UN Body Calls for Immediate Release of Bahareh Hedayat // New Report: Inside the Women’s Ward
Imprisonment of
Prominent Women and Human Rights Defender Is Against International Law, Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention Rules
Bahareh Hedayat is a human rights activist
who has spent over six years in an Iranian prison for "insulting"
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and for
"actions against national security, propagation of falsehoods, mutiny and
illegal congregation." Hedayat is the longest serving female prisoner of
conscience in Iran.
New
Report: Inside the Women’s Ward: Mistreatment of Women Political Prisoners at
Iran’s Evin Prison
Iran’s Judiciary Evades Responsibility for Lashing Sentences against Striking Miners
June 14, 2016—The United Nation’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has issued an opinion on the case of the Iranian women’s rights activist and human rights defender, Bahareh Hedayat, demanding her immediate release. The opinion ruled Hedayat’s imprisonment since 2009 is arbitrary and against international law.
WGAD’s consideration
and ruling of Hedayat’s case, adopted on April, 19, 2016 and released on May
26, 2016, comes in response to a submission to the WGAD by the
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Hedayat was given a
brief furlough (temporary leave) from Evin Prison’s Women’s Ward on June 7,
2016, but was returned to prison less than a week later on June 13. The
Campaign calls for her immediate release in light of the WGAD ruling.
“It is high time for
this injustice to end. After almost seven years of unlawful imprisonment, the
Iranian authorities should release her immediately,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the
Campaign’s executive director. The WGAD opinion noted
that the Judicial proceedings against Hedayat were riddled with breaches of due
process and international law.
“The deprivation of
liberty of Bahareh Hedayat was arbitrary, being in contravention of articles 9,
10, 11, 19 and 20 of the UDHR [the Universal Declaration of Human Rights] and
articles 9, 10, 14, 19 and 21 of the ICCPR [the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights], and falls within categories I, II and III of the
categories applicable to the consideration of cases submitted to the Working
Group,” it stated.
WGAD also expressed
serious concern for Hedayat’s health, stating: “… the Working Group wishes
to record its grave concern about Ms. Hedayat’s deteriorating health since
her detention in December 2009, particularly the allegations made by the source
that she has not been provided with adequate medical care and that this may
result in irreparable harm to her health and leave her permanently sterile.”
The WGAD ruling
concludes by calling for her immediate release: “Taking into account all
the circumstances of the case, especially the risk of irreparable harm to
Ms. Hedayat’s health and physical integrity, the Working Group considers
that the adequate remedy would be to release Ms. Hedayat immediately, and
accord her an enforceable.” WGAD also noted that
it communicated its concerns to the Government of Iran and requested it
response, but the Government of Iran did not provide a reply within the
standard response time required.
Agents of the Ministry
of Intelligence arrested Hedayat on December 30, 2009. On May 5, 2010, Branch
28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced Hedayat to a total of 7.5
years of imprisonment for the following three charges:
- Six months of imprisonment for “insulting
the President,”
- Two years of imprisonment for “insulting
the Leader,” and
- Five years of imprisonment for “acting against national security and publishing falsehoods.”
In July 2010, the
Appeals Court upheld Hedayat’s sentence. According to Article 134 of the
Iranian Penal Code, a prisoner sentenced under multiple charges should serve no
more than the maximum sentence for the charge carrying the heaviest sentence.
In Hedayat’s case, the application of Article 134 meant that she should
be released after five years relating to her charge of “acting against national
security and publishing falsehoods.”
Accordingly, on August
12, 2015, the Appeals Court issued a release order for Hedayat. Yet she was
never released and the judicial authorities insisted on imprisoning her for
another two years, claiming that she should serve a suspended sentence of two
years issued against her in May 2007. According to Iranian law, this suspended
sentence expired in 2012 under a five-year statute of limitation. Hedayat is held at
Evin Prison’s Women’s Ward, which is used exclusively for political prisoners
and prisoners of conscience.
The Campaign will be
publishing an in-depth report on this ward next week, titled Inside the Women’s Ward: Mistreatment of Women Political Prisoners at Iran’s Evin Prison. The report, based on exclusive and detailed first hand
testimonies, reveals the inhumane and unlawful conditions the women political
prisoners suffer there. “Iran must cease
criminalizing peaceful dissent. It can begin with the immediate release, after
almost seven years behind bars, of the unjustly imprisoned human rights
defender Bahareh Hedayat,” said Hadi Ghaemi.
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