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A coalition of 42 rights groups, including Article18, have called for the renewal of the mandate of the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Iran.

In a joint letter to members of the UN’s human rights council, the groups highlight the “persistence of serious, chronic and systematic violations of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights in [Iran], which have only become more dire over the past year”. 

The letter calls for the mandate of Javaid Rehman, appointed in July last year after the death of former rapporteur Asma Jahangir, to be renewed to “address the on-going repression in Iran” and “advance the promotion and protection of human rights”.

Among the rights abused by Iran, the letter notes, is the right to freedom of religion or belief.

In his latest report, Mr Rehman bemoaned the “heavy sentences” given to Iranian Christians and called for the “release of all those imprisoned for having exercised their right to freedom of religion or belief”.

Mr Rehman’s report called on Iran to “protect the rights of all persons belonging to religious and ethnic minorities and address all forms of discrimination against them”.

He noted that several Christians have “received heavy sentences after being charged with threatening national security, either for converting people or for attending house churches” and said the “disproportionate number of arrests and convictions of members of minority groups” illustrates “discrimination in the administration of justice”.

“Ethnic and religious minority groups constitute a disproportionately large percentage of persons executed or imprisoned,” he said.

Over the past decade, Article18 has consistently highlighted Iran’s failure to grant freedom of religion to its citizens. 

Article18’s inaugural annual report, released in January, noted that at least 14 Christians remained in prison at the end of 2018, detained on spurious charges related to their faith or religious activity.

Ahead of Christmas, 114 Christians were arrested in one week alone, after a series of raids in ten cities across the country.

Amnesty International said 2018 had been Iran’s “year of shame” due to its “chilling” crackdown on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. 

Human Rights Watch also highlighted the imprisonment of Christian converts in the Iran chapter of its 2019 World Report.

The full text of the letter is below:

TO: Member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council

Your Excellency,

We, the undersigned Iranian and international human rights organisations, urge your government to support resolution A/HRC/40/L.15 renewing the mandate of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, to be tabled during the 40th session of the Human Rights Council.

The renewal of this mandate is warranted by the persistence of serious, chronic and systematic violations of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights in the country, which have only become more dire over the past year. The capacity and expertise of the mandate are necessary to address the on-going repression in Iran, including through conducting urgent documentation and urgent actions and through sustained and continuous engagement with the Iranian authorities in order to advance the promotion and protection of human rights in the country.

Discontent with corruption and mismanagement of resources and demands for civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural rights have led to protests across the country over the last year. These protests and strikes have often been met by arbitrary arrests and detentions, as well as violations of the rights to freedom of association, expression and peaceful assembly. In 2018, at least 5 individuals, including protestors, have died in state custody and authorities have failed to conduct any transparent investigation into the circumstances of their death. State repression has been especially severe against already marginalized communities and ethnic minorities, for whom these issues are particularly acute. The security forces have violently dispersed peaceful demonstrations, beating unarmed protesters and using live ammunition, tear gas and water cannons against them.

The authorities have intensified their efforts to choke off the space for civil society work. Dissenting voices, including journalists, online media workers and human rights defenders, including human rights lawyers, labour rights activists and women’s rights defenders, have been subjected to arbitrary arrests and detention, simply for speaking out. In 2018, at least 63 environmental activists were arrested. They include eight conservationists who could face the death penalty or long prison terms following a grossly unfair trial for their wildlife conservation work. Space for online expression continues to be closed off as part of efforts to inhibit the free flow of information in the country, as exemplified by the blocking of the popular instant messaging application Telegram.

Meanwhile, the Iranian authorities have consistently failed to adopt and enact legislation and policies that would address the core human rights violations that people in the country have been facing for decades, despite the many recommendations it has received from UN human rights bodies and through the UPR to that effect, and despite continued popular demands expressed through strikes and protests.

Long-standing bills pertaining to the protection of children against abuse and violence against women remain stalled, and some of the reforms included in the original drafts have already been watered down by the Guardian Council and the judiciary. In December 2018, a parliamentary committee rejected an amendment to the article on the age of marriage in the Civil Code, which would have banned marriage for girls under 13. Moreover, no legislative efforts were made to abolish the death penalty for individuals under the age of 18 at the time of the offence, which Iran practises “far more often than any other states”, as the Special Rapporteur stressed in his report.

Meanwhile, as abundantly documented by the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, by the UN Secretary General, and by civil society organizations, legislation, policies and state practices continue to be at odds with international human rights standards on women’s rights, the rights of the child, ethnic minority rights, the rights of recognized and unrecognized religious minorities, the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons, the rights to freedom of association, expression and peaceful assembly, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, protection from torture and other ill-treatment, the right to life, due process and fair trial guarantees, as well as the equal enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights.

Human rights organisations documented the executions of over 230 individuals in 2018, a decrease from last year, most likely as a result of amendments to the country’s drug law that went into force in November 2017. Authorities executed at least six who were under the age of 18 at the time of the offence. Iranians belonging to ethnic minorities, especially Kurds and Baluchis, have been disproportionately represented in execution statistics. Trials that violated due process and fair trial guarantees led to capital sentences, and death sentences were pronounced against individuals for a large range of offences that do not constitute the most serious crimes under international law.

Rampant impunity remains prevalent in the judicial system. The most flagrant example is the systematic impunity that exists with respect to the on-going enforced disappearances and the secret extrajudicial executions of 1988; many of the perpetrators involved continue to hold positions of power, including in key judicial, prosecutorial and government bodies responsible for ensuring that victims receive justice. Indeed, the newly appointed head of the judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, is one of the aforementioned perpetrators, who was the deputy prosecutor general of Tehran in 1988 and a member of the Tehran “death commission”.

The work carried out by the Special Rapporteur has been critical to amplifying the voices of victims of human rights abuses within the UN system. This work also supports a stifled domestic civil society, identifies systemic challenges, stimulates discussions about human rights within Iran, calls for key human rights reforms, and takes action on a large number of individual cases through individual communications, thereby saving or otherwise impacting the lives of many in Iran.

For all these reasons, we call on your government to support the renewal of the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, and show that the community of states requires tangible change in the human rights record of the country, in line with Iran’s treaty obligations and UPR commitments.

Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

The Advocates for Human Rights

All Human Rights for All in Iran

Amnesty International

Arseh Sevom

Article 18

ARTICLE 19

ASL19

Association for the Human Rights of the Azerbaijani people in Iran (AHRAZ)

Association for Human Rights in Kurdistan of Iran-Geneva (KMMK-G)

Balochistan Human Rights Group

Center for Human Rights in Iran

Center for Supporters of Human Rights

Child Rights International Network (CRIN)

CIVICUS – World Alliance for Citizen Participation

Conectas Direitos Humanos

Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM)

Freedom from Torture

Freedom House

Freedom Now

Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI)

Human Rights Watch

Impact Iran

International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)

International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)

International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR)

International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)

Iran Human Rights

Iran Human Rights Documentation Center

Justice for Iran

Kurdistan Human Rights Network

Minority Rights Group International

OutRight Action International

Reprieve

Siamak Pourzand Foundation

Small Media

United for Iran

West African Human Rights Defenders’ Network

World Coalition Against the Death Penalty

World Organization Against Torture (OMCT)

6Rang – Iranian Lesbian & Transgender Network

A Farsi-language service has been held at an Anglican church in the UK for the first time, in recognition of the growing number of Iranian-born Christians attending churches across the country.

The service, held on Saturday, 2 March at a cathedral in the north of England, was attended by around 450 Iranian Christians and led by an Iranian bishop forced to flee her home in 1980 after her brother was murdered because he was a Christian.

The Rt Rev Guli Francis-Dehqani told The Telegraph newspaper the service had been “very emotional” for her as it was the first time she had ever led a service in Farsi.

“I came to this country during the very early stages of the revolution back in Iran,” she explained. “We found ourselves in England thinking we would be here for a few weeks or months, but as it turned out, I was unable to return.

“We are finding that many Iranians are coming to be baptised and be part of the Church. That’s a really joyful thing for us to celebrate.”

One Iranian couple who attended the service told The Telegraph they fled their home in Shiraz in 2017 after their secret church was discovered.

“Within one week, everything we built for over 28 years was destroyed,” Mohsen Chinaveh said. 

“We had to be very secret when we were practising Christianity in Iran. It’s not part of the rules that you can just change your religion. The government will arrest you. 

“It wasn’t a nice way to live at all, because we should have the right to do it the way we want – not in secret. 

“Why can’t people choose their way? From the day we were born the government told us we were Muslim and that was it.”

Christians are a recognised minority in Iran, but in the past decade the government has put increased pressure on Farsi-speaking churches in an attempt to stem the tide of Muslim-born Iranians converting to Christianity.

Churches have been made to choose between forced closure and the confiscation of their properties, or conducting their services only in the ethnic minority languages of Armenian and Assyrian – historically Christian communities.  

However, the crackdown on Farsi-speaking churches has led to the proliferation of underground churches in private homes – known as “house churches” – which the government continues to battle by arresting new converts en masse.

The UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran has bemoaned the “heavy sentences” given to Iranian Christians and called for the “release of all those imprisoned for having exercised their right to freedom of religion or belief”.

In his latest report, Javaid Rehman, who was appointed Special Rapporteur in July 2018, says Iran must “protect the rights of all persons belonging to religious and ethnic minorities and address all forms of discrimination against them”.

He notes that several Christians have “received heavy sentences after being charged with threatening national security, either for converting people or for attending house churches”.

Rehman says the “disproportionate number of arrests and convictions of members of minority groups” illustrates “discrimination in the administration of justice”.

“Ethnic and religious minority groups constitute a disproportionately large percentage of persons executed or imprisoned,” he adds.

Article18’s inaugural annual report, released in January, noted that at least 14 Christians remained in prison at the end of 2018, detained on spurious charges related to their faith or religious activity.

Ahead of Christmas, 114 Christians were arrested in one week alone, after a series of raids in ten cities across the country.

Amnesty International said 2018 had been Iran’s “year of shame” due to its “chilling” crackdown on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. 

In a new report released earlier this week, Amnesty accused Iran of “systematically violating” freedom of religion or belief in 2018 in both “law and practice”. 

Amnesty highlighted the continuing “harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention” of Christians; raids on “house churches”; and “harsh” prison sentences given to Christians such as the Assyrian pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, his wife Shamiram, and church members Amin Afshar-Naderi and Hadi Asgari – both converts. 

Amnesty, which launched a petition for the release of the four Christians in August last year, noted that they had been sentenced to between five and 15 years in prison “for peacefully practising their faith”. 

Shamiram’s appeal against her five-year sentence was last week postponed until after the Iranian New Year. The new judge in the case, Ahmad Zargar, ruled that her appeal will now be heard alongside that of her husband and the three men sentenced alongside him – Amin, Hadi and a third convert, Kavian Fallah-Mohammadi.

Human Rights Watch also highlighted the imprisonment of Christian converts in the Iran chapter of its 2019 World Report.

Iran’s “systematic violation” of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) was just one of the ways the 40-year-old regime “suppressed” human rights in 2018, says Amnesty International in its latest report.

FoRB was systematically violated in Iran in both “law and practice”, Amnesty says in its review of human rights in 2018 across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Last month Amnesty called 2018 Iran’s “year of shame” for its “chilling” crackdown on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. 

Amnesty’s new report highlights Iran’s continuing “harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention” of Christians; raids on “house churches”; and “harsh” prison sentences given to Christians such as the Assyrian pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, his wife Shamiram, and church members Amin Afshar-Naderi and Hadi Asgari – both converts. 

Amnesty, which launched a petition for the release of the four Christians in August last year, noted that they had been sentenced to between five and 15 years in prison “for peacefully practising their faith”.

Shamiram’s appeal against her five-year sentence was last week postponed until after the Iranian New Year. The new judge in the case, Ahmad Zargar, ruled that her appeal will now be heard alongside that of her husband and the three men sentenced alongside him – Amin, Hadi and a third convert, Kavian Fallah-Mohammadi.

Amnesty’s report also highlights FoRB violations against Iran’s other religious minorities, including the Gonabadi Dervishes, Baha’is, Sunni Muslims, and Yaresan.

“The authorities continued to impose, on people of all faiths and none, codes of public conduct rooted in a strict interpretation of Shi’a Islam,” the report says, adding: “The right to change or renounce religious beliefs continued to be violated.”

Other abuses of human rights in Iran highlighted by the report include:

• An “intensified crackdown” on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, jailing hundreds on “spurious national security charges”. 
• Excessive force used to repress peaceful demonstrations – including beating unarmed protesters, using live ammunition, tear gas and water cannons, causing deaths and injuries.
• Systematically unfair trials; torture and other ill-treatment widespread and committed with impunity – including the use of floggings, amputations and other cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments.
• Numerous executions – including of juvenile offenders – carried out after unfair trials, some in public. 
• Persecution of ethnic groups, and arrest and detention of minority rights activists.
• Authorities sanctioning pervasive discrimination and violence based on gender, political opinion, religious belief, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability.
• Restrictions on access to water in marginalised communities, and poor-quality water leading to 350 in Khuzestan province contracting intestinal infections.
• Imprisonment of at least 112 women’s rights defenders.
• Generalised impunity, including for those responsible for the forced disappearance and secret execution of thousands of political dissidents 30 years ago. 
• Undermining of the right to work, and continued ban on independent trade unions.