News

18 Jailed dissidents at Raja’i Shahr Prison of Karaj wrote an open letter on March 21, protesting the exile of political prisoners and opening new cases against them.

The letter, a copy of which was sent to Iran Human Rights Monitor, states: “during the last months, despite all the claims by the highest judiciary authorities about complying with the rights of the political prisoner, what is really happening on daily basis, not only is not a bit of improvement but also they have intensified suppression by making the prisoners conditions even more inhumane.

Their aim is to intimidate people of Iran and political activists to comply with their suppressive policies by making their conditions at prison even worse.

They put pressure on the prisoners and harass their family by transferring them to solitary confinement, offending and humiliating, beating, opening new cases against them and issuing new sentences, exiling them to far away prisons. These suppressive measures and harassments have increased during the last few months.

Iranians began their New Year today on March 20. Mothers of political prisoners and executed political prisoners celebrated the New Year near prisons or by the side of their children’s tombs.

Farangis Mazloum, mother of political prisoner Soheil Arabi, and mother of political prisoner Arsham Rezaii, celebrated the New Year near Gohardasht Prison in Karaj. Mrs. Mazloum said they were not allowed to set-up their Haft-seen near the prison, so they had to do it a little farther.

Farangis Mazloum congratulated all Iranians in Iran and abroad and expressed her wish that the upcoming year be the year of Iran’s freedom. She said, “I hope that next year, we would all be together, and all Iranians could live together in happiness and freedom.”

The IRGC forces opened fire on a car on Saturday, killing a child and wonding a woman.

The minor who was killed in Rask Country, southeast Iran, was identified as Younes Yazdanshenas. The woman who is the minor’s aunt, has been identified as Nour Bibi.

According to the Baloch Campaign website, the two were going for medical errands when the police opened fire on them after they passed a checkpoint. The report said that both were transferred to the Chabahar hospital but Younes died due to the severity of his wounds and blood loss.

There are almost daily reports of IRGC and security forces opening fire with impunity, injuring and killing innocent locals in the southeastern cities of Iran.

Last week, police opened fire on Baluch citizens on March 7 and March 8 in the southeastern cities of Minab and Mirjaveh.

Political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared has been abruptly transferred from the women’s ward of Evin Prison to the Prison of Semnan.

Reports from the women’s ward of Evin Prison indicate that her cellmates intervened to prevent her relocation. But prison guards violently broke into the ward and forcibly took her out.

Maryam Akbari Monfared has been in prison since December 2009 without a single day of furlough. She has been deprived of access to medical treatment.

She has already served nearly 11 years in prison and should have been eligible for release since two years ago.

A Revolutionary Court in Iran has sentenced four followers of the Baha’i faith to a total of 12 years in prison.

The 28th Branch of the Tehran Revolutionary Court has sentenced Mona Mehrabi, Elham Kerempisheh, Afsaneh Yadegar Ardestani and Ehsanollah Yadegar Ardestani to a total of 12 years of prison.

The four men and women were tried in absentia in 2019 and sentenced to a total of 20 years. The sentence was later reduced to 3 years of prison for each person.

The four Bahai citizens were charged with “membership in illegal organizations which are threats to national security.”

Following the major protests over the killing of fuel carriers in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, many protesters have been brutally beaten and detained.
In the past days at least four people were beaten and detained in Iranshahr by Intelligence police. In Shuru, a village near Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchestan, another three citizens were detained.
Due to the internet blackout, the exact number of protesters killed, wounded or detained is not yet known.
The Baluch Activists Campaign wrote in a report: “Iranshahr intelligence officers on February 26, shot at protesters and arrested at least four people after beating them. On the same day, at least three protesters in Shuro of Zahedan city were arrested by anti-riot forces.

At least two Baluch protesters, including a 13-year-old child, were shot and killed today by the IRGC forces in the Qaleh Bid Base during protests in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan Province.
Hassan Mohammadzehi, 13 and Mohammad Saleh Motaghedi were shot and killed during the protests on Wednesday, two days after dozens of ‘fuel carriers’ were were killed and wounded in the southeastern province.
On February 22, several of the Baluch locals who carry fuel across the border gathered outside the IRGC base to protest the blocking of the border, demanding that it be reopened. The IRGC has dug large holes on the border to prevent Baluch fuel carriers from crossing. The IRGC responded with bullets killing at least 40 protesters and woundening more than 100 defenseless protesters, according to social media reports and videos.

Iranian security forces fired tear gas on Tuesday to disperse demonstrators gathered in the south-eastern city of Saravan, and there was a heavy presence of forces in the city.

Videos posted on social media from inside Iran showed the state security forces using tear gas and bullets to disperse angry locals who are protesting the killing of Baluch “fuel carries” by the IRGC.

Witnesses in Saravan said there had been several arrests in the city, which is in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province.
Clashes ensued between locals and security forces. Security forces attacked protesters with tear gas and pellet guns on the streets of Saravan. Although several protesters were injured, there are still no reports on the exact number of people who were injured as the protests are ongoing.