In an interview at the 2013 National Meeting of Foreign Relations Students (ENERI) conference in Brasilia, Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, speaks about solidarity and the role of Brazilian civil society in helping promote human rights in Iran, the imprisonment of Baha’is in Iran, and the importance of open dialogue between the Brazilian and Iranian governments.... read more

The Turkish authorities arrested Hossein Salmanzadeh, an Iranian photojournalist and a refugee in Turkey, on April 26 and have detained him inside the Ankara Security Police Detention Center, Javad Moghimi Parsa told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. According to Javad Moghimi, Salmanzadeh's close friend and former colleague, Salmanzadeh embarked on a dry hunger strike for five days to protest his arrest and his detention inside the Ankara Security Detention Center.... read more

Bagher Asadi, a high-ranking Iranian diplomat was detained in Tehran in March as a part of the crackdown on dissidents in the weeks leading to the Iranian presidential elections, Reuters reported. Asadi, who had previously worked in the Iranian UN Mission in New York, was a director of the Istanbul-based D8 Group of Developing Countries. The Reuters source stated that he did not know the reason for the arrest.... read more

[Audio clip: view full post to listen] Referencing “key opposition leaders in detention” and “quite serious webs of arrests of journalists,” Dr. Ahmed Shaheed says, “In an election year, these kinds of activities can negate any sense of a legitimate free and fair election.” The UN Human Rights Council renewed the mandate of Special Rapporteur [...]... read more

(March 22, 2013) The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran welcomes the United Nations Human Rights Council’s 26 to 2 vote to extend the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran for the third consecutive year. The Campaign also urged Iranian authorities to cooperate with the Special Rapporteur and allow him to enter the country.... read more

In an oral statement delivered to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) expressed extreme concern “at the rampant culture of impunity and lack of accountability that protects and encourages acts of torture” in Iran. The statement, delivered March 12, 2013, at the Council’s 22nd session, focused on executions, torture, amputations, and the persecution of human rights defenders in Iran.... read more

As Iranians around the world prepare to celebrate the new year, hundreds of prisoners of conscience remain behind bars in Iran. The Persian New Year, Nowruz, is the most important holiday in Iran, beginning at the moment of the vernal equinox. While the news website Kaleme reports that a dozen political prisoners have been granted temporary furlough for the holidays, this year, hundreds of other prisoners of conscience, including lawyers, journalists, activists, and others accused of vague ... read more

This week, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran joined 16 other human rights organizations in a joint letter asking the United Nations Human Rights Council to renew the mandate Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Iran Ahmed Shaheed.... read more

The present report is the second to be submitted to the Human Rights Council, pursuant to Council resolution 16/9, and communicates developments in the human rights situation of the Islamic Republic of Iran that have transpired since the submission of the Special Rapporteur’s second interim report to the 67th session of the General Assembly (A/67/369) in October 2012.... read more

(February 13, 2013) The Iranian authorities should immediately release from arbitrary house arrest two former presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, his wife Zahra Rahnavard, author and political activist, and cease harassing or detaining without cause the couple’s two daughters and Mehdi Karroubi’s son, said the Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi and six leading human rights bodies.... read more

Nearly two years since Iranian opposition leaders Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Zahra Rahnavard were placed under illegal house arrest in Tehran, Iranian authorities have summoned their children, a source close to the families told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.... read more

Today three United Nations experts spoke out against the continued detention of former Iranian presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi and cultural leader Zahra Rahnavard, as well as the recent detention and interrogation of their children. This Friday, February 15, will mark two years of the opposition leaders’ house arrest.... read more