Iran
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‘Against hopelessness, we need to work not to lose the very small windows of freedom that we can find under this dictatorship’
CIVICUS speaks to an Iranian woman human rights defender about the causes and significance of the recent protests in Iran, as well as the prospects for change in a country with a closed civic space and a theocratic government that maintains a firm grip on power. She asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.
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‘Whether the Cybercrime Convention will do more good than harm will hinge on implementation and monitoring’
CIVICUS discusses the recently approved United Nations (UN) Cybercrime Convention with Pavlina Pavlova, a cyber policy expert and a #ShareTheMicInCyber fellow at New America, who took part in the negotiations.
After three years of negotiations, on 8 August UN member states agreed by consensus a draft Convention on Cybercrime, which now goes to the UN General Assembly for adoption. Civil society and technology companies warn that the convention’s broad scope and lack of human rights safeguards could expand surveillance, threaten privacy, restrict freedom of expression and enable government repression. Many in civil society see the convention as the result of concerted Russian efforts to shift global online norms in a more authoritarian direction, while the convention’s supporters believe it will harmonise global efforts and align the cybercrime laws and investigatory police powers of states.
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Advocacy priorities at 43rd Session of UN Human Rights Council
The four-week human rights council will sit from 24 February to 20 March, and there are a number of critical human rights resolutions up for debate, and for the 47 Council members to address. CIVICUS will be conducting and presenting evidence on a variety of thematic and country-focused issues. Full overview below or jump directly to see our programme of events.
Country-specific situations
Nicaragua (Civic space rating:Repressed)
Our members on the ground have documented serious human rights violations, including attacks on fundamental freedoms and against human rights defenders and journalists. A report issued last year by the OHCHR, mandated by a resolution adopted in 2019, reflected this situation, and recommended enhanced UN monitoring and reporting. Given the lack of political will in the country to cooperate with regional and international mechanisms, and the concerning situation on the ground, CIVICUS calls on states to support a resolution on Nicaragua which calls for such enhanced reporting at the very least.
Sri Lanka (Civic space rating:Repressed)
This is a critical time for Sri Lanka, with concerns that the new administration which came to power last year could renege on its Council-mandated human rights and accountability commitments. The resolution adopted at the 30th Session of the Human Rights Council and remains the only process in place which could guarantee justice for victims of human rights violations. Civic space is closing at an alarming rate – since the new administration came to power, civil society members on the ground have been threatened and intimidated, their records destroyed, and human rights defenders and journalists have been attacked. CIVICUS calls for states to encourage cooperation between the government of Sri Lanka and international human rights mechanisms, and for Council members to reaffirm their commitment to resolution 40/1, which put into place time-bound commitments to implement the accountability mechanisms in resolution 30/1.
Iran (Civic space rating:Closed)
In 2019, Iran erupted into a series of protests against lack of political and democratic freedoms and the deteriorating economic situation. Protesters were met with violent repression through mass arrests and lethal force. Current geopolitical developments have entrenched the regime and exacerbated internal insecurity further. This Human Rights Council Session will discuss the renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Iran. CIVICUS supports the renewal of the Special Rapporteur mandate and encourages states to raise concerns about the use of lethal force in protests.
India (Civic space rating:Repressed)
India’s civic space rating was downgraded with the last CIVICUS report. A controversial and discriminatory citizenship law has given rise to mass protests across the country, which have been subject to violent crackdowns, leading many injured and at least 25 dead. Jammu and Kashmir remain under severe repression, including through sustained internet shutdown which is reaching its sixth month. Internet was partially restored in January but restrictions remain, making the shutdown the longest recorded in a democracy. Internet shutdowns are also being used across the country in order to hinder freedom of peaceful assembly. CIVICUS encourages States to raise concerns about India, and to call for an investigation into the violent suppression of peaceful protests, and to repeal discriminatory provisions in the Citizenship Law.
Thematic mandates
The Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders
The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders will be renewed this Session. This is a crucial mandate which has an impact of all CIVICUS’s areas of focus, and we encourage states to eco-sponsor the resolution at an early stage. The Special Rapporteur will present his annual report on HRDs in conflict and post-conflict situations, and reports on his country visits to Colombia and Mongolia. CIVICUS encourages states to affirm their co-sponsorship of the resolution early in the Session.
Freedom of Expression
The mandate for the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression is set to be renewed this Session, at a time when internet blackouts in increasingly used as a tactic to limit freedom of expression, access to information and freedom of peaceful assembly. We encourage states to co-sponsor the renewal of this important mandate at an early stage.
Freedom of Religion and Belief (FoRB)
The Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief will present his annual report, which this year focuses on the intersection of religion and belief and gender and SOGI rights, and reports on country visits to Sri Lanka and the Netherlands. CIVICUS will be engaging on Sri Lanka and on India, which have both undergone concerning developments with regards to freedom of religion.
Prevention
The Chair-Rapporteur of two intersessional seminars on the contribution that the Council can make to the prevention of human rights violations will present the report of the seminars.
CIVICUS will be highlighting the connection between civic space and prevention – that closures in civic space are often precursors to wider human rights crises, and that by intervening at the civic space level, the Council has a role to play in ensuring that such human rights violations are prevented.
CIVICUS and members’ events at the 43rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council (events will be livestreamed @CIVICUS Facebook page):2 March (14:00 CET, Room VII), CIVICUS and partners are organising an event on the constitutional and civic space crisis in India.
5 March (13:00 CET, Room VII), CIVICUS is co-sponsoring an event led by ICNL and the Civic Space Initiative consortium partners on countering terrorism financing while preserving civic space ----canceled due to the coronavirus
12 March (12:30 CET, Room XXI), CIVICUS is co-sponsoring a side event on the use of lethal force in protests in Iran and Iraq, and responses from the international community---canceled due to the coronavirus
Current council members:
Afghanistan; Angola; Argentina; Australia; Austria; Bahamas; Bahrain; Bangladesh; Brazil; Bulgaria; Burkina Faso; Cameroon; Chile; China; Croatia; Cuba; Czechia; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Denmark; Egypt; Eritrea; Fiji; Hungary; Iceland; India; Iraq; Italy; Japan; Mexico; Nepal; Nigeria; Pakistan; Peru; Philippines; Qatar; Rwanda; Saudi Arabia; Senegal; Slovakia; Somalia; South Africa; Spain; Togo; Tunisia; Ukraine; United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; and Uruguay.
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CIVICUS urges Iran to stop persecuting human rights defenders and implement Universal Periodic Review recommendations
Johannesburg. 22 June 2010. Earlier this month, CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation and a number of civil society groups censured Iran at the UN Human Rights Council for outright refusal to accept key recommendations made during its Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
Iran rejected 45 of the 188 recommendations made to it by diplomatic delegations of different states and took back 20 recommendations to Tehran for further review. Notably, the rejected recommendations included "end to severe restrictions on the rights to free expression, association and assembly" (United States) and the "end to the detention and trials of writers solely for the practice of their right to freedom of expression" (Slovenia). -
Country recommendations on civic space for UN´s Universal Periodic Review
CIVICUS makes seven joint UN Universal Periodic Review submissions on civil society space in Angola, Egypt, El Salvador, Iran, Iraq, Fiji and Madagascar
CIVICUS and its partners have made joint UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) submissions on 7 countries in advance of the 34rd UPR session (October-November 2019). The submissions examine the state of civil society in each country, including the promotion and protection of the rights to freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression and the environment for human rights defenders. We further provide an assessment of the States’ domestic implementation of civic space recommendations received during the 2nd UPR cycle over 4 years ago and provide a number of targeted follow-up recommendations.
Angola - CIVICUS is deeply concerned by the use of several pieces of restrictive legislation, including provisions on criminal defamation in the Penal Code and several restrictions under Law 23/10 of 3 December 2010 on Crimes against the Security of the State against journalists and HRDs. CIVICUS is further alarmed by the restrictions on freedom of peaceful assembly, notably the frequent banning of protests, although no prior authorisation is legally required, and the arbitrary arrests of protesters. An evaluation of a range of legal sources and human rights documentation addressed in subsequent sections of this submission demonstrates that the Government of Angola has not fully implemented the 19 recommendations relating to civil society space.
Egypt - CIVICUS and the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) address increasing restrictions of freedom of assembly, association and expression in Egypt since its last review. The state has continued to undermine local civil society organisations through the ratification of the laws on Associations and other Foundations working in the Field of Civil; on Anti-Cyber and Information Technology Crimes; and the law ‘For organizing the right to peaceful public meetings, processions and protests. The submission also shows how this legislation has resulted in the detainment of scores of human rights defenders, including women, who have faced excessive amounts of surveillance, intimidation and slandering for their human rights work. Furthermore, in this period LGBTI activists have been assaulted, tens of NGOs closed in Case 173, and journalists have had their equipment confiscated. The UPR submission shows that Egypt has failed to implement any of the recommendations made in the last review, instead creating a more hostile environment for civic space actors.
El Salvador (ES) - CIVICUS and Fundación de Estudios para la aplicación del Derechos (FESPAD) examine the steps taken by the government of El Salvador to address restrictions on civic space. We highlight government willingness to engage civil society in a consultation process to develop a new Law for Social Non-Profit Organisations and call El Salvador to ensure that the law respects international standards on the right to freedom of association. We raise concerns about the ongoing violence and stigmatisation of LGBTQI rights defenders, women's rights defenders and sexual and reproductive rights defenders, and the lack of protection for and killings of journalists.
Iran - CIVICUS and Volunteer Activists assess the level of implementation of the UPR recommendations received by Iran during the 2nd UPR Cycle. Our assessment reveals that human rights violations continue in Iran as the authorities subject human rights defenders to judicial persecution, arbitrary arrests, harassment and intimidation. Freedom of association is severely restricted as civil society organisations that work on human rights issues and provide legal support to victims of human rights violations work in an extremely restricted environment. Peaceful assemblies are often violently repressed or banned and protesters have been arrested and detained. Journalists working for independent media platforms are targeted by the authorities while restrictive laws and policies are used to curtail freedom of expression and online freedoms.
Fiji - CIVICUS, the Pacific Islands Association of Non-Government Organisations (PIANGO), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) and the Citizens’ Constitutional Forum (CCF) highlights how an array of restrictive laws in Fiji are being used to muzzle the press, silence critics and create a chilling effect in the country for activists and human rights defenders. The submission also examines barriers to hold peaceful protests, imposed by the authorities against civil society and trade unions as well challenges related to freedom of association.
Iraq - CIVICUS, the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), the Iraqi Al Amal Association and the Al-Namaa Center for Human Rights highlight the continuous violations with impunity committed by state and government-affiliated not-state actors in Iraq against journalists, activists and human rights defenders including concerted targeted attacks, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, torture and intimidation. Several high-profile targeted killings of women human rights defenders (WHRDs) restricted the already culturally-constrained space for WHRDs. The civil society environment further deteriorated as the authorities proposed draft laws threatening freedom of expression, suspended critical media outlets and brought lawsuits against journalists and activists to curb dissent. The authorities also imposed undue limitations to freedom of assembly by using disproportionate and excessive lethal force to suppress mostly peaceful protests, resulting in dozens of protesters killed and hundreds injured, including children.
Madagascar - CIVICUS examines how human rights defenders, particularly those working on environmental and land rights, are subjected to judicial persecution, arbitrary arrests and detention. Most of these human rights defenders are targeted when they engage in advocacy and raise concerns over the environmental effects of the activities of mining companies in their communities. Restrictive legislation including a Communications Law and Cyber Crimes Law are used to restrict freedom of expression, target journalists and newspapers. The Malagasy authorities continue to restrict freedom of assembly particularly during politically sensitive periods like elections or when activists working with communities engage in peaceful protests.
See other country reports submitted by CIVICUS and partners to the UN's Universal Periodic Review on Human Rights
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Detention and disappearance of activists is widespread
42nd Session of the UN Human Rights Council
-Statement on report of Working Group on Arbitrary DetentionCIVICUS thanks the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention for their report. We are concerned that it shows Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia - Human Rights Council member states from the Middle East – as well as Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and the UAE, all using arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance to silence civil society and shut down dissent with impunity.
Bahrain arbitrarily detained Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja and Nabeel Rajab on 9 April 2011 and 13 June 2016 respectively. They are among dozens of human rights defenders whom the authorities have arbitrarily detained, including Dr Abduljalil Al-Singace and Naji Fateel, both subject to mistreatment by officials. The authorities denied them medical treatment and interfered with their family visits. We are particularly alarmed by the Working Group’s reports of reprisals against those who have been subject of an urgent appeal or opinion in Bahrain. This falls far short of the standards that every state, but particularly members of the Human Rights Council, should uphold.
We condemn Egypt's arbitrary arrest of lawyer Ibrahim Metwally in 2017 en route to attend an HRC session, to present cases of enforced disappearance, and his ill-treatment. His and the cases of 12 others arbitrarily arrested in June 2019 reflect Egypt's closure of civic space.
In Iraq, we condemn the detention of journalists, protesters and civil society activists. During protests in Basra, at least seven Iraqi journalists were assaulted or detained including Reuters photographer Essam al-Sudani.
Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on women’s and other human rights defenders forms its systematic use of arbitrary detention in which thousands have been detained.
Those detained in 2018 included Aziza al-Yousef; Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan and other women’s rights advocates who also campaigned to end the driving ban, as well as writers, academics and family members of WHRDs. “Charges” were only brought against them in March 2019. They remain in prison, alongside members of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA); Mohammed al-Qahtani, and Abdullah al-Hamid; blogger Raif Badawi and human rights lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khair.
Iran systematically arbitrarily detains trade unionists, HRDs, minority rights activists and lawyers like Nasrin Sotoudeh and Narges Mohammadi.
Kuwait’s arbitrary arrest in July, of stateless rights activists including Abdulhakim al-Fadhli exemplifies the intersectionality of rights and how guaranteeing civil space bolsters other rights.
The UAE’s March 2017 arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance of HRD Ahmed Mansoor continues to tarnish the UAE, showing that its “year of tolerance” does not include human rights.
Mr. President, the report of the Working Group shows that the use of arbitrary detention – often without charge, recourse to access independent legal representation, and in poor conditions of detention – remains an active method to quell dissent across the Middle East.
CIVICUS joins civil society in calling for full cooperation with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and we call on states who have instrumentalized arbitrary detention to immediately release those detained and provide justice and remedy to victims and their families.
We ask the Working Group: what more can be done to ensure implementation of its appeals and opinions in states where arbitrary detention remains so widespread?
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Halte aux restrictions à la liberté de réunion et d'association en Iran
Monsieur le Président de la République Islamique d’Iran
Adresse: Pasteur St., Pasteur Sq., Téhéran
Numéro de téléphone: +98(21)64451
A son Excellence, le Président Hassan Rouhani
Objet : Halte aux restrictions à la liberté de réunion et d'association en Iran
Votre Excellence,
Alors que des rapports récents font état de détentions arbitraires et de disparitions forcées d'acteurs de la société civile en Iran, la société civile internationale note avec inquiétude la restriction violente de l'espace civique dans le pays. Nous vous écrivons pour vous exhorter, Excellence, à libérer immédiatement et sans conditions tous les acteurs de la société civile détenus et à respecter les droits à la liberté de réunion et d'association conformément aux conventions internationales et à la Constitution iranienne.
L'espace civique iranien se rétrécit à un rythme sans précédent - même au regard des normes iraniennes - à mesure que les autorités iraniennes répriment de plus en plus fortement et illégalement l'action civique indépendante. Au cours de l'année écoulée, l'Iran a été témoin de la montée sans pareil des manifestations sociales pacifiques et de la dissidence civique malgré un régime autoritaire et violent. Au cours des deux dernières années, un nombre alarmant d'arrestations et de détentions de militants de la société civile ont eu lieu dans un large éventail de domaines environnementaux, au sein des défenseurs des droits humains, des enseignants et des syndicalistes, des étudiants et des femmes. CIVICUS, une alliance regroupant la société civile du monde entier, et Volunteer Activists Institute, une ONG axée sur la démocratie, les droits humains et la consolidation de la paix dans la région MENA et plus particulièrement en Iran, ont lancé une campagne mondiale pour tenir le gouvernement iranien responsable de ses violations flagrantes des droits à la liberté d'association et à la réunion pacifique dans ce pays.
Bien que l'Iran soit signataire de la Convention Internationale sur les Droits Civils et Politiques et des dispositions de la Constitution protégeant la liberté de réunion et d'association (articles 26 et 27 de la Constitution iranienne), les militants sont fréquemment détenus et harcelés pour leur travail en faveur des droits humains. Certaines personnalités de la société civile iranienne, comme Nasrin Sotoudeh, qui risque 38 ans de prison et 148 coups de fouet, ont été condamnées à de longues peines de prison pour avoir fourni une assistance juridique à des défenseurs des droits humains, tandis que d'autres attendent leur procès pour de fausses accusations d'espionnage et de "corruption sur la terre" - passible de la peine capitale si elles sont condamnées. La situation des défenseurs des droits humains en prison est également alarmante. En juillet 2019, des experts en droits humains des Nations Unies ont exprimé leur préoccupation face à l'incapacité de l'État de fournir des soins aux détenus, y compris le défenseur des droits humains Arash Sadeghi[1]. Kavous Seyed Emami, professeur à l'Université Imam Sadeq et directeur de la Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, est décédé en prison le 8 février 2018, deux semaines après sa détention à la prison Evin. Les circonstances de sa mort restent incertaines. Parmi les autres militants actuellement détenus figurent Nasrin Sotoudeh, Narges Mohammadi, Farhad Meysami, Esmail Bekhshi, Sepide Gholian et de nombreux autres.
Nous sommes également extrêmement préoccupés par les nouvelles nominations au plus haut niveau de l'armée (Corps des gardiens de la révolution islamique (IRGC)), qui ont imposé des restrictions sur l'espace civique en créant un nouveau bureau (Baqiattallah) pour organiser les forces sociales et les organisations de la société civile affiliées au gouvernement, afin de marginaliser la société civile indépendante. Ces nouvelles nominations indiquent que l'Iran adopte une stratégie résolument axée sur la lutte contre tout acte de désobéissance civique. Alors que les sanctions et les difficultés économiques ont pour conséquence de pousser les Iraniens à leurs limites et de provoquer des protestations pacifiques, le gouvernement iranien met un terme aux actes de dissidence, et nous sommes extrêmement préoccupés par les mois à venir à l'approche des élections parlementaires de 2020.
En conséquence, nous, les signataires, demandons au gouvernement iranien d'assurer une meilleure protection des droits à la liberté d'association et de réunion pacifique. Plus précisément, nous demandons :
- Au gouvernement d’inviter le Rapporteur Spécial sur la Situation des Défenseurs des Droits Humains et le Rapporteur Spécial sur la Liberté de Réunion Pacifique et d'Association à enquêter sur la situation des droits humains en Iran.
- Que tous les défenseurs des droits humains, y compris, mais sans s'y limiter, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Narges Mohammadi, Farhad Meysami, Esmail Bekhshi, Sepide Gholian, soient libérés immédiatement et sans conditions, et que toutes les charges retenues contre eux soient abandonnées.
- D'assurer des protections sensibles au genre pour toutes les femmes défenseures des droits humains qui sont particulièrement ciblées en Iran, et travailler avec la Rapporteuse Spéciale sur la Violence contre les Femmes, ses Causes et ses Conséquences pour s'assurer que toutes les formes de violence contre les défenseuses des droits humains iraniennes sont signalées comme des violences faites aux femmes.
- D'aligner la pratique de la mise en œuvre des droits à la liberté de réunion et d'association, comme le souligne la Constitution, sur les meilleures pratiques internationales.
Sincèrement, les signataires :
- Volunteer Activists Institute
- CIVICUS Alliance Mondiale pour la Participation Citoyenne
- Women’s March Global
- Center for Human Rights in Iran
- Citizens Friend
- Réseau Ouest Africain des Défenseurs des Droits Humains
- Women Against Violence
- The Needy Today
- Association de la Jeunesse pour la Promotion des Droits de l'Homme
- CASAD Bénin
- Initiative for Peace and Innovation - IPI
- Youth initiative for change and development
- Future Leaders Network Gambia Chapter
- AGIR POUR LA SECURITE ET LA SOUVERAINETE ALIMENTAIRE
- YOUNG AFRICAN FIGHTERS ORGANISATION YAFO
- Anti-Corruption International, Uganda Chapter
- Discourage Youths From Poverty
- Women Empowerment Group
- Organisation des Jeunes pour la Promotion et le Développement
- PACOPA
- WORLDLITE
- SOPEVUDECO ASBL
- FHRRDA
- Cameroon
- Fraternity Foundation for Human Rights
- Gutu United Residents and Ratepayers Association
- Palestinian Center For Communication and Development Strategies
- Tim Africa Aid Ghana
- Shanduko Yeupenyu Child Care
- APLFT
- Advance Centre for Peace and Credibility International
- Elizka Relief Foundation
- TOfAD
- Association pour les victimes du monde
- Network of Estonian Non-Profit Organizations
- VIFEDE
- Bangladesh Institute of Human Rights
- Save Our Continent, Save Nigeria.
- Friends of Emergence Initiatives
- Fundacion CELTA
- MPS GABON
- I2BA
- One Future Collective
- RECOSREC
- Achievers Innovative Advocates International Foundation
- GULF LINK VENTURE
- Centre for Intercultural Understanding
- Ugonma Foundation
- Center for Youth Civic Leadership and Environmental Studies - CYCLES
- FUNDACION CIUDADANOS
- Centre for Social Concern and Development
- Curtis business
- Bina Foundation for people with special needs
- GreenLight Initiative
- Community Wellness International
- Civic Initiatives Kyrgyzstan
- Jeunesse-Assistance
- Bella Foundation for Child and Maternal Care
- Fondation Kalipa pour le Développement
- SADF ONG
- ASSOCIATION OF UGANDA SCHOOL LEAVING YOUTH -AUSLEY
- FINESTE
- Sierra Leone School Green Clubs
- Centre for Sustainable Development and Education in Africa
[1] HCDH (2019) Iran : Des soins médicaux urgents sont nécessaires pour les détenus dont les conditions mettent leur vie en danger - Experts de l'ONU : ohchr.org/FR/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24813&LangID=F
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Human rights groups call for Special UN Session on Iran amid protests
We are writing to raise our deep concerns about the Iranian authorities' mobilization of their well honed machinery of repression to ruthlessly crackdown on current nationwide protests.
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HUMAN RIGHTS: ‘People have a great desire for positive stories’
CIVICUS speaks with Saleem Vaillancourt, a journalist and media producer who works to promote the rights of Iran’s Bahá’í community and to encourage positive action to realise human rights. Saleem works with the street art for social justice project,Paint the Change.Can you tell us how your work began?
I work closely with the Iranian-Canadian journalist and filmmaker, Maziar Bahari. Maziar’s story is well known. He was jailed in Iran and held in solitary confinement in 2009 after covering the Iran election crisis. He was released after an international campaign and the book he wrote about his ordeal, ‘Then They Came for Me’, was made into a film, ‘Rosewater’, by Jon Stewart. Maziar was no longer simply a journalist; he was also a human rights advocate. Once released, he could talk about all the things going on in Iran that he couldn’t when he was working in Iran.
Chief among these is the situation of the Bahá’í community, which is the largest religious minority in Iran. They are persecuted by the Iranian government because their beliefs come up against the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam practised by the government. Bahá’ís are routinely arbitrarily detained, held either without charge or under false charges and jailed. They are denied the right to go to university. There is a lot of misinformation and propaganda against them from the state media.
I’m a Bahá’í and I worked with the Bahá’í community, and also as a journalist and in public communications, and that’s how my path crossed with Maziar. In 2014 he made a documentary, ‘To Light a Candle’, about the story of the Bahá’ís and particularly about the denial of their right to education, and their response, which was to create an informal educational project – an underground university – in which they created opportunities to educate themselves. This is a programme that for 30 years has given thousands of people an education, many of whom have gone on to pursue graduate studies in western universities. It’s a huge success and a major example of constructive resilience, or what Maziar calls peaceful resistance: meeting injustice not with conflict but by building a positive alternative to overcome the situation.
I joined him for what was meant to be a short time to help promote his film and things grew from there. We created a campaign, ‘Education is not a Crime’, which is a street art and human rights campaign in which we use murals to talk about the story of the Bahá’í in Iran and more broadly to try to address education inequity and uneven access to education in other contexts as well.
What are the key methods by which you work?
We create murals, and then the murals have a social media dimension, because we share them online as videos and create local conversations, explaining why we are doing these, and especially relating what we are doing to local stories. For example we painted 20 murals in Harlem in New York, and people in this neighbourhood really saw a parallel in our work between Bahá’ís in Iran and the African-American experience of discrimination and the attempt to overcome discrimination, including in the area of education. We made a documentary about that in 2017, ‘Changing the World One Wall at a Time,’ which has been screened around the world.
This led to an initiative in Detroit, where we’ve partnered with the City of Detroit and local schools. The city government was already working to encourage school attendance, which is something we care about in terms of access to education. They created a bus route called the ‘GOAL Line’ – GOAL stands for ‘get on and learn’ – but we observed that the bus route had no shelters, so we offered to build some shelters and put artwork on them. The artwork was created in art workshops through a partnership with local students and local artists. The works represent the community in a direct way and create a visual cue in the community around the issue of education. In this activity, we moved from the area of pure awareness-raising to a kind of indirect social action.
We’re also starting to do a locally orientated street art project in London, producing work with local communities that celebrates local heroes, people who contribute to their community, whether they are known by their community or not. We put them on the side of buildings so they become positive stories that can encourage local young people.
Another thing we have been doing is producing an oral history video series in the USA, about the Bahá’í community, not only about Iran but also about the work of the community to promote race unity over the past several generations. Again, this is about telling a positive story and something that perhaps helps others in US society to look again at the issue of race – something that is obviously very charged and challenging – and find other ways of addressing it.
So that’s what I do. It’s a chance for both Maziar and I to talk about issues we think are important, but that are not limited to a focus on the Bahá’í community. Our work is at the intersection of human rights, social action and media. Sometimes it is about raising awareness or fighting instances of violations of human rights, as with the rights of the Bahá’í in Iran, but more and more now it is about finding positive stories and celebrating them through street art or a film or through other media. We want to do this in a way that can help a community see a positive version of themselves and put that at the centre of their own narrative.
What would you say you do that is different from the conventional work of a human rights organisation?
Because we are principally a media-driven group, we try to apply our media work to human rights issues and social issues, and we are looking to go beyond human rights awareness-raising to try to contribute to social processes in local communities. The Detroit project is an example of that. So that’s a kind of social action that’s distinct from awareness-raising as a conventional discipline.
We are trying to do human rights work and social action work together. We see them as different sides of basically the same work. We want to reach audiences that perhaps haven’t been engaged in human rights discussions or social action before, through media and through education workshops. So our focus is not so much on informing policy-makers, but on trying to reach local communities through accessible media and artforms.
What are the challenges faced when defending the rights of Bahá’í people in Iran?
I am also involved in IranWire, an independent news website. I know through this that Iranian journalists are targeted. Our site was recently down for a few hours over the course of several days because of a sustained denial of service attack originating from Iran.
Maziar is continually attacked on Twitter and by Iranian state media, as are other people we work with. Many people who have worked in the public space on the issue of the Bahá’ís are vilified by the Iranian media. When Maziar and others talk to United Nations institutions, they get criticised and there is a lot of disinformation spread about them. It’s clear that the Iranian authorities seek to discredit people through disinformation to try to limit their legitimacy in the international space when they talk about human rights issues happening inside Iran. The Iranian government attempts to control the narrative.
Turning to your work outside Iran, what would you say the major successes and challenges have been?
I think the big success we’ve had so far is the initiative to create the murals, especially in Harlem but also around the world: to create a story out of them, and for that story to be something that people respond to, and for us to find a way to relate that story to other situations around the world.
In the early stage of developing these murals in New York, after we had produced one or two in Harlem, the questions of these parallels between the Bahá’ís and the African-American community started to sit up. It’s not a parallel in terms of scale or severity or even of type, but it’s a parallel in terms of individual experiences and the ideology that has created a situation. African-American people who learned about the project brought that parallel to the fore in our discussions. Here was one community that is struggling identifying with the struggle of another community, that was undergoing the kind of suffering that makes the community more empathetic and more aware of the struggles of another.
We decided to tell that story as much as we could and in our work in Harlem to work with local artists and local community leaders as much as possible, and to hold educational workshops for young people around the creation of the murals. I think the fact that those murals became possible and were welcomed into the community, that there was the opportunity to see these parallels and to tell that story around the world, and that the story was broadcast inside Iran in Persian on satellite TV and seen by millions of people there, was probably the biggest success.
I think there’s not so much one major challenge we have been unable to overcome, although there are things that are harder to do than others, but it’s more that nobody is particularly out there asking for anybody to do something positive. I think a lot of people have a great desire, appetite and thirst for encountering positive stories even if they address challenging issues, but it’s not something you see being asked for in market terms, and in terms of what audience there is, and what funding you can get to do projects.
So it is a challenge to create the audience and explain our reasons for approaching our work as we do, and maintain these projects, because it’s not something that is being asked for in a commercial sense. I don’t necessarily mean commercial in terms of being driven by profit, but even non-profitable works need grants, and while there are grants that are tailored around work that tries to introduce positive narratives, it takes a lot of effort to identify them and to massage an idea into a format that would meet the requirements of a particular grant.
What more needs to change, and what further support is needed, to enable your work to achieve even more?
I think there are two levels. At the level of human attitudes, in general the world is in a very difficult place and much of what’s happening is turning people towards conflict. I think what needs to change – in order for the kind of stories we want to produce and tell to be more easily relatable and for people to be able to understand what we are getting at – is that people need to be orientated towards positive stories, towards sharing and finding them, and to seeing the world through the lens of positivity. This is not to deny there are negative things or pretend that everything is fine, but to say that we address a challenge or a difficulty not by more contention but by means of conciliation and friendliness. I think if people’s minds are orientated more that way they would be likelier to seek out or ask for the positive stories we try to tell. I’m not saying we’ve nailed that formula, but that’s our motivation and we’re trying to work in that direction.
At the structural level I think the kinds of grants, and often the kinds of initiatives that organisations want to support or are asking for, need to change. Again, it is possible to do that in terms of some grants that exist, but there is a lack of a structure and approach that says: this organisation really wants to find positive stories because positive stories change the nature of a society’s view of how to deal with challenging issues.
So much of what civil society does is about countering things that are negative. This is important work, but I also think that civil society should be going towards what it wants to see in the future. If there could be a harmonious sense across civil society about what the future ought to be, how human rights ought to be respected and what the nature of society should be in order to realise those ideals, then I think we could move towards shared civil society agendas that make it possible to work for these goals more easily.
In the civil society space, the media space and the human rights space – and partly because we are all too busy but also because there is no clearing house or central organising system – I don’t know who in civil society would want to work in the same way. But I’d love to know more about who’s out there and what they’re doing, in order to more easily find the appropriate partners.
Civic space in Iran is rated as ‘closed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with Paint the Change through itswebsite.
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Iran: civil society urgently calls for accountability and respect for women’s rights
The death of Mahsa Amini while in custody after she was arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict rules on women’s dress code and the massive arrests of protesters require urgent accountability by the government and end to violence against women and women human rights defenders, global civil society organisation, CIVICUS said today.
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IRAN: ‘It is clear that most people don’t support the regime anymore and want it gone’
CIVICUS speaks with Iranian activist Asal Abasian about the situation more than a year since the start of theprotest wave triggered by Mahsa Amini’s killing by the morality police and the prospects for change in Iran.Asal is a journalist and queer feminist activist. After receiving threats, she fled Iran in 2021. She first stayed in Turkey, where she freelanced with various foreign-based Persian media outlets and Turkish media. She’s currently based in Paris, France.
What’s the situation in Iran since the start of the protests triggered by Mahsa Amini’s death?
More than a year after the start of the biggest protest wave we have seen since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979, it is clear that most people don’t support the regime anymore and want it gone.
But the protests have been crushed by the implacable repression of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and many people are tired of fighting.
The anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death and the eruption of the protest movement was a key moment. The regime expected protests to reignite and took every precaution to prevent them. Every living being who was seen as possibly causing any trouble was thrown into jail and repression escalated to a point that many people decided it was pointless to keep fighting.
In spite of this, civil society has continued resisting in any way possible. Underground organising and online struggles are ongoing – and activists continue paying the price. Many remain in prison – including Narges Mohammadi of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, a 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
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IRAN: ‘Mahsa Amini’s case was a spark in a flammable situation’
CIVICUS speaks with Sohrab Razaghi, executive director of Volunteer Activists (VA), about the currentwomen-led protests, the state of civil society and the prospects for change in Iran.VA is an independent civil society organisation (CSO) based in the Netherlands, whose primary aims are building capacity among activists and CSOs, facilitating information exchange among civil society activists, community peacebuilding and advocating for the expansion of democracy and human rights in Iran and more generally in the Middle East. VA is the successor of a pioneer Iranian CSO, the Iranian Civil Society, Training and Research Centre, founded in 2001 and based in Tehran until 2007.
What is the situation of Iranian civil society today?
Civil society in Iran has become weaker over the past few years. Civic activism has grown but organised civil society has become weaker and has been marginalised. Following President Ebrahim Raisi’s ascent to power in 2021, civic space has shrunk dramatically. The establishment and operation of CSOs has been legally obstructed and any CSO not following the policies of Iranian authorities has been eliminated.
Following significantteachers’ protests in May 2022 there was a major crackdown against the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association and many of its leaders and activists were arrested. This was just one example of many.
The ongoing crackdown follows a predictable sequence: first, the authorities exploit toxic narratives and disseminate false accusations to malign civil society and create internal conflict within civic movements. Then they repress the smaller remaining groups, arresting and detaining their leaders and activists.
The authorities have attacked all institutions and organisations that are the expression of social power, eliminating the possibility of further organising. To fill up the space, they set up fake CSOs organised and led by government officials, often affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. These are often local, community-oriented organisations that involve local communities by approaching the mosques and charities that support them.
What made the death of Mahsa Amini a turning point?
Mahsa Amini’s case was a spark in a flammable situation. She was a young member of an ethnic minority who was visiting Tehran, was violently arrested by the morality police and died under custody. All these elements together made her case relatable for many Iranians. She was only 22 years old, a woman, a member of an ethnic minority and a Sunni Muslim, which is a religious minority in Iran. Many Iranians identify with at least one and possibly many of these elements of Mahsa’s identity and resent the policies aimed at suppressing them. As a result, large groups that feel discriminated against and suppressed mobilised.
This happened in a context of high poverty and repression, with a government that acts with impunity because it knows it won’t be held accountable. For years, instead of trying to meet the needs of their citizens, the authorities have cracked down on all sorts of protests. With Raisi coming to power, any hope for change was gone.
In what ways have these protests been different from previous ones?
The current protests are very different from previous ones, including recent protests that took place in2017 and2019. First, protesters are mostly between 15 and 25 years old. This is possibly their first engagement in a civic movement. They have grown up in the digital world and are using in the real world what they learned playing video games – only that in the real world, there is no respawning! So many are getting killed.
Second, protesters are primarily women and students. And some of their acts of protest, such as female protesters burning headscarves and cutting their hair, are unprecedented. Their demands are also different from those of previous civic movements. Whereas in 2017 and 2019 demands were mostly economic, now they are cultural: their main demand is for freedom to lead a different lifestyle than the authorities allow them to have. The shout ‘Women, Life, Liberty’ has become a protest cry and a slogan of solidarity both inside Iran and internationally.
Third, support from Iranians in the diaspora and media coverage have both drastically increased. This time the events have received major media coverage since the outset, with the protests on front pages all over the world. For the first time, on 23 October, 80,000 Iranians from the diaspora gathered in Berlin to support protesters and demonstrate against the Iranian regime. This support is unprecedented.
Finally, public discourse about the protests has shifted. In the past, dominant discourse highlighted the non-violent character of the protests, but this time there have been calls for retaliation and to use violence to defend the protests. Violence is no longer taboo: some elites and influencers inside and outside Iran are advocating for it. This is extremely concerning, considering that it may legitimise violence by the Iranian authorities, which could resort to even more violence in response.
How has the government cracked down on the protests, and why have protests continued regardless?
The government has used multiple tactics. First, it deploys riot police and security forces that use violence to physically prevent and dissolve protests. As a result, over 7,000 protesters have been arrested, many have been beaten and over 200 have been killed. Second, it has restricted internet access for over four weeks now, limiting the free exchange of information while increasing the circulation of disinformation and official propaganda. Third, it has used the same narrative tactics it normally uses against civil society, linking the protests to foreign intelligence forces.
The government’s reaction has been as repressive as towards previous movements. However, these protesters are more resilient, so the crackdown has not been as effective as previous ones. Two sources of this resilience are decentralisation and spontaneity: protests are held locally rather than in a central place, and they are not centrally organised – they are organised by small groups and happen rather spontaneously during the day or night at random hours, with protesters quickly dispersing afterwards.
Additionally, the fact that there are so many children and young students among protesters has somewhat limited the violence. Many children and adolescents have been killed, but the death toll would likely have been much higher had they not been among protesters. And many of these young people are students, therefore part of the middle class – which means there is a cultural middle class that continues to support the protests.
What is the likelihood of these protests leading to change?
We can identify five possible scenarios – and only one of them leads to regime change.
In the first scenario, the crackdown succeeds and protests end. This would result in widespread hopelessness and disappointment.
In the second, the authorities make concessions and the mandatory hijab rules are repealed. This would lead to the recognition of some limited freedoms, but not to regime change.
In the third, neither the authorities nor the protesters prevail, leading to continuing violence and bloody conflict. Protesters go into an armed offensive and the situation escalates into a civil war-like situation.
In the fourth, military groups seize power and suppress both protesters and established authorities to pursue their own goals.
In the fifth scenario, mass mobilisation leads to regime change.
What happens will depend on the capacity of protesters – the resources they can gather, the groups they can bring together, the leadership they build and the collective narrative they produce out of compelling personal stories – and international influences and pressures.
In the current situation, scenarios one to three are the most likely. The movement has not entered a revolutionary stage. There are not massive gaps in the regime – neither in its repressive machinery nor in its will to crack down on protests. And the protests have not been massive nor widely representative of the make-up of society. We have not seen hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands on the streets, and we have not seen protests by various ethnic or religious minorities, and by different social classes. Strikes are typically the heart of social movement action in Iran, and we have not yet seen strikes by major branches and sectors of the economy.
What can women’s rights supporters and democracy activists from around the world do to support civil society in Iran?
International civil society as a collective should be more vocal. We need a unified collective of civil society echoing the voices of Iranian activists and advocates for democracy and human rights in Iran. In addition, actions of solidarity are needed as well as networks to exchange knowledge, experience and skills so Iranian activists can learn from civic movements internationally and be more effective.
Regarding the immediate response, there are various needs, such as juvenile justice support, including legal support, wellbeing and mental health support, as well as training and awareness raising on civic activism in Iran.
The main goal should be to support Iranian protesters and activists so their voice is heard and the crackdown does not succeed, while supporting the victims of the crackdown. International pressure is instrumental, not only from governments but also from civil society as a change leader. A close connection between international civil society, Iranian activists in diaspora, Iranian civil society and the media is also essential.
Civic space in Iran is rated ‘closed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with Volunteer Activists through itswebsite.
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IRAN: ‘Mahsa’s death highlights the struggle women must face just to go about their daily lives’
CIVICUS speaks with Kylie Moore-Gilbert about thecurrent women-led protests in Iran, sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in the custody of the so-called ‘morality police’.Kylie is a British-Australian women’s rights advocate and academic specialising in Islamic studies. She has extensively researched political issues in the Middle East, including the ‘Arab Spring’. In 2018 she was falsely charged with espionage and remained in prison in Iran for more than two years before being released in a prisoner exchange deal negotiated by the Australian government. She speaks about this experience in a recently published book,The Uncaged Sky: My 804 days in an Iranian prison.
What are the demands of the protesters currently mobilised in Iran?
In contrast to previous outbreaks of protest and civil unrest in Iran, from the very first day the current protesters adopted slogans calling for the fall of the Islamic Republic regime. Their slogans include ‘Death to Khamenei’, the Supreme Leader, ‘Down with the dictator’ and ‘No to the Islamic Republic’.
While the trigger for the unrest was the senseless death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police, the issue of forced hijab and the harassment of women by regime officials due to their clothing and behaviour has become a symbol of the protesters’ desire to remove this regime altogether. Protesters are demanding freedom, equality between women and men and an end to the tyranny imposed on them by Iran’s regime of ageing clerics.
The protests are happening countrywide and have involved Persian and ethnic-minority communities, irrespective of language, religion or class. To further their demands, protesters are using overwhelmingly peaceful tactics, such as rallies and marches, organised hijab-burnings and hair-cuttings, and general strikes.
How have the authorities responded to the protests so far?
The protests have faced a rolling crackdown since their inception. Many protesters, including several young teenagers, have been shot dead in the streets by security forces. Thousands have been rounded up and arrested. Sharif University of Technology was besieged for several days, with its students rounded up, beaten and imprisoned.
The regime has cut off internet access to most of the country in a bid to contain protests. This is why it is so important for the international community to keep up the pressure on Iran and continue to shine a light on its human rights abuses. It must help prevent a massacre of innocent protesters and hold the regime to account for its crimes.
Has Amini’s case helped reveal underlying women’s rights issues?
Yes, most definitely. One reason why Amini’s arrest and murder touched such a nerve in Iran is that nearly all Iranian women, and many men too, have had similar encounters with the morality police at some point in their lives. What happened to Mahsa could have happened to any one of them.
Mahsa’s death highlights the struggle women in Iran must face just to go about their daily lives. Women are routinely harassed in public by regime officials and pro-regime sympathisers for ‘bad hijab’ and are even banned from singing and dancing, hugging or touching men who are not their relatives, among too many other things. Many Iranian women are tired of the constant policing of their appearance and behaviour. They want to be free to get on with their lives as they see fit.
What needs to change for women’s rights to gain recognition in Iran?
For women’s rights to be recognised, the regime would have to change. I do not believe the Iranian government is capable of reforming itself. Forced hijab and discriminatory laws against women are a core pillar of the regime’s ideology. If it granted women equal rights, it would cease to exist.
My hope is that the protests will make a difference well beyond women’s rights. As the protests are now entering their third week, my hope is that they will eventually lead to the downfall of the regime altogether. Iranians deserve a democratic government that respects gender equality and freedom of speech and is truly representative of the will of the people.
What kind of assistance does Iranian civil society need from the international community?
Iranian civil society desperately needs its voices to be amplified internationally and for attention to continue to be focused on what is happening inside Iran. The full glare of international media and foreign governments will act as something of a brake on the worst excesses of the regime’s crackdown.
The international community could also assist in trying to keep Iran’s internet functioning, so protesters can communicate with one another and get news, photos and videos out of Iran so the world knows what is happening there.
Foreign governments could also impose sanctions on Iranian officials responsible for the crackdown and other human rights abuses, and should cease all negotiations with Iran over sanctions relief and unfreezing Iranian assets abroad.
Civic space in Iran is rated ‘closed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Follow @KMooreGilbert on Twitter.
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IRAN: ‘The regime is executing protesters to create fear and suppress any attempt at new mobilisation’
CIVICUS speaks aboutthe ongoing wave of executions in Iranwith Asal Abasian, an Iranian journalist and queer feminist activist. After receiving serious threats, Asal fled Iran for Turkey in 2021. They’re currently based in Paris, France.How has repression escalated since the 2022 protests?
Repression by the regime of the Islamic Republic has escalated with executions of protesters, aimed at creating fear to suppress any attempt at new mobilisations such as the Woman, Life, Freedom nationwide protests triggered by Mahsa Amini’s death.
Recently, four young Kurds from the western provinces of Iran were hanged on unproven charges of cooperation with the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan. Their families demanded a pardon until the last moment, but their requests went unheard.
The Islamic Republic has always been at odds with ethnic minorities. Forty-five years since the Islamic Revolution, this conflict is as alive as on the first day. If anything, it has become worse.
Of course, the death threat that comes with ramping up executions is not directed only at ethnic minorities. Every excluded group in Iran is under threat. The regime founded after the 1979 Islamic revolution was grounded on the aim of protecting the interests of Shia Muslim men. This means that everyone except Shia Muslim men is oppressed by design. This includes all women and LGBTQI+ people and sexual minorities, children and religious and ethnic minorities.
Throughout 45 years there have been several spikes in executions of people from minority groups as well as political activists opposing the Islamic Republic. This trend has been ongoing from the onset, and it was even worse at the beginning. In the first decade of the Islamic Republic thousands of young dissidents were secretly executed or shot.
On top of this, ethnic and religious minorities such as Bahais, Balochs, Kurds and Sunni Arabs experience daily discrimination and marginalisation, which sometimes cost people their lives.
Additionally, the regime of the Islamic Republic supports Hamas and other terrorist Islamic groups and has no qualms about it. It laments the killing of children in Gaza while it has killed so many during the protests that erupted in Iran in September 2022. But ideologies shouldn’t matter: the massacre of children by any regime or group is a despicable act.
Is there any space for civil society to operate in Iran?
Young people in Iran continue resisting, despite the severe economic pressure and the suppression of activism. Even if this involves making sacrifices in their careers, education or social lives, young women continue defying the mandatory hijab. Nationwide protests may have decreased, but young people continue resisting the arbitrary and inhumane laws of the Islamic Republic.
The struggle continues under the surface. Although the Islamic Republic and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps severely suppress any attempt at a protest, people have not stopped fighting. The fact that they continue embracing civil resistance despite the potentially serious costs is very encouraging.
Many of our fighters, whom I would like to mention, are in Tehran’s Evin prison with long sentences. Sarvenaz Ahmadi, Anisha Asadollahi, Keyvan Mohtadi, Sepideh Rashnu, Nasim Soltanbeygi and many others are in the frontlines of this struggle, spending the years of their youth in prison. And what cost would be higher than paying with years of your life?
I try to support their struggle by raising awareness on international platforms and amplifying their voices. But the main struggle is being carried on by young Iranians in Iran. From afar, we can only admire their struggles and broadcast them to the world.
How has the international community reacted to the escalation of repression in Iran?
Unfortunately, the international community has maintained a shameful silence and indifference. As people were being executed, the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Narges Mohammadi, and several other civil activists wrote to the United Nations (UN) on the human rights crisis that Iranians face. And still, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif recently travelled to Iran despite activists warning that this could be used as propaganda by the government.
The Iranian people will not forget the indifference and self-interest of the international community. This is as much of a historical disgrace as the silence in the face of the crimes that are being committed in Gaza.
Many members of the international community are perhaps more involved in domestic and regional interests, and it seems that, contrary to their proclaimed slogans, they are not really concerned about genocide, the killing of children and people’s oppression. This is very unfortunate.
We neither forgive nor forget.
Civic space in Iran is rated ‘closed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
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IRAN: ‘The regime uses executions to maintain its grip on power through fear and intimidation’
CIVICUS speaks with Jasmin Ramsey, Deputy Director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), about the ongoing wave of executions as part of the Iranian regime’s effort to suppress dissent and discourage further protests.
Founded in 2008, CHRI is an independent civil society organisation that works to protect and promote human rights in Iran. Headquartered in New York, it researches and documents human rights violations throughout Iran, and provides governments, the United Nations, think tanks, global media and research centres around the world with detailed information, analysis and policy recommendations. CHRI’s approach is strictly nonpartisan, operating within the framework of international human rights law.
What has led to the current wave of executions in Iran?
Executions in Iran are not just a pillar of the founding of the Islamic Republic, but a ruthless tool wielded by the regime to maintain its grip on power through fear and intimidation. Although the vast majority of the more than 834 people who were hanged in Iran in 2023 were accused of drug offences or other non-political activities, the increase in executions after the protests, and the growing number of political prisoners among those executed in recent years, underscore the regime’s desperation to crush dissent. It is determined to prevent the emergence of another grassroots movement such as the Woman, Life, Freedom protests triggered by the September 2022 killing of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police.
This wave of state-sanctioned killings has galvanised civil society to unite in condemnation. Women prisoners of conscience, in particular, have shown remarkable resilience, leading calls against the death penalty among Iranian civil society through joint statements and hunger strikes.
Iranian civil society is uniting to demand not just a cessation of executions, but the abolition of the death penalty. No matter how much the regime uses force and violence, it has failed to quell the desire for fundamental and systemic change in Iran. At every turn, society is pushing back against state policies that are repressive and discordant with the desires and beliefs of much of the population.
Alongside increasing executions, how else has the regime reacted to the protests?
Repression in various forms has escalated significantly since the emergence of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in 2022, manifesting in various forms such as increased arrests and detentions of peaceful activists and family members seeking justice for victims of state violence.
The government is also pushing for a law to impose harsher penalties on women appearing in public without the mandated hijab. This proposed law burdens citizens, encourages vigilante violence and increases women’s vulnerability to abuse through increased surveillance and state security forces deployed on the streets.
Is there any space for civil society in Iran?
While technically there might some room for civil society to operate in Iran, as established in legislation, the reality is starkly different. Article 27 of Iran’s constitution allows for public gatherings and marches under some conditions, but protests critical of the state are swiftly suppressed, often with violence. Fundamental rights such as freedoms of speech, expression and the press are severely curtailed, and peaceful activism is often treated as a threat to national security.
Despite these challenges, activists and citizens persist in reclaiming their rights, using a variety of methods such as social media posts, prison letters and acts of civil disobedience, like women defying the state’s forced hijab law by walking the streets unveiled. Despite facing repression and economic hardships exacerbated by governmental corruption and sanctions, their determination remains strong.
I am grateful to be doing this work in a place of safety, where, at least for now, I am shielded from the dangers faced by activists in Iran. I consider myself fortunate to learn from the courageous Iranians, especially women, who persist and resist despite immense risks. CHRI’s mission is to amplify their voices and advocate for civil society’s demands internationally, a task that comes with its own set of challenges. However, these challenges pale in comparison to the dangers faced by those on the frontlines in Iran.
What should international allies do to support the struggle for freedoms in Iran?
During the initial surge of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, there was a heightened international focus on the events unfolding in Iran. This sparked hope for more substantial action from governments with influence over the Islamic Republic. At that time, we outlined steps for the international community to pressure Iran to cease its violent crackdown on protests.
Among our recommendations, we emphasised the need for governments that have diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic to recall their ambassadors in protest against the killing of protesters and hanging of prisoners. We asked them to summon Iran’s diplomats to communicate directly their outrage and warn that further costs and isolation would ensue unless the Iranian authorities halted executions, annulled death sentences, ceased torture under custody, released prisoners and respected due process for those accused.
We urged the international community to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation and impose or expand human rights sanctions against Iranian officials and entities associated with rights violations and freeze the assets of officials who violated human rights, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and many more.
We also asked parliamentarians around the world to sponsor individual political prisoners, particularly those facing execution, to publicise their cases and the unjust nature of their prosecution or sentences and publicly demand their safety and release, both on the international stage and directly with Iranian ambassadors and other Islamic Republic officials.
Additionally, we urged states to suspend negotiations over Iran’s nuclear deal, which could provide increased revenue to the Iranian state and therefore increase its repressive capacity. We demanded it be expelled for multilateral bodies and various international platforms and associations, particularly those whose principles it blatantly violates. We also asked governments to support the United Nations (UN) Fact-Finding Mission on Iran and assist those fleeing Islamic Republic persecution, and asked tech companies to support safe digital communications for the Iranian people.
This roadmap remains relevant today. It is crucial for international allies to rally behind the UN’s independent international Fact-Finding Mission, tasked with investigating atrocities committed by the regime since the onset of the violent repression of the protests in September 2022. As the Fact-Finding Mission presents its first report to the UN Human Rights Council in mid-March, a united, multilateral approach to supporting its mandate is essential for holding the Iranian government accountable and advancing the struggle for justice and human rights in Iran.
Civic space in Iran is rated ‘closed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with CHRI through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@ICHRI onTwitter and@centerforhumanrights onInstagram.
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IRAN: ‘The severity of the crackdown only shows how scared the regime is of the protest movement’
CIVICUS speaks with Sohrab Razaghi, executive director of Volunteer Activists (VA), about the situation in Iran on the anniversary of the anti-regime protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of morality police.VA is an independent civil society organisation (CSO) based in the Netherlands, whose primary aims are building capacity among activists and CSOs, facilitating information exchange among civil society activists, community peacebuilding and advocating for the expansion of democracy and human rights in Iran and more generally in the Middle East. VA is the successor of a pioneer Iranian CSO, the Iranian Civil Society, Training and Research Centre, founded in 2001 and based in Tehran until 2007.
What is the situation in Iran one year on from the start of the protest wave?
The situation in Iran is complex. While last year’s massive protests made people hope for change, the crackdown on the protests caused hopelessness. The authorities were mostly able to suppress the protests and regain control of the streets, forcing people back into their homes.
Moreover, while the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ protest movement had an appealing chant and vision, it lacked a long-term plan that could lead to change. Over the past year, it has been unable to translate its slogan into a political programme and was therefore unable to mobilise other social and political forces around its goals.
But despite the authorities’ success in regaining control, we have continued to see acts of civil disobedience across Iran. Activists, artists and academics express themselves through social media and make public displays of protest not wearing hijab. The fact that the voices of protesters have not been silenced sustains hope for change.
A concerning development, however, is the increasing gap between established civil society and the protest movement. CSOs were hesitant to participate in the protests when they began, and this gap has only increased since. There is even a lack of a common vocabulary in calling for mobilisation and articulating demands. Established CSOs disagree with what they view as radical moves by the protest movement, as they have a more conservative view of society and the future. A possible explanation for this divergence may be the generation gap, as the protest movement is formed by much younger activists.
To reassert control, the authorities have imposed stricter control over media, universities, unions and other associations. In essence, civic space has shrunk dramatically over the past year, with the authorities purging most sectors of everyone who disagrees with them.
Internationally there was a huge wave of support for the protest movement from governments, civil society and media, particularly early on. This was extremely helpful for echoing the voices of Iranian protesters and pressuring the authorities to meet their demands. But as the authorities regained control of the streets, we have seen a change in the approach of western governments. They are returning to diplomacy and negotiations with Iran, slowly normalising their relations. This has boosted the Iranian regime’s confidence, re-legitimising it and giving it space to spread its propaganda.
What tactics has the government used to limit further mobilisation?
The number one tactic of the regime to crack down on protests has been to arrest protesters. Over the past year, thousands have been arrested, including over 20,000 who were arrested during the protests. Some have been given long jail sentences.
The second tactic has been the prevention of organising and networking. Even small communities have been actively prevented from getting together. Online networking has been limited by censorship, filtering and hacking. Leaders and activists trying to establish any form of group are arrested and their work is disrupted. They threaten activists with jail and even death. They also target their personal life by demanding that they be fired or suspended from work or university. Many teachers and professors who supported the protest movement have been fired and students expelled.
To reach those who may not have joined the protest yet, the authorities spread propaganda, fake news and conspiracy theories that delegitimise the protest movement. Some communities fear the protest movement as a result.
To prevent the development of a political alternative to the regime, the authorities have targeted the opposition within and outside Iran. Their main aim seems to be to sow division among opposition groups and force them to deal with issues internal to the opposition movement instead of focusing on developing an alternative coalition. Iranian cyber forces have supported these efforts through hacking and social media manipulation.
What forms has resistance taken in response?
Iranian activists have pursued two strategies in response. First, the protest movement sought to widen its scope to increase its resilience. By mobilising excluded ethnic groups such as Baloch and Kurdish people, the protest movement expanded to more cities and communities, making the crackdown more difficult. Second, the protest movement tried to stay on the streets for as long as possible, hoping to create division among crackdown forces.
Internationally, the movement’s main strategy was to try to isolate the regime by forcing the severance of as many diplomatic connections as possible. For example, it successfully advocated for Iran to be removed from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and it also sought to force the closure of Iranian embassies in western states.
How have Iranian organisations from the diaspora or in exile supported the protest movement in Iran?
We have observed two phases in the involvement of the diaspora and exiled Iranian organisations in the protest movement. In the first phase, they organised large-scale solidarity mobilisations and projects in support of the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ protests in Iran. Over 80,000 Iranians from the diaspora participated in the solidarity protest in Berlin in Germany, for example.
After this initial phase, however, each political group in exile tried to present itself as the leader of the protest movement. This broke the solidarity and unity of the movement. Instead of fighting against the regime, some diaspora groups mostly fought each other. Independent activists and organisations in the diaspora that didn’t want to be caught in this fight decreased their involvement. For the protest movement to succeed, opposition groups and political movements need to get better at resolving their conflicts, reaching compromises and building a unified anti-regime coalition.
Has the crackdown intensified as the first anniversary approaches?
Civil society activists have continued to be arrested and organisations put under pressure and shut down. But as the first anniversary approaches, we are seeing repression increase, particularly in universities and among journalists. Universities have recently fired more lecturers and professors and expelled more students who participated in last year’s protests. Student associations have been shut down long ago and any form of student organising is banned.
Journalists are also being heavily repressed. The authorities are disrupting reporting and coverage of protest actions and calls for protests around 16 September. They are threatening and arresting journalists, prosecuting them and handing them heavy sentences.
Independent lawyers, who have been instrumental in supporting arrested and imprisoned activists, are also being threatened. Lawyers have played key roles in defending activists in court and spreading information about their trials, informing the public on the authorities’ repression. As a result, they are being threatened with losing their licences or being arrested.
Is Iran closer to change now than a year ago?
I think we are multiple steps closer to change than before. Iranians are less scared of the consequences of their activism. They dare to take action against the regime. The voice of protest is louder and the severity of the crackdown only shows how scared the regime is of the protest movement. The regime understands it won’t be easy to shut down this protest movement, which threatens the legitimacy and therefore the existence of the regime.
We also see a major lifestyle change. People on the streets are now dressed differently and are less afraid of showing their lifestyle in public. Although political change is minimal, cultural change following last year’s protests is clearly visible. This change shouldn’t be underestimated.
What needs to happen for political change to take place?
Iranians need to realise the power of being together. Change comes from power, and power comes from organising and acting together. To bring about change, we need social power and to create social power, organising is essential. By forming associations, organisations and networks, Iranians can demand and achieve change.
For this to happen, three types of changes are required. First is a change in attitude. Iranian activists need to think positively and constructively instead of negatively and destructively. Second is a change in behaviour. We will only achieve democracy if we also act democratically and use democratic tools. This means avoiding any form of violence and understanding that democracy does not rise from bloodshed and fire. Third is a change in context. It is key to empower society to say no and resist the regime.
The international community could support change by helping to increase the resilience of the social movement and its activists, both online and offline. The pursuit of meaningful and sustainable change is a marathon and it’s instrumental to echo the voices of activists and provide sustainable support. A coalition of international civil society organisations could help by providing strategic support to Iranian activists.
Civic space in Iran is rated ‘closed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with Volunteer Activists through itswebsite.
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IRAN: ‘We shouldn’t have to wait for another tragedy to draw attention to violations of LGBTQI+ people’s rights’
CIVICUS speaks with LGBTQI+ activist Rezvaneh Mohammadi about her experiences in Iran and in exile.Rezvaneh is an Iranian human rights journalist, researcher and LGBTQI+ activist. After receiving threats and being jailed in Iran, she fled to Turkey and is now based in Belgium. Same-sex relations are illegal in Iran and LGBTQI+ people can face the death penalty.
How did you become an activist?
The key social event that defined my generation was the 2009 election and its aftermath, which coincided with my 17th birthday. I was moved to understanding what was happening as people were being shot and killed in the streets and student activists, journalists and others were being routinely arrested. Watching and reading the news introduced me to the concept of human rights.
Shortly afterwards, I discovered my sexual identity. At university, the unwanted exposure of my sexual identity led to my arbitrary removal from student organisations. The discrimination I experienced led me to read more, which led me to identify as a feminist and eventually become an activist for LGBTQI+ rights.
At that time, activism in this field mainly involved writing and spreading knowledge, either through personal Facebook pages and Telegram channels or by discussing sexual identity and orientation, history and laws with other LGBTQI+ people. It was important to understand how to break the law and stay safe. But most of us led a double life, pretending to be heterosexual.
Other, more dangerous, ways to fight back were to identify centres offering so-called ‘conversion therapy’ or to hand out leaflets on important dates. Only the bravest of us would do this.
Why did you leave Iran?
My activism was not limited to LGBTQI+ issues. I did research on the state crimes of the 1980s, which led to the identification of a mass grave from that era. Eventually, my activities in both fields led to my arrest by the Ministry of Intelligence.
I was placed in solitary confinement, subjected to harsh interrogation, insults and pressure while blindfolded in front of a wall to try to force a confession. Fortunately, I was able to resist the interrogation and avoid giving information that could put myself or others in danger.
When I was released on bail, I faced the prospect of five years in prison, and my sexual identity had already been exposed to my family and online. I decided to leave Iran for Turkey, to live the rest of my life in exile and to continue to develop my activism.
Have you found safety in exile?
To leave Iran, I crossed the border illegally because the Ministry of Intelligence had confiscated my passport and banned me from travelling. This is a common tactic used to repress activists and members of the opposition. Once in Turkey, I had no legal way of leaving, but as an Iranian activist I wasn’t safe. Given Turkey’s proximity to Iran and its mostly friendly relationship with the Iranian government, the presence of Iranian intelligence officers made me cautious. Many activists chose not to reveal their exact whereabouts, and I often received online threats. It was often difficult to determine whether these threats were serious or just random homophobic people targeting me, but they still created a constant sense of insecurity.
I’ve felt safer since I moved to Belgium, although there is homophobia here too. I’ve been harassed on the street a few times, but at least I know that if someone tries to harm me for being who I am, the law is on my side. I have remained cautious about how I communicate with friends and family in Iran, and extra careful about digital security to protect my work and privacy from Iran’s notorious cyber army. I am constantly struggling to create a space for myself and my community to express our needs and challenges, while doing my best to protect my family who are still in Iran.
Although I am physically safe in Belgium, as a refugee I still experience difficulties in settling down that challenge my mental safety, wellbeing and growth. Opportunities to work, learn or integrate can be quite scarce for someone in my situation. The journey to safety doesn’t end with arrival in a safe country. Governments and relevant agencies should do much more to support refugees, and human rights defenders in particular, to build a safe and dignified life in exile.
While I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to continue my work, I can’t help but notice that my path to safety, dignity and growth has slowed. I haven’t received the support I need to make this journey smoother and faster.
Have you noticed any positive change as a result of theWoman, Life, Freedom movement that started to protest in 2022?
Although the Women, Life, Freedom movement started four years after I left, I’m still connected to it in many ways. Many protesters were beaten or shot and needed medical attention, and people like me in exile were able to connect them with willing helpers.
Based on my research and numerous interviews, I can say that the situation with the hijab has changed significantly. Women are now defying the compulsory hijab and patriarchy more boldly than ever before. The morality police have recently returned to the streets and the state has resumed its targeting of women and LGBTQI+ people. But women continue to resist. Despite intense repression, a significant number of people refuse to wear the hijab and reject the standards of appearance that existed before Mahsa Amini’s death. I cannot hide my admiration for their courage. They resist despite the risks of arrest, trials, beatings and the confiscation of their cars. The desire for change remains, and the election of Masoud Pezeshkian as the new president won’t change this.
How can the international community support LGBTQI+ rights in Iran?
The first step should be to uphold the principle that LGBTQI+ rights are human rights and recognise serious violations of LGBTQI+ rights in Iran as unacceptable and non-negotiable.
A former foreign minister whose team will be back in power following the recent election once said the Iranian government didn’t punish people for what they did at home but only for what they did in the street. This was untrue: we have documented several cases of authorities raiding people’s homes and private parties and arresting participants, including people at LGBTQI+ parties.
Human rights organisations and international mechanisms should be bolder in raising these issues. Unfortunately, many Iranian human rights organisations have withdrawn from this fight, leaving LGBTQI+ organisations – which are also not exempt from mistakes – alone. As a result, international human rights mechanisms have not paid sufficient attention to the violation of LGBTQI+ rights in Iran.
Violations are not isolated but systematic. Same-sex relations are punishable by flogging or the death penalty and the Iranian Broadcasting Organisation is mandated by the Hijab and Chastity Bill to produce hate speech against LGBTQI+ people.
There is an ongoing pattern of human rights abuses against LGBTQI+ people in Iran. LGBTQI+ people in Iran deserve support and protection. We shouldn’t have to wait for another tragedy to draw attention to these violations. The focus should be on stopping and preventing these abuses, rather than waiting for dramatic news events to prompt action.
Civic space in Iran is rated ‘closed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Follow@rezvanehmh70 on Instagram.
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IRAN: ‘Women and queer people are at the forefront of the struggle against religious despotism’
CIVICUS speaks with Asal Abasian about their experiences as a queer and feminist activist in Iran and in exile.
Asal is an Iranian journalist and queer feminist activist. After receiving threats, they fled Iran in 2021. They first stayed in Turkey, where they freelanced with various foreign-based Persian language media outlets and Turkish media. They’re currently based in Paris, France. In Iran, same-sex relations are illegal and LGBTQI+ people can face the death penalty.
What was your life like in Iran and why did you leave?
My experience in Iran was challenging, uncomfortable and at times traumatic. However, my work as a cultural journalist focused on creativity, opening up new spaces that could escape the overt repression of traditional religious anti-queer social norms, showcasing diversity and expressions of transgression.
Navigating this was challenging because the editorial world was a closed, misogynistic, male-dominated work environment, and because the state constantly monitored our actions. Despite these obstacles, the medium of culture, which I mainly covered, allowed for a certain degree of freedom.
On a personal level, I embodied this challenge by pushing against the norms and visibly wearing my queer identity even in uncomfortable situations. Living in Iran as a queer person is difficult. If a same-sex relationship is exposed, it is punishable by death. Same-sex marriage is a distant dream. There’s a long way to go for the realisation of freedom for the queer community in Iran. Even if a queer person has a progressive and supportive family, the laws are against them and society is strongly queerphobic.
Have you found safety in exile?
Unfortunately, misogyny and homophobia exist everywhere. However, at least in a western country I have no fear of being arrested and imprisoned for my journalism or queer identity.
But discrimination is a universal problem. In France, of course, homophobia is not as intense as in Iran and the Middle East because of protective laws, but it still exists. There are reactionary and dogmatic people everywhere, and I believe this oppression, with varying degrees of intensity, is universal.
Living as an immigrant in the west, you can experience the intersection of oppression. Sometimes the treatment of immigrants, especially queer immigrants, is filled with violence and devoid of empathy and kindness. It seems the system is set up in such a way that immigrants are constantly discouraged from their journey and pushed back.
Has the situation in Iran changed since you left?
Sadly, the situation has not improved. But after the Woman, Life, Freedom movement triggered by the murder of Mahsa Jina Amini by the morality police in September 2022, women and the queer community have found more courage to fight against patriarchy and religious despotism.
Women and queer people are at the forefront of this struggle. Change hasn’t come from the regime, but from people’s resistance against its oppression and tyranny. The fact that women are now at the forefront of civil struggles in Iran is very encouraging because no oppressive force can deter or push them back from their goal of freedom.
However, the situation could be improved by spreading the ideas of inclusivity, equality and dignity through public education and cultural development. Much education takes place in schools, and much is also the responsibility of the media and the free flow of information. This is something we aspire to realise in countries like Afghanistan and Iran.
What does Pride Month mean to you? Do you see a future where it could happen in Iran?
Pride Month reminds me of the long and arduous journey of the queer movement up to this day. The fight against discrimination and oppression is a legacy we, the queer community, are proud of.
As a member of the queer community in Iran, I hope for a day when Pride marches take place in the cities of Iran, and queer people can express their identities with pride, freely and without fear.
But we are still a long way from that day. The problem is that the Islamic regime represents a segment of Iranian society. Part of society is very conservative and reactionary, making the possibility of change towards freedom and a safe space for queer people almost impossible. However, we remain hopeful and continue to fight for that day to come.
Civic space in Iran is rated ‘closed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
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IRAN: ‘Women are the thorn in the sides of hardliners’
Following a year in which women’s rights protests made headlines worldwide - including in Iran, where women’s struggles were symbolised by the resurgence of protests against the mandatory use of hijab - CIVICUS speaks to Jasmin Ramsey, communications director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). Based in New York, CHRI is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit civil society organisation (CSO) of journalists, researchers and human rights advocates who collaborate with an extensive team of independent investigators, civil society activists and human rights defenders inside Iran, which allows CHRI to report on and document real-time, on-the-ground human rights conditions in Iran. CHRI also advocates with governments and international organisations and partners with activists around the world to keep them informed about the state of human rights in Iran and hold the Iranian government to account on its international obligations.What were the frustrations that provoked the 2018 anti-hijab protests in Iran?
Women in Iran have been fighting for their rights since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini, the country’s first supreme leader, took power from the ousted monarchy that year, the hijab was gradually enforced on women until it became law. For the past 40 years, women in Iran have not been allowed in public without covering most of their bodies and hair. If a woman is caught without a veil, she could be subject to various forms of punishment. She could be shamed in public. Men, clerics, sometimes even other women may condemn and insult her for walking around with her hair uncovered. She could also be arrested by various agencies, one of which is the so-called anti-vice or morality police, which is particularly vigilant during summer when it’s very hot and people want to wear less to stay cool. They could pick her up, take her in, charge her and even imprison her.
Shortly after the compulsory hijab was implemented in Iran, many women - thousands by some estimates - went out into the streets to say they did not support it. Some marched arm in arm with their hair flowing freely demanding that the hijab be a choice, not a requirement. So right away we saw that regardless of what the Iranian government said was best for women, many had the courage to say they should be able to control their bodies and the ways they expressed themselves. But the hijab was enforced anyway with great force until the cost of resistance became very high.
But women in Iran haven’t backed down. For the past four decades, they have been challenging this law in various ways, including indirectly. For example, in the beginning of the revolution, women had to observe the hijab strictly, barely showing any skin apart from their face and hands. But as the years passed, while some devout women continued to wear the hijab strictly, many others started pushing it back further and further, so today if you walk through the streets of the capital, Tehran, you can see a lot of hair showing at the front and even a little at the back. Women are also now wearing more form-fitting clothing and showing a little more skin as well. Women wear the hijab very fashionably and try to integrate it within their sense of style; they keep on pushing the envelope. It’s very interesting to look at the ways the hijab has been creatively challenged and reformulated by Iranian women throughout the years. Those who wear the hijab by choice also have their own ways of expressing themselves while keeping themselves covered.
More recently, in 2018, several women - at least 30 - went out into the streets, took off their hijabs in public and waved them either on a stick or with their hands. Some men also did this to support these women. This became the beginning of what appeared to be a new movement - admittedly, a very small one - with women engaging in civil disobedience against the country’s compulsory hijab law, including by walking in the street without a hijab, and then posting pictures of themselves doing so on social media. The vast majority of these women have not shown any desire to make the hijab illegal; instead they are saying it should be a choice. So generally speaking, these are anti-compulsory-hijab protests, not anti-hijab protests.
How did the protests organise, and how did they get their message out? Was social media important?
This particular movement was started by Masih Alinejad, an Iranian activist living in exile in the USA. A few years ago she started a social media campaign, #MyStealthyFreedom, to encourage women in Iran to walk freely without their head covered and submit photos of themselves doing so. It’s not clear whether those women who waved their hijabs in public during the first few months of 2018 and who were arrested for doing so were part of Masih’s campaign. Some said that they were not, and that they did this independently because they wanted to make a statement about something they have believed in all along. Others said they were directing Masih, not the other way around as some judicial officials claimed.
Masih’s Facebook campaign had been around for a few years, and in late December 2017, a photo of one woman, Vida Movahed, waving her white hijab while standing on a utility box in a busy street in Tehran went viral on social media and she and protesters like her came to be known as the Girls of Revolution Street. She did this one day before mass protests broke out in various cities throughout Iran against a range of other issues. It seems that after that photo went viral, several followed her example. It happened over the course of several weeks and months. Social media played a role in spreading that image, and the image compelled others to go out, but I can’t quantify the extent to which social media propelled things forward.
How did the authorities react to the protests?
Women protesters engaging in peaceful acts of civil disobedience came head to head with government hardliners. The security forces - high-ranking officials in the Revolutionary Guards, the Intelligence Ministry and the highest levels of the judiciary - are typically made up of hardline conservatives who tend to support the compulsory hijab for all women. So it is not surprising that protesters were harassed by security agents and some were arrested. At least three were prosecuted and faced suspended prison sentences from three months to two years.
Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent human rights lawyer, was arrested and jailed shortly after representing some of these women as their attorney. When she was defending one of the arrested protesters, a prosecutor lodged a complaint against her. It is extremely easy to make up a complaint: it is enough to say that by defending a client who questioned a state policy a lawyer is engaging in propaganda against the state. She’s now been charged with many other different things and faces several years in prison.
Nasrin’s husband, Reza Khandan, and a fellow activist, Farhad Meysami, were also sentenced to six years in prison. One of the pieces of so-called evidence that was used against them were badges that read ‘I oppose compulsory hijab’, which security agents confiscated when they raided their houses. These men who stood by women fighting for their rights now face six years in prison each and have been banned from leaving the country and going online.
On the other hand, the state is not homogeneous and other sectors have more moderate positions. It is clear that in the long term, faced with such clear-cut civil rights and human rights issues, the state doesn’t really know how to react and is relying on old methods of repression for what it sees as quickly growing problems. It doesn’t have any new solutions to these new issues. Interestingly, there are recent studies commissioned by the government showing that at least half of the Iranian population opposes the compulsory hijab. In one of those studies, conducted by the research group of the current government headed by President Hassan Rouhani, almost half of respondents, women and men, said wearing the hijab should be a choice. A parliamentary group did another study that ultimately offered different scenarios on how to deal with the growing desire for hijab to be a choice, including less strict enforcement. All this indicates that the government is well aware that a significant and increasing part of the population does not stand by this policy, and may be contemplating other options.
Did the protests experience backlash from conservative groups?
There were reports on social media of people, both men and women, publicly reprimanding women who were not wearing a hijab. There was also a lot of backlash from conservative media, which published stories accusing protesters of being directed by outside powers. But these are not independent media; they are affiliated with the security agencies. And one group held a ‘Girls of the Revolution (or Revolutionary Girls) Convention’, its name playing on the anti-compulsory-hijab ‘Girls of Revolution Street’ movement. This convention was held in July 2018 at the Shahid Hemmat religious centre in Tehran, and was attended by ‘martyrs’ families’, according to right-wing state media, and also featured a speech by a conservative speaker by the name of Ali Akbar Raefipour.
Backlash also came from hardliners within the government, both in the executive and the legislative branches, who accused the women of protesting against the hijab law not because they made a choice but because they were being misguided and directed by others. These people refused to acknowledge these women as independent people with minds of their own.
Besides the compulsory hijab, what other key challenges do women face in Iran? Have women led other protests?
There are many issues related to the way the legal system treats women. The law views a woman as having half the value of a man, and this comes through in various ways. To begin with, women cannot be Supreme Leader, they can’t be president, or members of the Guardian Council, or even judges. This issue also manifests in their personal lives. For instance, a married woman can’t travel abroad without her husband’s permission. She doesn’t have equal rights when she files for divorce. She can’t pass on citizenship to her children. Women’s inheritance rights amount to half of those of men: a woman will get half the inheritance that her brother receives. In Iranian law, the testimony of a man is often valued at twice the weight of that of a woman. And when it comes to blood money - the financial compensation provided to next of kin in cases of wrongful death or murder - it’s provided at half the rate for female victims. So women are quite literally considered second-class-citizens.
At the same time, there have been significant improvements since the revolution, and these have happened because women have been fighting for their rights. Getting a divorce isn’t easy for women, but the divorce rate is now higher than it has ever been in Tehran province. We are also now seeing women in big cities who are now able to live alone - not many, but their number is increasing. What we’re also seeing is that women are at the forefront of all the protests, not just those against the compulsory hijab or for women’s rights more generally. For instance, in the face of a government crackdown against lawyers - in an attempt to stop them from defending detainees who had been targeted by the state - female lawyers such as Nasrin Sotoudeh led the peaceful resistance. Nasrin is now in jail for doing so. Women have protested against the state for a variety of reasons, from unemployment to the compulsory hijab. They truly are the thorn in the side of the state, which is possibly why the state goes to such lengths to make sure women stay in their place.
Iranian women are highly educated and are increasingly taking professional positions. But unemployment among women is much higher than among men, and many women are only employed part-time because they are expected to stay at home and take care of the home and kids. Women also make up a much smaller portion of the skilled workforce and the government ranks. There are currently only 17 women in parliament; this means that less than six per cent of parliamentarians are women. Despite President Rouhani’s promise, there are no female ministers in his government. Women are often advisors or assistants, but they never get the high-level jobs.
So improvements are happening, but they are uneven and any assessment of these depends on the points of comparison, over time and also regionally. For example, until recently, women couldn’t drive in Saudi Arabia. But women in Iran can drive - and they not only drive cars, but also buses and even big cargo trucks. Of course, there are just a few women all over Iran doing the truck driving, but they are leading, showing others that it can be done. These women are taking on these jobs because they want greater economic rights, which leads to greater independence. This is all part of an ongoing process of change in Iran that’s occurring because of the current conditions and whether the government wants it to or not.
Much of the change going on is happening on the sidelines rather than on the big stage. And some of these changes are making the Iranian government very nervous. That’s why it’s responding to many of these protests like they’re political threats, because that’s an easy flag to wave. But these are not political issues; these are human issues, issues of human rights. Wearing a hijab is an issue of freedom of expression and religion. Whatever side of it you are on, it should be a choice, plain and simple, say the women protesters in Iran. Protests for labour rights in Iran are not orchestrated by the outside as judicial and security officials claim. They are a reaction to the economic conditions in the country that are driving people onto the streets, say the workers protesting in Iran. No amount of propaganda or spin will get rid of those conditions and the longer the government ignores the roots of the problems, the worse they will get.
Given the restricted space for civil society in Iran, how best can the international community - including international civil society - show support and solidarity for Iranian women activists?
It is important to understand that the women’s movement in Iran is independent and has been around for decades. The women who are leading it from inside Iran and taking all the risks to do so say that change has to be brought about by the Iranian people themselves. Iranian activists do not need my or your guidance. What they need is to have their voice and actions amplified, and the human rights abuses committed against them documented and protested against. That is the kind of work that we do at CHRI: we amplify the voices of activists inside Iran and provide coverage of their issues. There is need for nuanced coverage highlighting not just the bad but also the good things that are going on in Iran, so people get a good understanding of the country and its issues and are able to discuss them in a constructive and intelligent way.
Awareness and constructive advocacy are key. When public officials, businessmen or celebrities engage with Iranian officials, including Iran’s counterparts from other countries and international organisations, such as the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU), they should bring up human rights issues there that are being protested about by activists and people in the streets. They should ask: why are women being arrested for taking off their hijabs? Why are women kept as political prisoners and denied the right to see their families as punishment for engaging in peaceful protest for their basic rights in prison? Why are people told not to talk to media after their family members have been imprisoned? Why is the right to peaceful protest prosecuted as a national security crime?
If Iran’s international counterparts don’t bring up these issues, they are giving a green light to anyone inside the country engaged in human rights violations to continue violating these rights. Some of Iran’s international counterparts are already speaking up to some degree: the European Parliament, for instance, recently passed a resolution on Iran, and notably on the case of Nasrin Sotoudeh, and the UN Human Rights Council has been doing so for years. There needs to be more much more done though - more discussion, more engagement, more constructive pressure - because the Iranian government is listening. It does care about its international image, and there is a good chance that it will respond to pressure from institutions such as the UN and EU where there are already channels of communication.
It is also important that the people of Iran be allowed and enabled to engage and communicate and experience the world outside their country’s borders in the same ways you and I are able to. The government does not allow internet freedom, so other countries should not implement mechanisms that prevent Iranians from accessing tools and services that enable them to bypass online censorship. Iranian authorities do not want activists and others targeted by the state to travel outside the country, and in some cases even outside their provinces, and speak about their issues, so other countries should not help these state actors by doing the same thing and banning Iranians from entering their countries. Most crucially, Iranians should not be blocked from accessing basic humanitarian goods and medicines due to reinstated sanctions. The entire international community must come together to ensure these channels remain open.
When Iranian people go out into the streets and protest, or protest individually by waving a hijab or calling for the country to revise a policy in a tweet or Facebook post, they are taking major, life-changing risks. Many have been imprisoned for years for doing these things. It is our responsibility, as people who take these rights for granted, to listen, learn and amplify their voices. They are leading the way so we can follow.
Civic space in Iran is rated as ‘closed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor
Get in touch with CHRI through itswebsite orFacebook page, or follow@ICHRI and@JasminRamsey on Twitter
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IRAN: A new generation of civic-minded, courageous activists is rising
Following a year that was characterised by a continued crackdown on fundamental freedoms in Iran, CIVICUS speaks to Sohrab Razzaghi, Executive Director of the Volunteer Activists Institute (VA) a not-for-profit, non-partisan, independent civil society organisation (CSO) based in The Netherlands, whose primary aims are building capacity among activists and CSOs, facilitating information exchange among civil society activists, community peace-building and advocating for the expansion of democracy and human rights in Iran and more generally in the Middle East. VA is the successor of a pioneer Iranian CSO, the Iranian Civil Society, Training and Research Centre, founded in 2001 and based in Tehran until 2007. After fleeing Iran, Sohrab now lives in exile.Volunteer Activists recently published a comprehensive new study on civil society in Iran. What were its main findings?
Our latest report, ‘Civil society in Iran and its future prospects’, which came out in September 2018, analyses the major developments that have taken place since the last previous comprehensive study of Iranian civil society was published in 2010.
Not only does civil society in Iran currently face problems and challenges different from those of the past, but a whole new generation of Iranian activists has also become engaged, and they have fundamental differences with previous generations. As a result of a lack of understanding of such new phenomena, experts, policy-makers, donors and other stakeholders have not been able to understand and assess the situation accurately. The Volunteers Activist Institute (VA) took it upon itself fill this gap by undertaking a study that seeks to describe and explain major trends, challenges, opportunities and prospects of Iranian civil society, including the current situation of Iranian CSOs, their position within Iranian society and the challenges and restrictions they face.
Among our main findings is the acknowledgment that Iranian civil society has various facets and faces, and is far from coherent and homogeneous. It comprises both traditionally structured and modern associations, including charities and CSOs focusing on health and hygiene. This branch of civil society has a long history and an extensive social base. CSOs working in these areas usually adapt to government policies and programmes. The government also favours them and encourages their expansion and development. In addition, the Iranian government uses some CSOs that focus on service delivery to advance its policies while it marginalises independent and advocacy CSOs.
A significant recent development in Iranian civil society has been the emergence of a new generation of civil society activists in fields such as women’s and young people’s rights, community solidarity and the environment. Although their numbers are not large, this new generation has taken upon itself to expand civil society and challenge government policies on the matters they care about. They have launched a number of creative civic initiatives, both online and offline, such as I am Lake Urmia, which mobilised huge efforts to raise awareness of environmental degradation and push for action to prevent northwest Iran’s Lake Urmia from completely drying out. Another initiative, Wall of Kindness, created wall spaces across neighbourhoods where citizens could hang unneeded clothes to be taken by those in need. The Campaign to Change the Masculine Face of Parliament called attention to the scarcity of women legislators and urged for more women to be elected to parliament.
And then there are the Girls of Enghelab Street, a series of more spontaneous women’s protests against the compulsory use of hijab. These protests were inspired by a woman who in late December 2017 stood on a box in Enghelab (‘revolution’) Street, tied her hijab to a stick and waved it at the crowd as a flag. She was arrested and remained in custody for about a month, but other women later re-enacted her gesture of defiance and started posting their photos on social media, so the protest movement grew from the ground up.
Civic courage and audacity are two significant characteristics of this new generation of activists who have successfully torn into the power myths of the past. Social protest, including union and labour rights protests, has steadily increased in recent years, and particularly since the inauguration of President Hassan Rouhani in 2013. Their cumulative effect is changing the landscape of Iranian civil society.
What major changes is civil society currently experiencing in Iran?
After President Rouhani’s inauguration, Iranian socio-political dynamics gradually started to change. Some marginalised social groups have experienced a limited and controlled comeback, and an atmosphere of societal hope started to take shape. Small openings have appeared through which a discourse on democracy, civil society and civic rights is beginning to make itself heard, although in areas that are deemed sensitive, such as women’s, labour and minority rights, the situation is still very tense and closed.
These very minor changes have nonetheless created an atmosphere of hope, and civil society is cautiously coming back onto the social stage. But as in the 1990s, the civil society development model is still top-down, as the driving forces behind civil society are governmental agencies that view civil society as a useful tool rather than a force for social change.
Independent civic action has increased around some issues, including the environment, youth issues and social inequalities. Organised civic action is also in the process of replacing the small, closed-group and underground activism of the period when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was President from 2005 to 2013, and recent years have seen the rise of CSOs and networks throughout the country. Some associations and networks, notably environmental ones, that had been blocked during the previous period are now regenerating and regaining force. On the other hand, the social movements that were suppressed following the controversial 2009 election, including women’s rights, student and labour movements, are still being obstructed.
What is the current state of the freedom of expression?
While the Constitution of Iran recognises the freedom of speech, several laws list a number of restrictions. The most important laws restricting the freedom of speech are the Islamic Penal Code and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Press Law. Articles 498, 499 and 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, among others, subordinate the freedoms of speech and association to security considerations. Article 500 of the Penal Code considers any activity that is deemed detrimental to the Islamic Republic or benefits any other group or organisation as a national security offence. Articles 498 and 499 establish that any gathering of more than two people inside the country or overseas, under any name, with the aim of disrupting Iran’s national security, or attendance at such a gathering, constitute national security offences.
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Press Law also introduces many restrictions on the freedom of speech. In order to be able to publish newspapers, magazines or any other publication in either print or digital form, individuals and organisations first need to acquire a licence, which is issued by a supervisory board led by the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance. According to Article 9 of the Press Law, anyone who wishes to apply for such a licence must pledge allegiance to the Constitution of Iran. Chapter 4, article 6 of the Press Law introduces restrictions on the freedom of speech in the press, specifying areas that are disruptive to the foundation of Islam as well as to general and private rights. According to this article, the press cannot spread news of depravity, corruption, or contents contrary to public virtues. The restrictions far exceed these, however, as they include insult and defamation, falsehoods and rumours. Nevertheless, the law does not define any of these categories. The most problematic category is that of rumours, which applies to any lead that journalists normally follow to get to the core of the truth. Article 6, paragraph 6 also bans the publication of news on confidential issues, which go well beyond military documents to include unlicensed coverage of closed-door sessions of parliament or the courts and judicial investigations. Paragraph 1 of this article also clearly states that the publication and dissemination of so-called pagan news 0 that is, news that goes against Islamic criteria - or news that harms the foundation of the Islamic Republic is not allowed.
All these bans restrict civil society activists in their quest for transparency and accountability in society and politics, because they are unable to voice the concerns of their stakeholders.
What is the relationship between Iranian and regional and international civil society and human rights actors?
Iranian activists and CSOs have been banned from joining regional and international civil society networks for decades, and therefore they have been unable to form strong coalitions and participate fully in exchanges of knowledge, experience and support. There are currently only 25 Iranian CSOs with consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and most of them are quasi-governmental entities pursuing government policies rather than advancing citizens’ concerns.
Legal restrictions and the dominant security environment prevent Iranian activists and CSOs from joining regional and international civil society networks. The Iranian government and its security apparatus are extremely sensitive towards any attempts by activists to connect with global networks and punish them with charges that go as far as espionage.
Frail regional and international connections have also resulted from, and in turn intensified, activists’ lack of familiarity with regional and international frameworks and limited language and networking skills.
As a result, representatives of independent civil society from inside Iran rarely attend regional and international conferences or voice civic opinions. The only CSOs that are allowed to attend gatherings such as the sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the conferences of the International Labour Organization and the annual summit of the Commission on the Status of Women are quasi-governmental or government-sponsored non-governmental organisations (GONGOs) and those that are connected to the Iranian government’s security apparatus, which operate to promote government policies.
In contrast, civil society activists, including teachers and factory workers who have tried to connect with regional and international networks, have faced severe penalties for doing so, including long-term imprisonment. Over recent months, eight environmental activists have been arrested and charged with espionage and security offences.
It is worth noting that it is not just reaching out internationally that is penalised - the security apparatus also criminalises networking among Iranian CSOs inside the country and uses its power to either prohibit such networks from forming or weaken and neutralise existing ones.
What needs to change for civic space to improve in Iran, and what should global civil society do to help?
Global civil society should urge the government to establish a simple and transparent procedure for the establishment and operation of CSOs in Iran, and not to interfere in the lawful operation of CSOs.
We need to find ways to include and engage independent Iranian civil society, as opposed to quasi-governmental civil society, with existing global networks. The initiative on this should be taken by the international civil society community. Two very helpful measures in this regard would be the provision of updated information and knowledge to Iranian activists, and the design and implementation of capacity-building and accelerator projects addressing the specific needs and shortcomings of Iranian civil society.
Civic space in Iran is rated as ‘closed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor
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