After students of the Razi University in Kermanshah protested the presence of the former Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Safar Harandi on Student Day, the Kermanshah Revolutionary Court sentenced a number of students in this university to heavy suspended prison terms.

Last December after these protests, a number of these students were arrested and interrogated by the Revolutionary Guards Forces Intelligence Department.

Mohammad-Reza Qanbari, Niosha Khazayi, Shima Banafshi, Sajad Hayati and Atefeh Zamani were each sentenced to six months of prison which is suspended for five years. Student activist Ashkan Mosibian who was suspended from university for two semesters and was sentenced to a fine of 0.5 million tomans by the University Disciplinary Council, was sentenced to 91 days of prison suspended for 5 years. The sentence for another student activist, Aptin Pegah, who also had a two semester suspension, has still not been issued because he has another outstanding case in court. (Daneshju News – Aug. 17, 2011)

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Reporters Without Borders condemns the increase in repression in recent weeks in Iran. One of the latest victims is the blogger Kouhyar Goudarzi, who has been detained since 1 August, the day that Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, arrived in Tehran to begin a fact-finding visit. Goudarzi’s mother was arrested the next day in the southestern city of Kerman.

Goudarzi is being held incommunicado. The reason for his arrest has still not been revealed and the judicial authorities have released no information about his current place of detention. His lawyer, Mina Jafari, said she is very concerned about his fate. Goudarzi was already imprisoned in 2010.

The arrest of his mother, Parvin Mokhtare, was carried out by four individuals in plain clothes who forcibly entered her home and took her to the main prison in Kerman.

Reporters Without Borders points out that arbitrarily arresting and holding a political prisoner incommunicado is regard as enforced disappearance by the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Article 2 of this convention bans “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the state or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the state, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.”

This is nonetheless a widespread and systematic practice by the authorities in Iran.

Pro-government newspapers have carried disturbing reports about the health of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the owner of the closed newspaper Kalameh Sabaz, who has been under house arrest since 25 February. Despite reassuring statements by certain family members, the conditions in which Mousavi and his wife, the successful writer and intellectual Zahra Rahnavard, are being held continue to be worrying.

The same applies to Mehdi Karoubi, the owner of the closed newspaper Etemad Melli, and his wife Fatemeh Karoubi, the editor of the closed magazine Iran Dokhte. Both couples have been under house arrest for the past six months, stripped of all their rights and without any contact with the outside world.

Reporters Without Borders supports a petition signed by around 100 leading Iranian figures that urges the international community to press for the immediate release of Mousavi and Karoubi and their wives. The press freedom organization is very worried about their state of health and calls on the government to end this situation.

The outspoken blogger Mehdi Khazali was meanwhile freed on 12 August after being held for more than three weeks, his third spell in detention in the past two years. He was arrested on 18 July after responding to a summons from the intelligence ministry in Tehran. The last time was he was arrested, on 13 October 2010, he was held for a month before being released on bail of 200 million tomans (150,000 euros).

Khazali is the son of Ayatollah Abolghasem Khazali, an influential member of the Council of Guardians of the Iranian Constitution for the past three decades. Despite his frequent run-ins with the authorities, he is very scathing about the government’s policies and human rights violations in his blog Baran.

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HRANA News Agency – After 29 days of hunger strike, the Kurdish prisoner Farshad Kamangar has been hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital in the city of Bijar. He is in extremely critical condition.

According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Farshad Kamangar has been behind bars in Kermanshah, Marivan and Bijar prisons for two years on alleged financial crimes. Although Farshad Kamangar has served his full prison sentence, he remains behind bars because he is unable to pay a fine to the Iranian government.

Since his hunger strike began 29 days ago, prison officials have ignored Farshad Kamangar’s requests and have failed to take any actions to address his concerns. Early this morning, August 23, 2011, while Farshad Kamangar’s family was heading to Tehran to file an appeal with the Supreme Court, prison authorities informed them that Farshad had been taken to the intensive care in extremely critical condition. Hospital officials have not given Farshad Kamangar’s family the permission to see him while he is in ICU and have said that he is in “grave condition.”

Farshad Kamangar’s family members have asked various government and hospital officials for the permission to see him but have been denied a visit every time. Dayeh Saltaneh is Farshad Kamangar’s elderly mother who has now fallen ill due to excessive pressure and concerns for her son’s life.

Farshad Kamangar and Hassan Akhtar Samand together with two other prisoners were transferred from Marivan to Bijar Prison on July 25, 2011. They began their hunger strike upon their arrival in protest to being exiled to Bijar. Hassan Akhtar Samand is a political prisoner.

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Rahana – Even though more than 20 days have gone by since the arrest of Kouhyar Goudarzi, there is still no information about his whereabouts.

Kouhyar Goudarzi, who was arrested on July 31st in Tehran, has not made any contact with his family since his arrest. The day after Kouhyar’s arrest, his mother was arrested at her home in Kerman and she is also being held behind bars.

According to Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHHR), there is no news about the condition or whereabouts of Kouhyar Goudarzi even though civil rights laws and regulations state that immediately after being arrested, the accused must be allowed to contact his/her family and let them know where he/she is being held.

Some unofficial sources have said that Kouhyar is being held in solitary confinement at the Intelligence Ministry detention center. On the other hand no official government entity has accepted any responsibility or acknowledged any awareness of Kouhyar’s arrest.

Previously on December 20, 2009, military officials arrested Kouhyar Goudarzi as he was on his way to the city of Ghom to take part in the funeral of the late Ayatollah Montazeri. Later the Revolutionary Court sentenced him to one year in prison and he was released on December 2010 after serving his sentence behind bars.

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Rahana – Abolfazl(Pouria) Shahpari, Zoroastrian citizen and member of the Iran Zoroastrian Committee, has been summoned to Evin Prison in order to serve his 2.5 year prison sentence.

In February of 2009, Pouria Shahpari was arrested along with his brother Dariush Shahpari by the Intelligence Ministry. They were transferred to Ward 240 of Evin Prison.

According to the Human Rights House of Iran,his charges included anti-regime propaganda, gathering and conspiracy, insulting the Supreme Leader, membership in the Iran Zoroastrian Committee, and blasphemy by propaganda for Zoroastrianism.

He was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison and 74 lashes. The appeals court upheld the sentence.

He has been transferred to Evin Prison in order to serve his sentence. His brother in law, Mohsen(Bahman) Sadeghi- Nour is currently held in Ward 350 of Evin prison and the execution branch of Evin Prison has told him that the prison sentence will be carried out for his brother Mohammad Javad(Dariush) Shahpari in the next a few days.

His mother had a heart attack in 2009 after the raid on her house and the arrest of her family members including her husband Abbas Shahpari, her sons Pouria, Jafar and Dariush and her only daughter Negar Shahpari along with her son in law Bahman Sadeghipour.

Mohsen Sadeghipor is the founder of Iran Zoroastrian Committee and was transferred to prison in July in order to serve his 4.5 year prison sentence.

Furthermore, Mojtaba Ahmadi, Mohsen’s cousin, who has been sentenced to 6 years in prison is serving his sentence since May of 2010 without furlough and prison visits. Ahmadi has been sentenced to 3 years in prison for blasphemy and 3 years of imprisonment for gathering, conspiracy and engaging in propaganda which adds up to a total of 6 years.

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