Nobel Winner’s Human Rights Center Banned by Iranian Government

Alert Issued: August 16, 2006

Iran’s Interior Ministry has banned the country’s leading human rights group, the Center for the Defense of Human Rights, headed by 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. This is an attempt to silence the Center’s criticisms of the state’s arbitrary detentions and murders.

In a statement to the international community, Ebadi wrote: "of course me and other members of the center do not intend to shut down the center and we shall continue our activities. However, there is a high possibility that they will arrest us. The government's action in this regard is illegal."

The Center provides free legal representation to prisoners of conscience, supports their families, and reports on human rights violations occurring in detention facilities. Therefore, closing down the Center will have serious repercussions for all human rights defenders in Iran.

Please join us in demanding that the Iranian government allow Iran’s most prominent human rights organization to continue working without hindrance in compliance with its own Constitution, the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, and international treaties to which Iran is a state party such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

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Iran’s government maintains a large amount of control over all political activity, including the work of nongovernmental organizations. According to the Political Parties Law of 1981, a group wishing to register itself must submit documentation to the Ministry of the Interior, which refers the request to a Political Parties Commission that decides whether to grant the group a license. This commission, created by Article 10 of the Political Parties Law, is composed of members of the conservative judiciary, parliament, and the Ministry. The commission does not have the power to order the closure of a political group, but can refer the case to a special court which can do so, under Article 168 of the Constitution.

Importantly, Article 12 of the law requires that the Interior Ministry issue the operating license if the Commission does not issue or deny a request for registration within three months. The Center for the Defense of Human Rights (named the Kanoon Modafean Hogooge Bashar), therefore, is not in violation of any law, since its submission for registration four years ago did not receive a reply from the commission.

In announcing the ban on the Center’s activities, a statement from the commission declared: “Since some individuals, under the guise of Kanoon Modafean Hogooge Bashar, have been initiating various activities that include the publication of statements and resolutions, press sessions, seminars and gatherings, petitions to authorities, institutions and various agencies inside and outside Iran, it is hereby announced that the charter and by laws of this group have not been approved by Committee for Article 10 of the Law on Party and Organization Activities. Therefore, any activity under the name of ‘Kanoon-e Modafean Hogoog Bashar’ is illegal and violators will be prosecuted accordingly.”

Other political groups, such as the Freedom Movement of Iran, the Iran Nation Party and the National Front, have experienced similar difficulties under this law. The Freedom Movement, for example, requested to register as a political party in 1982, but was denied ten years later in 1992, without any reason being given. The group brought a suit against the commission before a civil court, which refused to rule on the decision.

The Center for the Defense of Human Rights is led by Shirin Ebadi, a former head of the Tehran City Court from 1975 until 1979, when women were banned from the post. Recipient of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, Ms. Ebadi has worked extensively in defending the rights of women and children in Iran. The Center’s members are some of the most prominent lawyers in Iran, including Dr. Mohammad Seyfzadeh, Dr. Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, and Dr. Mohammad Sharif.

The Center’s members, though under threat of arrest themselves, have represented approximately 500 cases, in addition to organizing human rights training seminars for journalists, and coordinating awareness-raising initiatives in Iran. It represents the large majority of all political prisoners in Iran, including students arrested in mass protests of 1999, web bloggers, and those intellectuals murdered by government agents in episodes known as “serial killings.”

Ironically, the Center has also had to defend its own members who have also been arbitrarily detained for their work, such as Dr. Nasser Zarafshan, attorney for the families of the serial political killings. One of the Center’s founders, Abdolfattah Soltani, remains in prison after publicly accusing the judiciary of a cover-up in the death in custody of Canadian-Iranian photographer Zahra Kazemi, who was beaten to death in 2003 by government agents.

The Center is the only member of the International Federation of Human Rights to not be recognized by its own government, and has been honored by the National Human Rights Commission of France.

Sample Letter

His Excellency
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Head of the Judiciary
Ministry of Justice
Park-Shahr, Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran

Your Excellency,

I am deeply concerned about your Interior Ministry’s recent decision to ban the work of the Kanoon Modaefan Hogooge Bashar, led by Nobel Peace Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi. I understand that the members of this organization have been threatened with arrest, should they continue their invaluable human rights work.

I am alarmed by this decision of the Ministry, four years after failing to respond to the Center for the Defense of Human Right’s request for registration. Under Article 12 of the Political Parties Law of 1981, the Political Parties Commission is required to respond to such requests within three months of receiving them. In the absence of any response, the Ministry of the Interior is legally obliged to issue a license to the Center.

The refusal of the Ministry to issue this license suggests that this illegal ban, like the arbitrary detention of Nasser Zarafshan and Abdolfattah Soltani, is an attempt to prevent human rights defenders from reporting and protesting violations of human rights violations in Iran. Kanoone Modaefan Hogooge Bashar is one of the most important human rights organizations in Iran, and its work is critical to ensure the protection of the basic rights of the Iranian people.

Any arrests of individuals who are trying to inform the public about human rights or human rights abuses are direct violations of the 1998 UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, under which all persons have the right "freely to publish, impart or disseminate to others views, information and knowledge on all human rights and fundamental freedoms."  Other international and regional instruments that are binding on the government of Iran, like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, similarly prohibit the persecution of peaceful critics of the Iranian government.

I demand, therefore, an immediate withdrawal of the ban on the Center for the Defense of Human Rights, and the release of Abdolfattah Soltani and all other human rights defenders.

I will continue to monitor this and other similar cases closely. I appreciate your attention to this most serious matter.

cc.

Ambassador Mohammad Javad Zarif
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the U.N.
622 Third Ave. New York, NY 10017