Human Rights Watch (8/3): Harassment of Rights Defenders Escalates in Iran

[Jack Rabbit]

Press release from Human Rights Watch
Dateline New York Wednesday August 3

Iran: Harassment of Rights Defenders Escalates
Imprisoned Journalist in Life-Threatening Condition

The Iranian government intensified its attacks on independent human rights defenders by arresting prominent lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani and threatening Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, Human Rights Watch said today.

On Saturday evening, July 30, agents of the Judiciary, operating under the authority of Tehran chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, arrested Soltani inside the offices of the Lawyers Association in Tehran. The next day, a Judiciary spokesman announced that Soltani was arrested for "revealing secrets relating to the case of nuclear spies." Soltani is currently being held in Evin prison in Tehran but has yet to be brought before a judge or formally charged.

The Judiciary statement suggests that Soltani unlawfully divulged information from clients of his who have been charged with revealing Iran's nuclear secrets. But Soltani has no access to the files in the case. Instead, Human Rights Watch said the arrest appears to be a politically motivated response by the government to Soltani's role in the Zahra Kazemi case, the Iranian-Canadian photojournalist murdered in July 2003 while she was in government custody. A few days earlier on July 25, Soltani stated before the court of appeals that Kazemi had been in the custody of Judiciary agents and security forces when she was murdered, and that the Judiciary's continued inaction two years after her death was a cover-up.

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1. ... in the meantime, the ACLU is getting harassed in the US

And Amnesty International gets its FOIA requests denied.