January 16, 2011
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January 16, 2011
Writing in the Huffington Post, Hadi Ghaemi and Aaron Rhodes of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran write about the politicization of human rights and the equivocation of the international community when dealing with abuses of those rights. They discuss the conflation of those who advocate for more attention to the human rights situation in Iran with those who advocate for military action, arguing that the two are very different. The West, they argue, and many other countries as well, are squandering an opportunity to hold the government of Iran accountable for abuses. They write, "But with Iran, human rights are not bargained away, they are given away, since the international community gets nothing in return for its silence except scorn."
January 14, 2011
Via Cyrus Farivar, we learn that The Tor Project is reporting that the "Great Persian Firewall" is preventing people in Iran from connecting to circumvention tools such as Tor. The Tor Project reports:
Over the past 48 hours it seems the Great Persian Firewall is updating to attempt to block a number of circumvention tools, including Tor. Iranians and their diaspora have been reporting to us that Tor, Hot Spot Shield, UltraSurf, and Freegate are all experiencing connectivity problems from inside Iran to the outside world.Read more on their site.
January 6, 2011
Hamid Dabashi comments on the suicide of Alireza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah of Iran and the second of his children to take his own life, in a post on CNN.
Like other young Iranians, the late Alireza Pahlavi and before him his late younger sister, Leila Pahlavi, who also committed suicide in London in 2001, must have wanted to be a source of good for their homeland. There is no reason to doubt that possibility no matter what our politics might be. But historical circumstances and the ending of monarchy in Iran did not allow that to happen, and in exile the former queen and her four children have not been able to find a viable way of having a positive impact in their homeland.
January 6, 2011
Mainstream media is reporting that a 55-year old woman has been arrested in Iran for spying. EA WorldView urges restraint, pointing out that there is only one source for the report at the moment.
January 5, 2011
No Valentine's Day in Iran: The IRI once again proves that its heart is "two sizes too small" as it bans the celebration of Valentine's Day in Iran.
January 4, 2011
Hivos expresses concern about the conviction of two women held for six months simply for collecting signatures as part of the one-million signature campaign, a campaign to change Iran's discriminatory laws against women. This is the first time that the judiciary has convicted activists simply for collecting signatures. Shadi Sadr, a well known women's rights activist and the lawyer for the two women, Fatemeh Masjedi and Maryam Bidgoli said: "It is important for all of us to take action to stop the Judiciary of Qom to imprison women’s rights activists. If we let them to do as they wish, sentencing of the rest of women’s rights activist will become easier."Read more here.
December 30, 2010
The Financial Times reports that Grand Ayatollah Hossein Vahid Khorasani has told his students that the confessions of prisoners are not valid in courts of law. “Confessions of prisoners have no validity, and if a judge uses confessions for issuing verdicts that judge is no longer qualified,” he said. This stance is a direct challenge to both the Supreme Leader and the judiciary. In the past years, the judiciary has meted out harsh sentences and even execution orders for prisoners who have confessed under threat and torture.
December 26, 2010
The execution of Habibollah Latifi has been stayed. His sister reports that many demonstrators showed up to protest the execution, "Security forces have threatened the demonstrators [and told them] to disperse, but [this]was not accepted by the people until they were told about the suspension of the sentence by a Sanandaj prison official." The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reports on a meeting between Latifi's lawyers and the judiciary.