Human Rights: The Inhumane Regime of Iran

 

Table of Contents:

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1. INTRODUCTION

2. DEATH PENALTY

3. 1988 PRISON MASSACRE, CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

4. TORTURE, ILL-TREATMENT

5. CRUEL, INHUMANE AND DEGRADING PUNISHMENT

6. FREEDOMS OF EXPRESSION, ASSOCIATION AND ASSEMBLY

7. OPPRESSION OF MEDIA

8. FREEDOM OF RELIGION

9. IRAN'S WAR AGAINST WOMEN 

10. ETHNIC MINORITIES

11. 1988 PURGE

 

INTRODUCTION

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 The Iranian regime is a theocratic state based on the principle of velayat-e faqih (absolute clerical rule). The authoritarian rulers of Iran violently clamp down on popular demands, including calls for greater personal freedoms and equality.

Freedom of assembly is effectively non-existent in Iran. That is why various social sectors are severely restricted and suppressed when they assembled to voice collective and basic demands. In this context, the Iranian people have increasingly called for the overthrow of the theocracy, believing it does not align with their democratic aspirations and inclination to join the international community as peaceful and responsible actors.

 

 In December 2017, people in more than 130 cities in all of Iran’s provinces rose up against the regime in large numbers and demanded democratic change and separation of religion and state. The protestors were violently suppressed, with hundreds killed and thousands more jailed and tortured.

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 The clerical regime ruling Iran remains to be one of the worst active and persistent abusers of human rights in the world today. Every year, hundreds are executed, including dissidents. Prison conditions are horrendous, with many political prisoners deprived of proper medical attention and forced to endure long-term sentences on trumped up charges. And, women experience double oppression both legally and practically because the ruling mullahs are ideologically misogynistic and aggressively wage war on women, denying them basic rights and freedoms.

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 The ruling clerics actively wage propaganda and misinformation against opponents as well. In previous years, the regime astonishingly bombed its own religious shrines to incriminate opponents. It has also systematically conducted extra-judicial murder, killed Christian priests, brutalized minorities, and conducted what are described as crimes against humanity. The Iranian regime does not accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, instead conflating the issue by injecting demagogic concepts such as “Islamic human rights.”

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 The regime conducts a systematic war on its own people by violating their political, personal, legal, and human rights on a daily basis. Nearly any detail, minor or otherwise, of a typical Iranian’s day-to-day life, reflects in some way the denial of basic and fundamental rights and liberties, relative to the rest of the developed world. A seemingly bottomless pit of transgressions exposes the inhumane treatment of Iran’s people, and the absence of religious, judicial, and legal freedoms.

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"WHILE GOUGING OUT EYES, AMPUTATING LIMBS OR EXECUTING PEOPLE IN PUBLIC IS HORRENDOUS - WHAT TRULY STANDS OUT ARE THE PURPORTED "OFFENSES" THAT "WARRANT" SUCH RESPONSES.

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 While gouging out eyes or amputating limbs or executing people in public is horrendous, what truly stands out are the “offenses” that “warrant” such responses. Citizens cannot express politically “incorrect” opinions, women must wear hijabs, people cannot criticize government officials, and they live in constant fear of violating what the regime deems “appropriate.” Meanwhile, the regime takes pains to paint itself as a “democratic” actor to the rest of the world. However, the people of Iran and many international human rights activists know that this is truly an “inhumane” dictatorship that must only be overthrown, as first noted by Massoud Rajavi, Leader of the Iranian Resistance, back in 1981.

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 Despite the regime’s brutal repression of Iranians since its inception, the majority of Iranians are eager to express their opinions, voice their outrage, and, above all else, facilitate democratic change within their country.

 

 DEATH PENALTY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Iranian regime has persistently held the world record in the number of executions per capita. Since 1981, some 120.000 opponents have been executed by the ruling regime.

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In the summer of 1988 alone, 30000 political prisoners primarily affiliated with the main opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), along with other activists, were arbitrarily executed in a matter of months even though all of them had received definitive jail terms which they were serving at the moment of execution.

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A more global list containing details of 20.000 MEK members executed since 1981 has been published by the organization. Due to severe repression, information about the regime’s crimes is hard to obtain, and research on the matter is punishable by harsh measures.

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Iran’s casual implementation of the death penalty is ironic, given the stringent and lengthy list of offenses that land one in jail. Of the more than 450 executions that took place from January through September 2017, many victims were alleged to be drug addicts and substance abusers. Whereas other countries of the developed or western world dedicate or at the very least advocate substance abuse programs and state-run rehab initiatives, Iran elects to kill off its citizens whom it accuses of falling victim to drug abuse, regardless of extenuating circumstances. This is while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) runs a major part of the narcotics trafficking in Iran, generating huge profits, which the IRGC then uses for its extraterritorial activities and primarily terrorism.

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Virtually all of these executions are in contravention of internationally recognized standards, such as the presumption of innocence, access to lawyers, public trials, and due process. Those not being executed on drug offense charges are often given the death penalty for other ordinary offenses, often alleged after subjecting the victims to vicious tortures to extract confessions.

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As confirmed by previous UN investigators on Iran’s human rights record, many dissidents have been executed on the pretext of committing crimes such as drug trafficking. Of course, the regime has never been hesitant about executing its opponents, sometimes en masse on security related charges, whether they be activists of the principal opposition movement, the MEK, or dissident ethnic minorities, such as Kurds, Baluchis, or Arabs.  Adherents of other faiths are not spared either. Dozens of Sunnis, Christians, Bahai’s, Dervishes and others have also been given the death penalty.

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Contrary to the regime’s so-called Citizen Rights Charter, Iranians do not have a right to life.

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The current official age at which execution is permissible is nine lunar years for a girl, and 15 lunar years for a boy. The idea of executing a 9-year-old female or 15-year-old male conflicts with every international standard and ethics code known to the free world, but according to Iranian regime’s legal code, it is justified. In many cases, victims are held in prison until they reach 18 years of age, when they are then executed.

 

1988 MASSACRE, CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

 

In the summer of 1988, Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering the massacre of 30000 political prisoners

In the summer of 1988, the Iranian regime summarily and extra-judicially executed tens of thousands of political prisoners held in jails across Iran. The massacre was carried out on the basis of a fatwa (religious decree) by the regime’s then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini. More than 5.000 names of those massacred have been published by the MEK. The location of mass graves of those executed are known in 36 Iranian cities, where the regime continues to hide or destroy evidence.

 

UN Must Investigate Iran's 1988 Massacre

 

 

There are strong indications that Khomeini’s fatwa, which led to the massacre, was issued on July 26, 1988. The regime has never formally acknowledged those executions or provided any information as to how many prisoners were killed, even though in recent years, many of its officials have expressed “pride” to carry out “God’s orders” against the MEK. The majority of those executed were either serving prison sentences for their political activities or had already finished their sentences but were still kept in prison. Some of them had previously been imprisoned and released but were re-arrested and executed during the massacre. The wave of the massacre of political prisoners began in late July and continued unabated for several months. By the time it ended in the autumn of 1988, some 30,000 political prisoners, the overwhelming majority activists of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), were slaughtered.

 

In his infamous fatwa, Khomeini decreed: “Whoever at any stage continues to belong to the Monafeqin (the regime’s derogatory term to describe the MEK) must be executed. Annihilate the enemies of Islam immediately.” He went on to add: “… Those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain steadfast in their support for the MEK are waging war on God and are condemned to execution… It is naive to show mercy to those who wage war on God.”

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Khomeini assigned a committee nicknamed the “Death Committee” comprised of three individuals: A representative of the Ministry of Intelligence, a religious judge and a prosecutor. The final decision rested with the Intelligence Ministry official. They held trials lasting for a few minutes that resembled more of an integration session. The questions were focused on whether the inmate continued to have any allegiance to the MEK. The MEK-affiliated prisoners made up more than 90 percent of those taken before the “Death Committee.” If the prisoners were not willing to collaborate totally with the regime against the MEK, it was viewed as a sign of sympathy for the organization and the sentence was immediate execution. The task of the Death Committee was to determine whether a prisoner was a so-called “Enemy of God” or not. In the case of MEK prisoners, that determination was often made after only a single question about their political affiliation. Those who responded “Mojahedin” (MEK) rather than the regime’s preferred derogatory term “Monafeqin” (“hypocrites”) were sent to the gallows.

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On August 28, 2019, Amnesty International reiterated its call on the United Nations to set up an independent investigation into Iran’s 1988 massacre of thousands of political prisoners. A large number of testimonies regarding the massacre are public record.

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Asma Jahangir, the late UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, spoke of the massacre in her six month report on human rights in Iran, during her address to the seventy-second session of the General Assembly in New York on October 25, 2017: “The families of the victims have a right to remedy, reparation, and the right to know about the truth of these events and the fate of the victims without risking reprisal. I therefore reiterate my call upon the Government to ensure that a thorough and independent investigation into these events is carried out.”

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Despite all the pressures they are subjected to, political prisoners keep their morale and often do not miss opportunities to express support for the opposition and the resistance movement.

 

TORTURE, ILL-TREATMENT

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No less than 74 distinct forms of torture are registered to have been practiced in the regime’s prisons, mainly to extort forced confessions from political detainees or force them to take part in televised propaganda shows against the opposition. Judicial authorities carry out, including in public, cruel and inhumane punishments amounting to torture.

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Detailed cases of torture have been recorded by official organizations worldwide with an abundance of related material documented by the UN Human Rights Commission and related committees. Practice of torture has been systematically condemned through 65 UN statements issued by the organization’s various organs.

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Torture and other ill-treatments, including prolonged solitary confinement, remain systematic, especially during interrogations.

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Although the main victims of torture are to be found among activists in relation with the opposition, even torturing to death is not limited to political activists.

 

In 2018, 13 people died in custody and under torture following their arrests in connection with the protests in late 2017 and early 2018. Officials claimed some had committed suicide, assertions that were disputed by the victims’ families.

Scores of former political prisoners have testified to international bodies, such as different UN commissions, during nearly four decades, and volumes of personal testimonies on their affidavits stand as proof to the most medieval forms of torture upon tens of thousands of prisoners in Iran.

 

CRUEL, INHUMANE AND DEGRADING PUNISHMENT

FLOGGING

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Punishments by flogging, many times in public, on charges of theft and acts such as attending peaceful protests and cultural gatherings, having extra-marital relationships and attending mixed-gender parties are common practice.

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A citizen may receive a flogging for offenses such as breaking fast in public during Ramadan, accessing websites or social media platforms that are “forbidden,” publishing false news (the key word being “false,” of course, which is at the discretion of the government), and criticizing governent officials.
 

AMPUTATION

Amputation sentences continue to be issued and executed.

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BLINDING

 

The authorities continue to issue blinding sentences.

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The regime’s “Islamic” Penal Code calls for stoning as a method of punishment and execution.

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The regime also regularly responds to disobedience –both when the offense occurs in public or the citizen is in government detention—with amputations, blinding, eye-gouging, and public executions.

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Publicizing executions is intended to intimidate the masses, making them afraid of expressing their views and their opposition to the regime. Interestingly, the so-called moderate president Hassan Rouhani is on record as saying that people should be hanged in public to make examples out of them for other citizens. “Conspirators should be hanged in Friday prayers for people to see them and to have more of an impact,” he said when he was a parliament deputy. The preferred method of spotlighting capital punishment is public hangings from cranes in city centers and squares.

 

 

 

   FREEDOMS OF EXPRESSION,   ASSOCIATION AND ASSEMBLY

 

Iranian authorities crushed the right to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, by cracking down on peaceful protesters. The swift and violent suppression of protests and the number of deaths in custody suggest the extent to which freedom of assembly and expression have deteriorated.

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The protests that erupted in nearly every Iranian province since late December 2017 were met with a state response that was notable for its harshness and disregard for the law.

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According to reports from inside Iran and from within the regime, the number of detainees of the protests amounted to at least 8,000 by the end of the second week of the demonstrations. Detainees were denied access to legal representation and threatened with more serious charges if they sought counsel.

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Despite the regime’s attempts to conceal the number of arrests, it admitted to parts of it.

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Meanwhile, officials openly spoke of “preemptive” arrests to curb further disturbances.

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Twelve inmates died in custody under suspicious circumstances.

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Numerous videos widely circulated on social media channels showed authorities using potentially lethal force against protesters. At least 50 protesters were directly shot dead by state security forces during the street protests.

 

OPPRESSION OF MEDIA

 

Securing data about the situation of women and human rights in general is itself a daunting task.

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Journalists are no safer than women in their day-to-day endeavors.

 

Should the facts and opinions that journalists disseminate be at “odds” with the regime’s official version, journalists, bloggers, and social media activists risk arrest and even execution. Freedom of expression and opinion is harshly suppressed.

 

In the weeks and months preceding tightly-controlled state elections, the crackdown on dissident opinions can be particularly severe. Ordinary citizens using illegal platforms like Facebook or Twitter to broadcast unorthodox ideas, or established journalists publishing data or stories that paint the regime in an unflattering light, risk punitive reprisals.

 

The regime can shut down whatever newspaper, magazine, website, or social media account it deems responsible for advocating peaceful protests or thought-provoking ideas. The Iranian regime, both directly and indirectly, controls and signs off on every television program, magazine article, and news broadcast. Censorship of all forms of media and jamming of foreign satellite television channels are common practice.

 

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube remain blocked for much of the population - yet for some reason these companies too often give the regime a microphone to spew its lies, hatred and propaganda.

 

FREEDOM OF RELIGION

 

The Iranian regime is among the top violators of the rights of religious minorities. Widespread and systematic attacks continued to be carried out against religious minorities.

The Iranian regime continues to harass, interrogate and arrest Christians. Many have been charged with spurious, security-related charges such as “acting against national security” and sometimes handed prison sentences of 10 years or longer.

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Followers of Ahl-e Haq or Yaresan were also arrested in large numbers, then brutalized and imprisoned.

Members of the Sufi Muslim religious sect have long complained of harassment by Iran’s purportedly Shiite rulers, who view them as heretics.

Iran’s Bahaiis are seriously oppressed, and deprived of even citizen rights.

 

WOMEN

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The Iranian regime continues to discriminate systematically against women, treating them as second-class citizens. Tehran enables violence against women and sexual exploitation of girls; harasses, jails, fines, and flogs women for crimes like appearing in public without covering their hair and bodies; forcibly segregates women from men; disproportionately punishes women in the judicial system; cracks down on activists for women’s rights; denies women political and economic opportunities; and favors men over women in family and inheritance law.

Violence 

The Iranian regime has failed to combat the epidemic of violence against women in that country. Domestic violence is not a crime under Iranian law and criminal penalties for murder as a result of domestic violence or honor killings are lighter than the penalties for other acts of murder. For example, men convicted of murdering their daughters are imprisoned for only three to 10 years, instead of receiving the standard sentence of capital punishment. Domestic violence is generally viewed as a private family matter.

The Iranian government still has yet to enact draft legislation authored over nine years ago that would criminalize gender-based violence. After the bill languished in parliament for over five years, the Rouhani administration approved it in May 2017 and sent it to the judiciary for review, but Iran’s chief justice then sat on the bill for two more years. 

Finally, in September 2019, the judiciary cleared the legislation after heavily amending and weakening it. The bill was sent back to parliament, where it awaits further action as of March 2020. The revised bill was criticized by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) because it “does not provide effective and sufficient guarantees to protect women against violence and, in many cases, promotes and supports stereotypical, discriminatory, and sexist views toward women.” The CHRI notes that among other problems, the measure: 

• does not clearly define the term “violence” and does not use the term “domestic violence”; 

• does not remove legal and enforcement obstacles to protect women from and prosecute their abusers;

• only requires abusive husbands to provide financial support for their wives for three months after they separate, thereby encouraging battered women to return to their abusive spouses;

• requires women who seek justice in the courts after being battered or sexually abused by their husbands or fathers to go through a one-month required period of reconciliation with their abusers, during which time the case is referred to a dispute-resolution body; and

• prevents an abused woman from getting a divorce on the grounds of abuse until her husband is convicted three times of engaging in violence against her.

Iranian law de facto deters most rape victims from reporting their assault. Rape victims who come forward can face prosecution for crimes such as adultery (punishable by execution), “indecency,” or “immoral behavior.” Accused rapists can only be convicted upon the testimony of multiple witnesses (four Muslim men or a greater number of a combination of male and female witnesses). Marital rape is legal.

A human rights news agency reported in July 2019 that the head of the Tehran province’s medical examiner’s office stated that his office had received more than 16,420 reports of domestic violence had been reported to the office, an increase from 2018

Zahra Navidpour, a woman who had accused Salman Khodadadi, who chaired the parliament’s Social Affairs Committee and was a former IRGC commander, of rape, was found dead in her home under mysterious circumstances in January of 2019. Also, in 2019, former Iranian vice president and Tehran major Mohammad Ali Najafi confessed to and was convicted of murdering one of his wives, but her family waived the application of the death penalty.

In June 2018, international media reported on protests surrounding the gang rape of at least 41 women and girls in the city of Iranshahr, a predominantly Baluchi province. The regime allegedly sought to deny the cases, in which some of the perpetrators reportedly had ties to Iranian security forces. Online activists who sought to publicize the situation on social media faced harassment and arrest for their activities.

Sexual Exploitation of Girls

Under Iranian law, girls may be legally married at 13 years old (compared with 15 for boys), or even younger if their respective fathers or grandfathers agree and a judge assents. Regime figures reveal over 40,000 registered marriages of children in Iran—including over 300 girls under age 14—and the United Nations has expressed concern about the increasing number of marriages of girls 10 or younger. 

In recent years, there have been efforts by women lawmakers to raise the age of marriage, but they have languished in parliament, despite endorsement by some leading clerics like Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi.

Forced Covering

Women who fail to wear headscarves and other attire covering their bodies in public may be harassed by the morality police, detained, or fined, and/or flogged. Many Iranians have expressed opposition to this policy, including through the “White Wednesdays” campaign (begun in 2017), in which Iranians wear white headscarves or other clothing on Wednesdays in protest.

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In December 2017, Tehran’s police chief, Gen. Hossein Rahimi, announced that officers would cease arresting and charging women for dress code violations. However, the authorities reversed their policy after the nationwide protests against the regime in late December and early January. During the demonstrations, Iranian women publicly removed their headscarves and waved them in the air. Videos of these acts of defiance by women dubbed “The Girls of Revolution Street” went viral worldwide.

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In response, Gen. Rahimi announced a zero-tolerance policy against the protestors, warning that “Although the sentence for not wearing a hijab [head-covering] is two months in prison, anyone encouraging others to take off their hijab will be jailed for 10 years.” The latter punishment would be applied via trying protesters for the crimes of “inciting corruption and prostitution” under article 639 of the Islamic Penal Code. As noted below, since 2018, the regime has arrested at least 44 women protesting mandatory head-covering.

Disproportionate Judicial Punishment

Under the Iranian penal code, the age of criminal responsibility for women is just nine lunar years, compared with 15 lunar years for men. Women receive harsher punishments than men for several crimes, including adultery (which is liable to the death penalty). Most sentences of death by stoning for adultery are leveled against women. Iranian family law also increases women’s exposure to prosecution for adultery. Men are allowed to have up to four wives and an unlimited number of “temporary wives,” while a woman is limited to one husband, and divorces are far easier to obtain for men than for women. Husbands need not cite a reason for divorce, while wives are only entitled to divorces if their husbands sign contracts to that effect; cannot provide for their families, have otherwise violated their marriage contracts; or are impotent, insane, or addicted to drugs.

Crackdown on Women’s Rights Activists

Iranian authorities continue to harass interrogate, detain, and imprison women’s rights activists, sometimes accusing them of national-security crimes like espionage and collaboration with foreign powers to overthrow the regime. The government prohibits some women’s rights activists from traveling abroad.

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Since 2018, the regime detained at least 44 individuals for protesting mandatory head-covering. The activists have faced charges that include “inciting prostitution and corruption.” One of the activists, Shaparak Shajarizadeh, was sentenced to two years in prison and an 18-year suspended sentence after prolonged detention in which she was reportedly tortured and beaten and put in solitary confinement. Shajarizadeh, who fled Iran after her sentencing, claims she was told that she would serve her entire 20-year sentence if she engaged in further activism. In August 2019, a revolutionary court sentenced another hijab-protester, Saba Kordafshari, to 24 years’ imprisonment.

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In June 2018, the regime arrested prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who had represented Shajarizadeh, reportedly telling her that she had been sentenced in absentia to a five-year prison sentence for espionage and endangering Iranian national security. Critics of the Iranian regime allege that the charges were a pretext and that Iran’s government targeted her for representing political prisoners and women protesting Iran’s compulsory hijab law. 

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In March 2019, Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, announced that the regime had opaquely reached additional verdicts against her and that her complete sentence was “a total of 38 years imprisonment with 148 lashes, five years in jail for the first case and 33 years in prison with 148 lashes on the second charges.” Sotoudeh was previously imprisoned from 2010 to 2013 for purported crimes against national security and Iran’s political system. Khandan himself was sentenced in January 2019 to six years’ imprisonment for “conspiring against national security” and “propaganda against the system” through his public advocacy for his wife. As of March 2020, Khandan remained free while he appealed his sentence. 

In April 2019, the authorities arrested Yasaman Aryani, her mother Monireh Arabshahi, and Mojgan Keshavarz after they posted a video for International Women’s Day showing them walking without headscarves in the subway system. In August, a revolutionary court sentenced the three to 16, 16, and 23 years in prison, respectively, for “spreading propaganda against the system” and “inciting corruption and prostitution.”

In September 2019, the regime arrested three relatives of Masih Alinejad, who founded the movement to protest mandatory head-covering. Some of them were put in solitary confinement, according to reports. The authorities reportedly later released one of the three relatives after interrogating him and warned him that contact with Alinejad or “her team” was a crime. In March 2019, the regime interrogated Alinejad’s elderly mother for two hours and videotaped the session.

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In June 2019, Alinejad posted to social media a video of plainclothes police dragging away a 15-year-old girl for refusing an order to cover her head. Police later confirmed the arrest.

Compulsory Gender Segregation

Iranian law requires women and men to sit in separate areas in public transportation, at public weddings, and in university classes; to attend separate schools (even preschools); and to use separate entrances to some airports, universities, and public buildings. Women generally may not attend men’s sporting events, such as soccer matches, in public stadiums.

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Restricted Political and Cultural Opportunities

In practice, women are not allowed to serve in the uppermost ranks of Iran’s leadership, including as supreme leader or as members of the Iranian Guardian Council. The Council continues to disqualify women who register as presidential candidates, including all 137 who sought to run in the 2017 elections. Women are also prohibited from serving as judges. 

No women have served in the cabinet of purportedly moderate President Hassan Rouhani. Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, only one woman has served as a cabinet minister. Two of Iran’s 12 vice presidents, who are less powerful than cabinet ministers, are women. Only 17 women serve in Iran’s 290-member parliament, and the Guardian Council disqualifies thousands of prospective candidates from running in legislative elections.

The government frequently censors publications critical of the Islamic Republic and removes material regarding women’s rights. The regime also censors or bans movies that it believes would spread subversive ideas about the rights of women.

Restricted Economic Opportunities

Iran is ranked sixth-worst in the world for gender equality, including equal participation in the economy, in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report.

The Iranian regime bars women from working in some government departments, including the Judiciary Organisation of Military Forces. Iranian law gives husbands control over their wives’ ability to work. In some cases, husbands are legally allowed to block their wives from employment, and some employers will not hire women without their husbands’ consent. Men may also prevent their wives from traveling abroad. Women often must not travel without a male guardian or chaperone and risk being harassed if they travel alone.

Consequently, the percentage of women that constitute the Iranian workforce has languished in the mid-teens for years, while the unemployment rate for women—around 20 percent—is about double that for men.

Iranian law provides insufficient protection for women against workplace sexual harassment. The law also does not bar discrimination in hiring on the basis of sex.

The regime also restricts women from pursuing almost 80 majors, ranging from engineering, computer science, and nuclear physics to business and English literature.

Unequal Treatment in Family and Inheritance Law

Iranian family and inheritance laws generally favor men over women.

As noted above, men may have up to four wives—and enter into an unlimited number of “temporary marriages”—while women are only allowed one husband. A female virgin of any age requires her male guardian’s permission to marry. Men may divorce their wives for any reason or none at all, while women only have the right to divorce under certain conditions.

In divorce cases, Iranian law generally grants custody of children seven and older to their fathers, while women are usually granted custody of children until the latter turns seven.

Women require their husbands’ permission to obtain a passport and travel abroad. Husbands are legally allowed to determine where the family lives and to prevent their wives from engaging in certain vocations.

In October 2019, Iran’s Guardian Council signed off on a law that would grant Iranian citizenship to the children of Iranian women married to non-citizen husbands. Previously, only male Iranians were entitled to pass their citizenship to their children. Because of this previous restriction, some 400,000 to one million children of Iranian women are not Iranian citizens, according to reports.

However, even under the new law, citizenship for children born of Iranian women and foreign husbands is not automatically given—women must apply for citizenship for their children, or the children may themselves apply after turning 18. Applicants must be screened for “security problems” and cleared by the intelligence ministry and the intelligence branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, meaning that children of parents viewed as critical of the regime could be denied citizenship.

By law, upon the death of a man without children, his wife is entitled to inherit only one-quarter of his estate. If he has children, the wife’s share is reduced to a mere eighth. If a man had multiple wives, this inheritance is divided equally among them. Sons are entitled to inherit twice as much as daughters.

Similarly, while a man is legally entitled to inherit all forms of property in the event of his wife’s death, a widow only has the right to inherit a portion of the value of her husband’s land—not the land itself. Consequently, other inheritors may pay the widow her share of the land’s value and then evict her from the property.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The denial of basic rights to women affects all aspects of public and private life. Should a woman enter a public space without hijab, or proper covering, a possible consequence will involve her being lashed – dozens of times, depending on the “severity” of the “crime.” A woman can be pulled over while driving or walking, if an agent views her hijab as not properly covering her. Wardrobe malfunctions can have much more disturbing consequences. In 2014 in Isfahan, sporadic “acid attacks” began all over the city, when self-appointed vigilantes associated with the paramilitary Bassij force splashed acid into the faces of women deemed inappropriately covered. A number of these women went blind from the attacks. While the actions were not officially claimed by the regime, officials did nothing to seriously investigate these vicious assaults and no one was arrested or prosecuted, further convincing the public that the government had sanctioned the attacks.

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Iranian women have little representation in government, are second-class citizens and under the current legal code, have no hopes for improvement of the situation. They are subject to discrimination as trivial as being banned from attending official sporting matches and are barred from practicing sports unless dressed in full hijab.

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This maltreatment paints a vivid picture of the attributes women are forced to adopt: submission, silence, and obedience. Women in Iran are resilient, nevertheless, and many have fought back.

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None of the 137 women who put their name forward to run for president passed the vetting process by the Guardian Council. Consequently, there were no women candidates in the presidential elections. Further, no women have been appointed as ministers in Rouhani’s current cabinet.

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Women however play a leading role in the Iranian opposition, with more than 50% of NCRI’s members being women. The main opposition force MEK is led solely by women and has Mrs. Maryam Rajavi as the president-elect for the future Iran.

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Women face serious discrimination in family and criminal law, including in relation to divorce, employment, inheritance and political office.

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Women are routinely harassed and assaulted in public places by the “morality police” for failing to comply with Iran’s strict “Islamic” dress code. Women are banned from singing and at times playing musical instruments in public.

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HOMOSEXUALS

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ETHNIC MINORITIES

 

Ethnic minorities, including Kurds, Baluchis, Azeris, Lors and Arabs, have been subjected to oppression for years at the hands of Iranian authorities.

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Hundreds of people were arrested around Ahvaz in 2018 amid protests against the regime’s discriminatory policies, as well as water and power shortages and poverty.

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Azerbaijani Turkic minority rights activists were also targeted.

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Iran’s Baluch minority numbers between one and four million people, based mainly in the southeastern region of Sistan-va-Baluchestan.

Several Baluchis have been killed while smuggling gasoil to make ends meet in this unemployment-stricken area. Security forces are not held accountable for the murders.

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Baluch human rights activists believe that more than 100 people, including innocent bystanders, are killed every year in anti-smuggling operations in Iran’s Baluch populated province.

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Regime forces, mainly the IRGC, continued to unlawfully attack and even open fire on scores of unarmed Kurdish men known as Kulbars (porters) who carry huge packs of goods on their backs and cross the border on foot to supply customers with goods not widely available in Iran, like alcohol, foreign clothing, and other consumer goods.