February 21, 2013
Arseh Sevom — From the “not again” department, we hear news that the Intelligence Ministry won’t let up on the BBC and continues to arrest, hold, […]
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February 9, 2012
In the lead up to the upcoming parliamentary elections, Iran is cracking down on free expression and civil society organizations. Netizens, bloggers, and reporters have found themselves swept up in a wave of arrests; passage of the Islamic Penal Code further codifies human and civil rights violations into law; and one of the Islamic Republic's longest running civil society organizations is shut down.
Crushing Expression
The end of January 2012 witnessed a further escalation in human rights violations in Iran. The ongoing repression continued with the arrest of three journalists: Saham-aldin Bourghani, Parastoo Dokoohaki, and Marzieh Rasooli. The arrests of Mohammad Solimaninya, a website administrator and owner of Social Network for Iranian Professionals (www.u24.ir) that hosts and designs a number of civil society websites, ten Sunni Muslims in Ahwaz, as well as the shocking confirmation of the death sentence for Iranian-Canadian Saeed Malekopour, are just a few examples of the human rights situation in Iran in January alone.February 6, 2012
Arseh Sevom --- For months now, Iranian state media has been slandering BBC Persian journalists, accusing them of a number of crimes including drug trafficking, sexual impropriety, and even rape. Recently, they also began detaining the family members of the journalists for questioning in the hopes of intimidating the foreign-based journalists.“This is unprecedented in its level of viscousness,” BBC correspondent Kasra Naji tells Arseh Sevom. "We have not seen this level of brazen and vicious attacks before.""It is impossible to miss the pattern of arrests and intimidation from the regime against those who challenge the dominance of its hold on information," says Arseh Sevom board president, Bert Taken. "We saw a sharp rise in arrests before the 2009 elections as well. This was particularly the case with women's rights activists, reporters, and bloggers. The harassment of the families of human rights defenders, journalists, and others is a new low for Iran. We know the mother of an imprisoned human rights defender was imprisoned simply for speaking with the international media. Arseh Sevom asks the Iranian government to rescind these policies and to respect its citizen's freedom of speech as guaranteed by its own constitution."