The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), welcomes the release of Mr. Akbar Ganji, on March 18, 2006.
Mr. Akbar Ganji was detained since April 22, 2000 at the Evin Prison in Tehran for having written numerous articles denouncing the involvement of the Iranian regime in the assassination of political opponents and intellectual dissidents in 1998 and for having participated in a conference on the Iranian elections in Berlin, in April 2000 (See Observatory Annual Reports 2004 and 2005, to be launched on March 22, 2006).
Mr. Akbar Ganji had been hospitalised on July 17, 2005 after more than two months of hunger strike, to which he finally put an end in the night of 20 to 21 August 2005. He was sent back to prison on 3 September 2005, where he was placed in isolation in a special wing of the Evin Prison.
The Observatory thanks all the persons, organisations and institutions who intervened in favour of Mr. Akbar Ganji’s release.
However, the Observatory recalls that human rights defenders in Iran remain subjected to ongoing harassment. For instance, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day, on March 8, 2006, the Iranian police, plainclothes militia and special anti-riot forces of the Revolutionary Guards violently charged a sit-in organised by independent women’s groups and activists in favour of women rights. Hundreds of women had gathered in Teheran’s Daneshjoo Park at 4 pm to support women’s rights and peace.
After security forces had photographed and videotaped the participants in the sit-in, they were asked to disperse on the ground that the assembly was not legal because they did not have a permit. The security forces then dumped cans of garbage on the heads of women before charging the group and beating them with batons. The demonstrators dispersed but some of them were followed and beaten by the police. Moreover, several journalists, including foreign correspondents, who were reporting on the demonstration, were taken into custody. They were released after their films and photographs had been confiscated.
Likewise, the Observatory recalls that since February 15, 2006, several trade union leaders remain arrested, including Mr. Mansour Osanloo, Chairperson of the Union of Workers at Sherkat e Vahed (Tehran Bus Company), and Messrs. Mansour Haiat Gaibi and Yesseff Moradi, Executive Committee members and union officials. The Observatory calls upon the Iranian authorities to release immediately these persons, in the absence of any valid charges against them.
The Observatory calls upon the Iranian authorities to comply with the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1998, in particular its article 1, which states that “everyone has the right, individually or in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international level”, and article 12.2, providing that “the State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually or in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration”.
For more information, please contact : FIDH: 00 33 1 43 55 25 18 - OMCT: 00 41 22 809 49 39