The New President and the Human Rights Crisis

July 14th 2013 was an important day in Iran. The presidential election in Iran was held even though two of the candidates from the previous presidential election, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, are currently under house arrest. The people who have objected to the results of the previous election and consider them fraudulent have also paid a heavy price during these past years. Their civil protests in the streets were suppressed with a harshness rarely seen before. Many were detained and some even were killed by security forces. A police state dominated the country and participation in the political process was impossible. The opposition forces had two choices to break the atmosphere: Seyyed Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. These two men were thought to be able to pass the filtering of the Guardian Council and receive popular support. Khatami’s analysis of the situation was that he would not be able to accomplish anything in the present atmosphere and Hashemi ran even though he is almost 80 years old. Few thought that the Guardian Council would reject Hashemi’s qualifications for presidential candidacy as he had had a major role in the founding of the Islamic Republic (IR) regime and has held posts in very high offices. As of today, he is the head of the Expediency Discernment Council, which is in charge of setting the regime’s macro-policies. However, the Guardian Council disqualified him from running in the election.

Was bedeutet gewaltlose humanitäre Intervention?

von Dawud Gholamasad

Dawud Gholamasad

In die­sem Beitrag möchte ich kurz die Notwendigkeit gewalt­lo­ser huma­ni­tä­rer Intervention in Iran ange­sichts insti­tu­tio­na­li­sier­ter Verletzung der Menschenrechte begrün­den und zwar in Anbetracht der durch das Ergebnis der Präsidentschaftswahlen in Iran und der illu­sio­nä­ren Erwartungen, die Rohanis Wahlversprechen erwe­cken. Denn es gibt unzäh­lige Versprechen, deren sys­tem­im­ma­nente Erfüllung beim bes­ten Willen mit unüber­wind­ba­ren insti­tu­tio­na­li­sier­ten Hindernissen kon­fron­tiert wird. Ihre Erfüllung würde die Abschaffung der ver­fas­sungs­mä­ßig ver­an­ker­ten Scharia als Bezugsrahmen jeg­li­cher Entscheidungs- und Handlungsspielräume vor­aus­set­zen.

Moradzadeh: a political prisoner from the 1980s

Arian Moradzadeh–a former political prisoner–was arrested for being a member of a Marxist group in June 1981 in Tabriz, Iran.

He spent more than five months in Tabriz prison, survived an execution purge of political prisoners in 1981 and was released in November 1981.  In this video testimony, Moradzadeh recounts the ill treatment he received from Iranian authorities during those months of imprisonment.

 

2013 Trafficking in Persons Report – Iran

IRAN (Tier 3)

Iran is a presumed source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor. Iranian and Afghan boys and girls residing in Iran are allegedly forced into prostitution within the country. In Tehran, there has reportedly been a recent significant increase in the number of teenage girls in prostitution. Iranian women, boys, and girls are purportedly subjected to sex trafficking in Iran, as well as in Pakistan, the Persian Gulf, and Europe. Azerbaijani women and children are also believed to be subjected to sex trafficking in Iran. According to some estimates, there are 35,000-50,000 children forced by their parents or other adults to beg in the streets of Tehran or to work in sweatshops; some of these children are also reportedly forced into prostitution in Iran and abroad.

Afghan migrants and refugees are reportedly subjected to forced labor in Iran. Pakistani men and women migrate voluntarily to Iran for low-skilled employment such as domestic work and construction. Some are suspected of being subsequently subjected to conditions of forced labor, including debt bondage, and experience restriction of movement, nonpayment of wages, and physical or sexual abuse. NGO reports indicate criminal organizations, sometimes politically connected, play a significant role in human trafficking in Iran. Unconfirmed reports indicate that some religious leaders and immigration officials are involved in human trafficking.

Iraq: UN envoy welcomes relocation of dozens of Iranian exiles to Albania

The top United Nations official in Iraq today welcomed the relocation to Albania of 27 residents from an exile camp near western Baghdad.

„A total of 71 men and women now have safely arrived in Albania and have benefited from the Government of Albania’s offer to accept 210 of the Camp’s residents,“ said the UN Special Representative for the Secretary-General and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), Martin Kobler.

Some 3,000 residents, most of them members of a group known as the People’s Mojahedeen of Iran, are temporarily housed in a transit facility called Camp Liberty – also know as Camp Hurriya – while the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) carries out a process to determine their refugee status.

Mr. Kobler said in addition to Albania, Germany has offered to relocate some 100 residents. The departure of the group from Iraq is in accordance with the memorandum of understanding of 25 December 2011, which foresees the relocation of the residents to third countries.

„I once again thank both countries‘ governments for their generosity and call on other Member States to receive residents as well,“ the UN envoy said.

The relocation comes just days after two people were reportedly killed and dozens injured in a mortar attack to the camp.

„Last week’s tragic events have once again shown how important it is to relocate the residents to third countries as quickly as possible,“ Mr. Kobler noted.

The camp had previously been attacked in February while most of the residents were sleeping. The attack resulted in six deaths and various injuries.

 

Source: UN News Service

 

VG Regensburg|Rückkehrgefährdung besteht für Iraner

Leitsatz:
Es ist davon auszugehen, dass der Wortführer eines Protestcamps von Flüchtlingen, der mediales Aufsehen erregt und sich auch über den iranischen Staat kritisch äußert, dem iranischen Geheimdienst bekannt ist und daher für ihn eine Rückkehrgefährdung besteht.

Schlagwörter:
Exilpolitik, Iran, Protestcamp, Protestbewegung, Geheimdienst, exilpolitische Aktivitäten, Sicherheitsdienst, Überwachung im Ausland,

Normen:
AufenthG § 60 Abs. 1, AsylVfG § 28 Abs. 1,

Who Is Hassan Rouhani ?

In April 2006, Rouhani was caught on tape, boasting that while talks [on Iran’s nuclear program] were taking place, Iran was able to complete installing equipment for the conversion of yellowcake — a key stage in the nuclear fuel process — but at the same tine convince the Europeans that nothing was afoot.

by Banafsheh Zand

The eleventh Iranian elections are over but were not really open and fair. No election can be fair when the candidates have been handpicked and propped up by one man: the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. The entire event, mostly a show for international consumption, was orchestrated within a police state. „I recently heard,“ Khamenei said, „that someone at the U.S. National Security Council said, ‚We do not accept this election in Iran.‘ We do not give a damn.“

Khamenei has often said, „Any vote that is cast for the candidates who have been picked, is a vote for the Islamic Republic. In fact all voting is a vote of trust and support for the regime.“ Iranians who voted were not electing a president but validating the Velayat’eh Faqih (the absolute mandate of jurists).

Iranian media and the internet are totally censored; the actions of the regime’s elite never reach the people inside. Additionally, both foreign and domestic media have been banned, with the exception of CNN, who sent American reporters. Part of that coercive measure has included the imprisonment of various Iranian journalists.

Hassan Rouhani, the only cleric among the candidates, is a relic from the early days of the Revolution. His birth name is Hassan Feridoon — a more Persian name then his Muslim name, Rouhani, meaning spiritual. Since the government takeover of the Islamic Revolution, Rouhani has held multiple positions, including Secretary and Representative of the National Security Council, member of the Assembly of Experts, member of the Expediency Council, President of the Center for Strategic Research, and various positions in the Iranian Parliament. In the early days of the revolution he was put in the position of Military Coordinator where he purged the existing military and replaced them with Khomeini loyalists. During the Iran-Iraq war, he served as Rafsanjani’s right hand man.

Rouhani: Rival Constituencies

Alireza Nader

Hassan Rouhani now faces the hard part. Iran’s president-elect won a decisive and surprising victory because he appealed to three conflicting constituencies— conservatives, reformists exiled from the political system, and Iranians dissatisfied with the status quo. Now his ability to govern will depend on satisfying disparate factions. Each has its own set of expectations—and each is also intent on coming out on top.
      Rouhani may be able to deliver results precisely because he is an insider. Since the 1979 revolution, he has served in some of the Islamic Republic’s highest positions. Before his 2013 election, Rouhani was Iran’s national security advisor for 16 years and then head of a government think tank. So he has close ties to Iran’s military and national security establishment. Rouhani has also been a deputy speaker of parliament and a member of the Assembly of Experts ― the only constitutional body with the authority to appoint and dismiss the supreme leader. Among 686 candidates who registered, he was one of only eight allowed to run for the presidency.

Rouhani: Challenges Ahead

Haleh Esfandiari

            The decisive election of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s new president has been greeted around the world as a sign that Iranians are tired of hardline policies at home and abroad and are ready to embrace change. But the outcome also raises the question of how the new president might go about it, given Iran’s powerful clerical leadership and long history of quashing reform efforts.
      Rouhani will inherit from his predecessor a host of difficult, even insurmountable problems. In the past eight years, such limited freedoms as existed have been severely eroded. The economy is in shambles due to Western-imposed sanctions and outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s reckless spending and misguided policies. With few real friends, Iran is internationally isolated, and its relations with the US and the Europeans are under strain over Iran’s nuclear program, its support for Assad in Syria, and its inflammatory rhetoric on Israel. Negotiations between Iran and the so-called 5+1 (five members of the UN Security Council and Germany) about Tehran’s nuclear program have been deadlocked.
While he is considered a moderate, Rouhani comes to office as an insider. For sixteen years he was head of Iran’s National Security Council (NSC) and for two years Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. Even today, he sits on the NSC as the personal representative of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. He served five terms in the Majlis, or parliament. He sits on two major state councils, one of which, the Assembly of Experts, will elect Khamenei’s successor whenever he passes away. In holding high office, Rouhani was more a team player than a maverick and continues to support many existing Iranian policies. On Syria, since his election he has offered only the formulaic non-answer that the Syrian people should decide their own future through elections.

            Critics have noted that Rouhani spoke in support of the harsh crackdown on student protesters at Tehran University in 1999—he later explained he was in the government at the time and could have not done otherwise. He also was silent when security forces brutally crushed protests following the contested 2009 presidential elections, and his explanation for that silence remains unconvincing: he was not then in the government, he said, the nature of the protests had changed, and the protesters were obligated to act within the laws.

Rouhani in his own words: On Nukes, Talks

 

      In mid-2005, President-elect Hassan Rouhani gave a detailed speech outlining Iran’s nuclear needs and its negotiating strategy with the outside world. The 39-page speech is the best indication – in his own words—of his views on Iran’s controversial program. Most notably, he told senior Iranian officials that the government could have avoided problems with the international community if it had been more open about its nuclear activities from the start. Rouhani also claimed Iran “never wanted” to build a bomb. These are excerpts from his briefing to Iran’s Supreme Cultural Revolution Council shortly before he resigned as chief nuclear negotiator after differences with then newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—who is now his predecessor.

On Iran’s Nuclear Needs

            “The Islamic Republic of Iran 15 or 16 years ago ― that is in [the Islamic years] 1366 or 1367 [1987‐1989 on the Western calendar] ― started to pursue fuel cycle technology. We pursued this technology because we always wanted to make use of nuclear energy, wanted to have nuclear power plants, and wanted to be able to produce the needed fuel for those plants ourselves…

            “The argument that because Iran has oil and gas, it should not have this technology is not a correct argument. The United States maintains that Iran does not need nuclear power plants, but the Europeans say it is Iran’s right to have nuclear power plants and it should have them .Iran has the right to worry about its long‐term future. Iran’s oil and gas resources will be exhausted one day, and it should have this technology…

            “If we can reach a political agreement to work with the world and activate our fuel cycle, that would be very desirable. We think there is a chance we would be successful in this undertaking.”

On Secrecy

            “Some of you say that if wehad said from the start that we wanted to have the fuel cycle, the situation would havebeen easier. Yes, if we had decided to declare our intention at the beginning, if we hadtold the IAEA that we intended to build a UCF (uranium conversion facility) plant at the same time that we started construction at Esfahan, if we had announced our facilities at Natanz from the start, we would not have any problems now, or our problems would have been far less than they are today.

            In fact, this is the very reason that our case has become so complicated. Theyask: If you truly were after fuel cycle, why did you do it secretly?! This is the root of all problems.