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Iran’s arbitrary arrests of thousands of men and women in recent weeks under the banner of “countering immoral behavior” threaten basic rights to privacy, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called for the immediate release of all those detained as part of this campaign, including more than 80 people seized in a raid on a private gathering in the city of Esfahan on May 10, 2007. In Iran, the walls of homes are transparent and the halls of justice are opaque.

This ‘morality’ campaign shows how fragile respect for privacy and personal dignity is in Iran today. “In Iran, the walls of homes are transparent and the halls of justice are opaque,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch. “This ‘morality’ campaign shows how fragile respect for privacy and personal dignity is in Iran today.” Since early April 2007, Iranian police and militia known as basiji have launched a nationwide crackdown against people they accuse of deviating from official standards of dress or behavior. On April 14, Iran’s Supreme Court overturned murder sentences against six basiji who had killed five people in 2002 whom they considered “morally corrupt,” contributing to a climate of impunity for the militia forces. Ismail Ahmadi Moghadam, Iran’s chief of police, told the semi-official Mehr News Agency on April 25 that “law enforcement agents detained 150,000 people” during the campaign and forced the majority of them to sign ”commitment letters,” to observe official dress codes before being released. According to Moghadam, the police referred 86 people to the judiciary for prosecution. On May 13, Mahmoud Botshekan, the police chief for airport security, told the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency that his agents had stopped and interrogated more than 17,000 people at Iranian airports during the past month. He said that his agents detained 850 women, releasing them only after they signed “commitment letters.” Another 130 people are being prosecuted by the judiciary, he said. A witness to the raid in Esfahan told Human Rights Watch that, around 10 p.m. on May 10, police and basiji raided a private birthday party in an apartment building in the city. They reportedly arrested 87 persons, including four women and at least eight people who were accused of wearing the clothes of the opposite sex. The police and basiji agents led those arrested to the street, stripped many to the waist, and beat them until their backs and faces were bloody. Several reportedly suffered broken bones. The authorities reportedly released the four women the next day, along with a child. While additional detainees have reportedly been released, an undetermined number remain in custody. A judge told family members that all those held will be charged with consumption of alcohol and hamjensgarai (homosexual conduct). Family members have apparently not been allowed to see those detained, and they have been denied lawyers. “When the authorities break doors and bones in the name of morality, the rule of law is reduced to a mockery,” said Stork.

Radio Farda is reporting on its website that its broadcaster Nazi Azima appeared in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court today and was freed on bail.  The court’s review of the case is scheduled to continue on May 20. Azima’s passport was confiscated upon her arrival at Tehran airport in February to visit her ailing mother. She holds U.S. as well as Iranian citizenship. Azima is a broadcaster with Radio Farda, the Persian-language service run jointly by RFE/RL and Voice of America. RFE/RL President Jeffrey Gedmin has called on the Iranian authorities to allow Azima to leave “without further delay.”

Iran on Wednesday punctured any expectations talks with the United States over Iraq would mark a breakthrough between the two foes, saying its policy of not negotiating with Washington was unchanged. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would merely use the talks with US diplomats over Iraq to remind Washington of its “occupiers’ duty” in the conflict-torn country.

 

“The Iranian foreign ministry, at the request of Iraq, decided to participate in face-to-face talks with the United States and remind them of their duties and responsibilities over the security of Iraq,” he said. “They (the United States) made a written request for these talks and said they will not discuss any other issues except Iraq,” Khamenei said in remarks broadcast on state television. “And we tell them: even the Iraqi issue does not concern you and talks are only over the occupiers’ duty about the security of Iraq,” he added. Officials in Tehran and Washington said earlier this week the two arch foes would hold talks in the next few weeks, most likely in Baghdad at ambassador level, over security in Iraq. The United States insisted on Monday that the planned talks did not presage a retreat from a near three-decade-old US policy to isolate the Islamic republic, with White House spokesman Tony Snow saying the contacts will be “about Iraq and only Iraq.” US-Iranian relations have been frozen since 1980 after radical students stormed the US embassy in Tehran in the wake of the country’s Islamic revolution and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days. Iran’s leaders have repeatedly said they are ready to talk to the United States but only if Washington changes its position towards the Islamic republic, which it accuses of sponsoring terrorism. “The Islamic republic’s policy in not negotiating with the United States remains, as long as the policies of this arrogant government have not changed,” Khamenei said. He also rounded on “elements” within Iran who believed that change was in the air over US-Iranian relations. “If some elements inside the country think the Islamic republic has changed its policy of not talking to the United States, they are gravely mistaken,” he said. Khamenei’s downbeat assessment came after criticism from conservatives of the decision to hold the discussions, which the editor of the hardline daily Kayhan likened to “dancing with wolves and shaking hands with the devil.” Some moderates had expressed hope the contacts could result in a warming of ties and a small group of deputies in the Iranian parliament has even been canvassing support to set up an Iran-US friendship group. Two weeks ago hopes were dashed that Iran and the United States would hold substantive contacts at a conference on Iraq’s security in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. At that meeting, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki barely exchanged pleasantries with US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice while a lower-level encounter between high-ranking diplomats lasted just minutes. Ties remain bedevliled by Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, as well as Iraq, where the United States accuses the Islamic republic of aiding militant Shiite groups and attacking US forces.Strains have also intensified in recent months over the arrest by the United States of seven Iranians accused of being operatives of the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Qods Brigade intent on stirring trouble in Iraq.

Source: AFP