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.
