Skip to main content
Iranian Politician to Inspect Conditions on Political Prisoners in Pr Stunt by the Regime26 January 2018

Iran Focus
London, 26 Jan - A group of Iranian politicians plan to visit the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, on Sunday, January 28, to inspect the conditions that dozens of political prisoners are living under, but we shouldn’t expect this to be anything more than a PR exercise on behalf of the Regime.
Allahyar Alishahi, the head of the parliamentary judiciary commission, announced the visit in the wake of calls for an investigation into five suspicious deaths in custody in January alone, as well as reports of mistreatment and torture of other political prisoners.
The bodies of the five prisoners, who were accused of being drug addicts that committed suicide, showed signs of torture. They were among 8,000 arrested during the nationwide anti-regime protests and prior to their deaths, at least one prisoner reported being made to swallow pills.
However, Iranian activists doubt that the visit will change anything.
Mahdieh Golrou, who was imprisoned in Evin Prison for over two years because of her activism during the 2009 protests, tweeted: “Anytime anyone wanted to come for a visit [to prison], they would send the vocal people to the yard. After they were gone we would realize that they had visited our ward. What exactly do they want to look into? ... ”

The Iranian Regime has a long history of ignoring and covering up the mistreatment of political prisoners, who they charge under some sort of vague national security law, and routinely deny them access to a lawyer and a fair trial.

Even visits by independent investigators have often failed to shed light on abuses because of the Regime’s removal of vocal prisoners and their heavily-restricted tour which skips the worst areas.

Tara Sepehri Far at Human Rights Watch argues that the visiting Parliamentarians should ask for an unrestricted tour, to meet with prisoners away from the security forces, and create a list of at-risk prisoners, but this puts too much faith in the Regime’s politicians.

There are no moderates in the Iranian Regime and ultimately, this visit will do nothing to improve the rights of the political prisoners. The parliamentarians will not go against the security forces. They cannot be trusted to investigate this, any more than you would trust a criminal to investigate their own actions.

If the international community (including human rights groups) truly wants to help the political prisoners in Iran, they need to push for the unconditional release of the protesters and for unrestricted visits from independent international delegations (i.e. the UN, who have been banned from Iran since 2005). They should also push for an independent inquiry into human rights abuses in prisons.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Iran-Back Hezbollah Controls LebanonTerrorism

Iran-Back Hezbollah Controls LebanonTerrorism 21 February 2018 Iran Focus London, 21 Feb - In recent years, when the US has made statements against Iran-backed Hezbollah, they have often followed this up with support for the Lebanese army and security forces, but it is becoming increasingly clear that there is little, if any, distinction between the Lebanese state and the Iran-backed terrorist group. When US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Beirut, last Thursday, Hezbollah had created two new problems with Israel: a southern border wall and the debates over oil and gas extraction. This caused Tillerson to make the US position on Hezbollah very clear. Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation with no difference between its military and political wings. He advised that Hezbollah and Iran were creating tensions in the region in order to destabilise the Middle East. Iran seeks the destruction to distract others from its own problems, both domestic and international. It not only ta...

19 Million Dollar Scam in Tehran Sparks Protests19 June 2018

19 Million Dollar Scam in Tehran Sparks Protests19 June 2018 Iran Focus London, 19 Jun - In the Gisha area, a builder pre-sold several housing units that were under construction to several people simultaneously. After issuing a tracking code, the builder fled with over 80 billion tomans (approximately 19 million USD). On Monday, June 18th, a group of the betrayed home buyers staged a protest against the million-dollar scam of the Gisha housing construction in Tehran, Iran. A protester spoke about the details of this million-dollar fraud. “The housing maker, who at the same time has two real estate consultant offices in the Gisha area, was abusing access to the information system of the real estate sales by tampering the postal code contained in tracking code system, issued multiple letter of credits with official code tracking codes for various units and presold each unit at the same time to several individuals.” He added, “These plundered buyers trusted the letter of credits which ...

بعد جهد جهيد

دنيا الوطن 13/8/2017 بقلم: أمل علاوي طوال الاعوام الماضية حاول نظام الجمهورية الاسلامية الايرانية بصورة و أخرى تجاهل نشاطات و تحرکات المقاومة الايرانية في وسائل إعلامها و التصدي لها بطرق سرية يطغى عليها الطابع الاستخباري التجسسي، لکن التقدم الکبير الذي أحرزته المقاومة الايرانية خلال الاعوام الاخيرة بشکل خاص و الانتصارات و المکاسب السياسية الباهرة التي حققتها، ولاسيما إنفتاح العالمين العربي و الاسلامي عليها بعد أن نجحت في کسر کافة الحواجز التي وضعتها طهران أمامها، فإن الاخيرة لم تجد من مناص من الاعتراف العلني بنشاطات و تحرکات المقاومة الايرانية و التصدي لها بصورة مکشوفة. التجمعات السنوية العامة للمقاومة الايرانية و التي صارت بمثابة کابوس لطهران خصوصا وإنها صارت بمثابة أکبر تجمع سياسي ـ فکري إيراني ـ إقليمي ـ دولي يتناول الاوضاع في إيران عن کثب و يسلط الاضواء على الجرائم و المجازر و الانتهاکات التي يرتکبها النظام الايراني ضد الشعب الايراني و کذلك يتناول قضية تصدير التطرف الديني و الارهاب لدول المنطقة و التدخل في شٶونها، ويکشف کذب و زيف الشعارات التي يتمشدق بها هذا النظام فيما يتعلق ...