Authorities Should Investigate Allegations of Abuse
(Washington, DC, April 10, 2008) – Iranian
authorities should immediately investigate allegations that Ministry of
Information agents and interrogators tortured four detained student activists,
and punish officials involved in such abuse, Human Rights Watch said today.
According to sources familiar with the case, the students have suffered physical
and psychological abuse during detention. Three students remain imprisoned, and
the whereabouts of the fourth detainee, taken from his hospital bed on April 5,
are unknown.
Iranian authorities accuse the four students of
taking part in "armed activities" and "forming groups against the state."
Lawyers representing the students have not had access to their clients or their
files. Human Rights Watch is concerned that authorities may have detained the
students merely for exercising their rights to peacefully gather and express
dissent.
"Iran should either charge these students with a
crime, or release them," said Joe Stork, Middle East director at Human Rights
Watch. "Officials must investigate the reports of torture and punish anyone it
finds responsible."
The four detainees, Behrooz Karimizadeh, Peyman
Piran, Ali Kantouri, and Majid Pourmajid, are activists with the organization
Students Seeking Freedom and Equality. The group states that it seeks to
peacefully resist various forms of inequality and exploitation. The group has
branches and members on university campuses throughout Iran. Since December
2007, Iranian authorities have arrested over 40 students affiliated with the
group. All but the four mentioned above are free; some of the students released
alleged that their interrogators tortured and ill-treated them while in
detention.
The arrests appear to have been triggered by
demonstrations planned on several campuses to commemorate Students Day on
December 7, 2007. Known by the date according to the Iranian calendar, 16 of
Azar, Students Day observes the day in 1953 when police fatally shot three
student protesters at the University of Tehran. The authorities began targeting
members of the Students Seeking Freedom and Equality a few days before the
planned events and continued to harass key members for months afterwards. The
crackdown appears to be focused on the Students Seeking Freedom and Equality.
On December 2, 2007, Ministry of Information
agents arrested Behrooz Karimizadeh, 22, at the home of a friend in Tehran. Two
days later, plainclothes agents from that ministry arrested Peyman Piran, as he
was leaving Tehran University following peaceful student demonstrations on
campus. Authorities are holding the pair in Units 209 and 305, respectively, in
Evin prison in Tehran. Information received by Human Rights Watch suggests the
authorities are subjecting the detainees to long periods of solitary confinement
and various forms of physical and psychological ill-treatment.
Approximately two weeks after the arrests of
Karimizadeh and Piran, Ministry of Information agents arrested Ali Kantouri,
also an activist with Students Seeking Freedom and Equality, in the town of
Ghazvin, northwest of Tehran. Authorities transferred him to Ghezel Hesare, a
prison located near the city of Karaj in Tehran province.
Court officials refused to set bail for Kantouri
and set prohibitively high bails for Piran and Karimizadeh (nearly US$300,000
for Karimizadeh).
On March 29, 2008, Ministry of Information agents
arrested Majid Pourmajid in the northwestern city of Tabriz and hospitalized him
on April 2, 2008. Three days later, authorities transferred him from the
hospital to an unknown location.
For more Human Rights Watch reporting on
abuses against students detained in Iran, please visit:
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