Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is greeted by supporters after arriving at the airport in Tehran, 1 Feb 1979. ©AP/PA Photo
Looking back, Anne Burley, who led Amnesty International’s work on Iran from before the Revolution until the 1980s, described how opponents of the last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, would come to protest and seek action against human rights violations committed under his rule.
This group included some who no longer gave attention to human rights after the Shah was ousted and the new authorities began to commit grave abuses.
But some of those we have spoken to are long standing activists, people who helped Amnesty International in 1979 and who later faced flight or persecution for their human rights activities.
For example, prominent lawyers Karim Lahiji and Hedayatollah Matine Daftary were co-founders of the Association of Iranian Jurists in 1978. In the months before the Revolution, the association issued hundreds of statements criticising unfair trials in the Shah’s military courts, and worked to try and ensure reforms so that the judiciary should become independent and come to merit respect. They helped Amnesty International’s work but to no avail – the Revolution, when it came, failed to bring judicial reform. Thirty years later, the courts are still insufficiently independent and fail to operate in accordance with international standards on fair trial.
Hedayatollah recalled that flagrant human rights abuses took place in the months after the February 1979 Revolution amid a climate of utter lawlessness. Once, he came upon a trial over which a member of the interim government who had no legal training was presiding, which resulted in the execution of a the former Shah’s military commander.
Karim said that the Association of Iranian Jurists had been able to continue issuing statements until about May 1981, when they published an assessment of Iran’s new Penal Code, decrying the use of flogging and amputation, and the concept of retribution, or qesas, which includes a form of execution. However, Ayatollah Khomeini declared that those who opposed the new criminal code, with its Islamic basis, were denouncing Islam itself - and must be considered beyond Islam. This was tantamount to declaring critics of the Penal Code to be unbelievers whose blood could be legitimately shed.
Following this, Karim went into hiding for 10 months before fleeing across the mountains to Turkey, then on to Paris. Meanwhile, his colleague Reza Damghani was detained and imprisoned for eight years; he died hortly after his release. In Paris, Karim founded the Iranian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LDDHI) and has continued to speaking out against violations in Iran ever since.
Today, 30 years after the Revolution, the human rights situation in Iran remains dire, despite the growing demands for reform by the country’s human rights defenders and others. Students, members of Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities, women’s rights activists, manual labourers, journalists, writers and even a growing number of state officials like teachers and judges want to be able to speak out about injustices they witness, without fearing they would face arrest or torture.
Thank you Amnesty International for this timely initiative. Iran needs human rights and democracy. Middle East needs a democratic and socially just Iran.
There is no comparison of Democracy. You are really enlightening the people about true human values.
As Christ has said “O man, Ye are the temple of living GOD. Repent, KIngdom of GOD is within you”
We should treat everyone with equality and justice.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND ISLAM HAVE NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN COMMON. WHILE EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT, NOBODY IS WILLING TO TALK ABOUT IT. ESPECIALLY THOSE THAT VALUE THEIR LIVES.
ISLAMISTS’ RECENT ALLIES, THE LEFTIST EXTREMISTS AND THEIR DANGEROUS COHORTS, DEVELOPED A VERY STRANGE DEFINITION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (MAINLY AFTER THE IMPLOSION OF SOVIET RUSSIA, MAO’S CHINA, ETC): WHATEVER IS PART OF THEIR TOTALITARIAN AGENDA, IT’S PERFECTLY OK; WHATEVER IS NOT, MOST CERTAINLY IS NOT AT ALL OK. END OF PRESENTATION.
THIS EXPLAINS CLEARLY THE REASON FOR THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN LEFTISTS AND ISLAMISTS THAT RESULTED IN THE CREATION OF THE NOTORIOUS “AXIS OF HATE”. IRAN IS TODAY ONE OF THE MOST PROMINENT MEMBER OF THIS AXIS. TALKING ABOUT DEMOCRACY IN THIS CONTEXT IS A NON SEQUITUR OF THE FIRST MAGNITUDE. AND IT WILL ALWAYS BE, AS LONG AS IRANIANS LIVE UNDER THE SHOES OF THE AYATOLLAHS AND OTHER TURBANED “SAGES”.
I would like to know if you are taking action in defence of Shirin Ebady
Thank you for the review of human rights in the 30th anniversary of Islamic republic of Iran.
One thing that I should add to your comments is that in Islamic theocracy looking for human rights and respect for human is vain and goes nowhere. Theocracy at heart is against human rights; they believe in god/allah rights over human and they try to preserve that. Human and its rights is worthless here.
But we don’t have any other way to defend our rights, so we have to utilize our resources to push them to use civil laws instead of Sharia laws.
با سلام و عرض ادب امیدوارم سال جدید به کامتان باد و در سال پیش رو شاهد
آزادی بشریت از قید و بندهای حاکمان ظالم رها و تحت یک اندیشه انسانی
مبتنی بر احترام متقابل در کنار هم با مسالمت و درک متقابل جریان یابد.
و اما یک مشکل که که متوجه شخص خانواده ماست را به اطلاع میرسانم : آقای
مهدی قاسمزاده زندانی عقیدتی که در زندان ارومیه از سال 83 زندانی بود
روز دهم اسفند ماه 87 اعدام شدند و این در حالی صورت گرفته که هیچ اطلاعی
از طرف مسئولین ذیرط به خانواده مان جهت دیدار با آن عزیز داده نشد و پس
از اعدام هم از تحویل پیکر ایشان و حتی نشان دادن آن به خانواده اش امتنا
شد و موقع حضور خانواده مان در نیروی انتظامی ارومیه به فرماندهی سرهنگ
پور علیزاده اقدام به گذاشتن شیرینی و آب میوه به جلو پدر این شهید راه
آزادی نمودند میخواستم این مطالب را به اطلاع ملت برسانید تا شاید از
خواب سنگین مقداری هوشیار و بیدار شویم خواهش میکنیم این مطلب را به عنوان سندی بر ظلم و ظالمی مسئولین بر اقلیتها انتشار دهید.اماده دادن اطلاعات بیشتر در این خصوص هستم.حق نگهدارتان باد
I BELIEVE THAT THE “COMMENTS” POSTED BY ONE “H.R.M.” SHOULD BE FORTHWITH REMOVED SINCE THIS IS AN ENGLISH SITE AND NOT AN ARABIC ONE. MAYBE IT IS WRONG TO EXPECT A MIMIMUM OF DIGNITY FROM PEOPLE LIKE H.R.M. BUT WE MUST PRESERVE OUR OWN, IN SPITE OF SUCH ELEMENTS TRYING TO POLUTE OUR ENVIRONMENT. THE FINAL DECISION IS WITH LIVEWIRE!
Firstly, this is not an English site, it is currently in English and Spanish and further languages will be introduced. Secondly, hrm’s comment is in Farsi/Persian, not Arabic, and s/he can post in any language s/he likes as long as it’s not offensive, which it isn’t.
I may be naive… but this is not the feeling I got in Iran… I had the great honor to be introduced to President Ahmadinejad and found him to be mild mannered, friendly and very witty. I would never have thought that this kind of thigs were happening in one of my most favorite countries in the world. Go figure… I have to look into this!
@ Crystal, feelings as a tourist/guest is way different than when you live in a society and injustice touches every aspect of your life then you would come to understanding about reality in the society. Also I am sure 1-2 percent ruling class in Iran denies human rights abuse in Iran, well, you guessed it, they are ruling class.