical leave but stayed out of prison until late August 2009, when the Judiciary ordered him to return. In prison he suffered from several serious health ailments including heart disease, internal bleeding, and diabetes and was denied access to proper medical care. In October 2009, Khorsandi was transferred to a hospital where his doctors told him that if he returned to prison his life would be in serious jeopardy.

Khorsandi eventually decided to flee Iran while on medical leave. He entered Iraqi Kurdistan on February 17, 2010. His wife and two children joined him in Iraqi Kurdistan in January 2012.[132]

Others

Fatemeh Goftari

Ministry of Intelligence agents first arrested Fatemeh Goftari in 2002 in Sanandaj, the capital city of the Iranian province of Kurdistan, and charged her with propaganda against the state. A revolutionary court convicted and sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment. Her sentence was later suspended and she served only six months. At the time, she had been a member of Azarmehr Society of Kurdish Women, a co-founder of the Kurdistan Mothers for Peace, and active in the One Million Signatures Campaign.

Ministry of Intelligence agents arrested Goftari again on January 14, 2008 in Sanandaj. A revolutionary court convicted her of acting against the national security because of her civil society activities and sentenced her to 25 months in prison. She spent a portion of this time in solitary confinement in a prison in the town of Birjand, in South Khorasan province, well over 1, 000 kilometers east of her hometown of Sanandaj. After her release from prison she and her husband were repeatedly monitored and summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence office in Sanandaj. Goftari eventually left Iran in March 2010 after refusing to comply with a summons order and escaping an attempted arrest during which she was beaten by security forces.[133]

Mohammad Oliyaeifard

Mohammad Oliyaeifard, a defense lawyer, served a prison sentence imposed for speaking out against the execution of one of his clients during interviews with international media.[134]  His client, juvenile offender Behnoud Shojaee, had been hanged for a murder he committed when he was 17 years old.[135] Mohammad Olyaeifard has defended many prisoners of conscience, including independent trade unionists and student activists, as well as juvenile offenders.  His lawyer is Nasrin Sotoudeh, herself currently in prison.

Branch 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court convicted and sentenced him to one year in prison in February 2010 for the “propaganda against the Islamic Republic by conducting an interview with Voice of America’s foreign service.” Olyaeifard served his sentence in Ward 350 of Evin prison from March 2010 until April 2011.[136]

Olyaeifard told Human Rights Watch that during the past few years authorities have intensified their pressure against defense lawyers by relying on various provisions of the Islamic Penal Code to silence them and prevent them from effectively representing their clients. In addition to propaganda against the state, authorities have increasingly brought charges against prominent defense lawyers such as “publication of lies in an attempt to create public anxiety” and defamation, and sought to ban lawyers from practicing in addition to imprisonment. For example, Olyaeifard said that authorities from the Ministry of Intelligence and Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court brought a suit against him in May 2009 in Tehran’s criminal court because he publicly complained about the torture of two of his clients, Solman Sima and Majid Asadi, during their solitary confinement in prison. If convicted, Olyaeifard could face a lifetime ban on the practice of law.[137]

Olyeaeifard left Iran in January 2012

Other lawyers forced into exile include Shadi Sadr, who left the country after she was detained for 11 days in July 2009, Ardeshir Amir Arjomand, an advisor to former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi currently in exile in Paris, and Mohammad Hossein Nayyeri, living in London.