Newsletter and Updates - Human Rights in Iran

A project of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation

Newsletter and Updates

Dr. Ahmad Shahid

The honorable representative of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations

This letter is the expression of the pain and torment that we, Zanyar and Loqman Moradi, two innocent brothers, have suffered since we were detained in Iran’s Reja’i Shahr prison nearly a year ago. At the writing of this letter we stand condemned to be executed on the basis of false and trumped up charges. We implore international and human rights organizations to come to our help and save our lives.

In this letter, we will describe only some of the barbaric tortures and abusive treatments visited upon us by the security agents of the Islamic republic of Iran. The tortures included- but were not limited to – brutal beatings often aimed at sensitive parts of the body: face, knees, neck and back. We were also subjected to unbearable sexual tortures, including insertion of soda bottle in the anus. Furthermore, the interrogators constantly used obscene language and routinely threatened to torment and persecute our relatives. We were often kept blindfolded, and incommunicado, in horrendous solitary detention.

“[This] massacre bids comparison with Srebrenica… Katyn Forest… [and] with the Japanese death marches… This particular slaughter… was carefully planned and executed by state leaders working through the judicial and penal system… It was a dreadful crime against humanity.”

Mr. Geoffrey Robertson, QC, 25 October 2011, University of Oxford.

Huffington Post

by Roya Boroumand

Yesterday, I froze in front of my laptop screen, staring at the news of the suicide of a young woman, Nahal Sahabi, in Tehran. Nahal is one of the many young Iranians who find the present unbearable and the future too uncertain to be worth living for. We know of her suicide because she was the girlfriend of the 22-year-old, Behnam Ganji, who committed suicide on Sept. 1, 2011.

Reported executions in Iran

These statistics are drawn from ABF’s daily surveys of more than 50 newspapers, websites, and blogs. The majority of these executions have been announced by the authorities themselves or reported by the semi-official media inside Iran. The exact number of executions is difficult to assess, however, as the reports are not always systematic and complete. Moreover, the Iranian authorities do not allow the independent investigation and monitoring of cases in which the death penalty is enforced. The numbers above include only individuals executed after formal judicial proceedings and do not include any who have died in detention or those assassinated or killed by security forces.