Country of origin information report Iran January 2010



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Student unrest
3.15 The June 2004 Human Rights Watch Report, ‘Like the Dead in Their Coffins’ observed that:
“The current pressure for democratic reform in Iran changed dramatically after the student protests at Tehran University in 1999, protests that marked the beginning of the contemporary student movement. The protests began over the closure of the well known newspaper Salam. Black-clad thugs attacked the students, beating many and killing at least one student. President Khatami called for an investigation and trial of those responsible, but no convictions were ever returned. Every year on the anniversary of the 1999 event, students have gathered at Tehran University and other major campuses throughout the country. The date has been a flashpoint for violence and tension, and as recently as July 2003 the authorities have tried to keep large crowds from gathering at the university campus in Tehran.” [8j] (p32)
3.16 The Amnesty International report, Fear for Safety/Fear of Ill Torture or Ill-Treatment, 26 June 2003, stated:
“On 11 June [2003], around 80 students living in student dormitories in the Amir Abad area of Tehran demonstrated against draft proposals to privatize universities in Iran. They were joined by local residents and the demonstration reportedly escalated and became increasingly politicized, with slogans being chanted against political leaders. Militant supporters of religious leaders opposed to social reform began to attack the demonstrators and police rapidly intervened to end the clashes. As the demonstrations grew over the following nights, Tehran's Special Forces (Nirou-ye Vijeh) were deployed to disperse demonstrators. There were reports, however, that the Special Forces permitted some militants to attack peaceful demonstrators and that in certain instances, excessive force may have been used to break up the demonstrations. Some demonstrators were reportedly attacked by unknown individuals on motorcycles wielding iron bars.” [9w]
3.17 The same report noted: “The demonstrations were part of countrywide unrest which began on 11 June and lasted for ten days. Hundreds of people have reportedly been arrested and according to a statement made by the head of the Tehran Justice Department Abbas Ali Alizadeh on 24 June ‘the judiciary is intent on dealing firmly with the main perpetrators.’” (Amnesty International, 26 June 2003) [9w]
3.18 About 4,000 people were arrested all over the country before and after the protests. Although many of those have since been released, there are still scores of students behind bars. (BBC News, 7 August 2003) [21u] Some of these have been in prison since they were arrested as a result of similar disturbances in 1999, 2000 and 2001. (CEDOCA Mission report, 16 May-6 July 2002) [43] (p17)
3.19 An International Federation of Human Rights note dated October 2005 stated that:
“Abbas Deldar have been [sic] condemned to 15 years in prison; Javid Tehrani, condemned to seven years in prison and freed four years later, was re-arrested in June 2004. Peyman Piran (condemned to ten years in prison) and his father, Mostafa Piran (condemned to 18 months in prison) are detained since more than a year.
“Akbar Mohammadi (condemned to 14 years in prison), his brother, Manoutchehr Mohammadi (condemned to 13 years in prison), and Ahmad Batebi (condemned to 15 years in prison) have been freed after seven years of detention for health reasons but might be sent back in prison [sic] at any moment, notably if they communicate with the media. The same is true of Amir-Abbas Fakhravar and Heshmattolah Tabarzadi. The latter, responsible of a students’ association, had been condemned to 14 years in prison in January 2005 and was liberated for health reasons in August 2005.
“Bina Darab-Zand, another student, was condemned in October 2004 to three years and a half in prison and is currently detained.
“18 students were arrested in September and October 2005, arrests which were confirmed by the authorities. However, their name [sic] and the reason for their arrest were not disclosed.” [56e] (p3)
3.20 In a Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board paper of 26 June 2006 it was reported that:
“The following information was provided during a 17 May 2006 telephone interview with a representative of the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI) based in Texas. The representative said that the situation of student activists in Iran has not improved in the last few years. The repression is ‘harsher’, and the current regime has become more ‘intelligent’ in how it deals with student activists. He also explained that students who have been pardoned are usually not ‘genuine students’ or they are students who support the Islamic regime because, according to him, genuine dissidents would not be pardoned (SMCCDI 17 May 2006). As for the burial of Iranian soldiers on university campuses, the representative explained that the authorities use this tactic ‘to put pressure on students’ and limit so-called ‘dissident’ activities by establishing the grounds as sacred and ensuring respect for the mourning of the buried soldiers (ibid.).“ [2ae] (p5)
3.21 In a HRW report ‘Iran, Denying the Right to Education’, of 25 October 2006 it was recounted that:
“When the new academic year started in Iran in late September 2006, several graduate students learned that the government was barring them from registering to take up university places. Because of their political beliefs and opinions, and in blatant violation of its international human rights obligations, the Iranian government is denying these students the right of access to education. Other students were informed that to be allowed to register they must sign a ‘commitment letter’, making the taking up or retaining of their university places conditional on toeing the line politically.
“This development comes on the heels of a year-long official drive to punish student activists for political activities, beliefs, writings, and membership in student associations that are not officially endorsed. Several official organs within and outside of the universities have led a campaign against student activists, including university disciplinary committees, the Judiciary, the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (SR&T Ministry), and the Ministry of Information. University supervision committees have also banned 19 student publications, and suspended or dissolved Islamic Students’ Associations in 15 universities.” [8aa] (p1)
3.22 Freedom House stated in their Freedom in the World 2008 report, covering evetns in 2007, released in July 2008:
“In July 2007, a group of students at Amir Kabir University held a sit-in that was broken up by security forces. Students were beaten by police and detained without charge. Student publications and groups, even student Islamic Associations, were shut down during the year. The Alumni Association of Iran was also raided by security officials, who arrested 10 members, ransacked their homes, and confiscated their belongings. In September, three leaders of the Office for the Consolidation of Unity, Iran’s leading student organization, and five other students were charged with endangering national security and insulting Islam.” [112c]
3.23 On 8 October 2007, RFE/RL reported that:
“Dozens of students chanting slogans against Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad scuffled with his supporters on the campus of Tehran University today while the president spoke at the school …Before and during the president’s speech, activists chanted ‘Death to the dictator!’ and other anti-Ahmadinejad slogans. Liberal-minded students accuse Ahmadinejad of clamping down on dissent on university campuses. In December [2006], a speech by Ahmadinejad at another university in Tehran was disrupted by students hurling firecrackers and burning his picture.
“Several students have also been expelled from school or have been blacklisted on official documents if they participated in student activities deemed by officials to be antigovernment.” [42t]
3.24 On 8 November 2007, the public voice of Iran’s largest pro-reform student group was detained in Tehran:
“The detention of Ali Nikunesbati, the spokesman for the Office for Strengthening Unity (Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat), is the sixth of a student activist in the past 10 days in Tehran. His detention comes after another student leader, Ali Azizi, was detained on November 4 [2007]. Human rights advocates and student groups in Iran have expressed concern over what they describe as renewed government pressure on universities and student activists.
“In recent weeks, students in Tehran have staged at least three protests against the crackdown on academic institutions.” (RFE/RL, November 8, 2007) [42u]
3.25 It was further reported:
“Student rallies began to gain momentum in early December [2007]. But they appear to be part of a wave of open dissent that began to build in earnest one year ago when - during a speech by Mahmud Ahmadinejad at Tehran University - students in the crowd burned photos of the president and chanted, ‘Death to the dictator!’ Similar, if less strident, rallies followed in May and October, with the authorities responding in each case by arresting activists.
“On December 4 [2007], some 250 students at Tehran University gathered to chant slogans such as ‘Freedom and Equality!’ and ‘No to war!’ About 20 were arrested and sent to Tehran’s Evin prison. Several were released but others are still being held, students say. Similar protests spread the next day to the cities of Hamadan, Isfahan, Mazandaran, Shiraz, and Kerman, where students reportedly openly criticized Iran’s disputed nuclear program.” (RFE/RL, 9 December 2007) [42v]
3.26 The US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 2008, Iran, released on 25 February 2009, (USSD Report 2008) stated that:
“In March [2008] 30-year-old student activist Ahmad Batebi fled the country; authorities had permitted him to leave Evin Prison temporarily for medical treatment related to a partial stroke. Batebi, whose death sentence for his involvement in a 1999 student protest was commuted to 15 years in prison, stated prison and security officials thrashed him with a metal cable, beat his testicles, kicked in his teeth, and forced his face into a pool of excrement. Batebi stated authorities often tied him to a chair and kept him awake for multiple days and nights, cutting him and rubbing salt into the wounds.” [4a] (Section 1c)
3.27 The Freedom House Report 2009 stated that:
“Academic freedom is limited. Scholars are frequently detained, threatened, and forced to retire for expressing political views, and students involved in organizing protests face suspension or expulsion. Student organizations have been sidelined since the election of Ahmadinejad, and even peaceful protesters are attacked and arrested. Three members of the organization Students Seeking Freedom and Equality who were arrested in December 2007 remained in custody during 2008 for their alleged intent to stage a protest, and a fourth member, Ali Kantouri, was arrested in January. He was hospitalized after his arrest and transferred to several different prisons within Iran, but was released in May on bail. His trial was held in August, but the court had not returned its verdict by year’s end. More than 40 members of the student organization have been arrested in recent years and allegedly subjected to mistreatment and torture.
“Among other students detained during 2008, two Isfahan University students were arrested in June and sentenced to three and six years of prison and internal exile to a prison in a small village for allegedly contacting Kurdish opposition groups. Separately, legal scholar Mehdi Zakerian was arbitrarily detained weeks before his scheduled departure to teach at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.” [112g]
For details of more recent student activity and the Government’s responses, see Latest news, Recent developments, Freedom of political expression, Freedom of association and assembly
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Parliamentary elections – February 2004
3.28 Europa Worldonline, undated, accessed 20 October 2009, reported:
“With elections to the seventh Majlis [parliament] scheduled for late February [2004], the Council of Guardians announced in early January that, from a preliminary list of around 8,200 candidates, more than 2,000 candidates would be barred from standing in the polls, including 80 current Majlis deputies. (‘Reformists’ insisted that at least one-half of the proposed candidates would effectively be disqualified.). President Khatami’s brother and the Secretary-General of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Muhammad Reza Khatami, was perhaps the most notable of these ‘reformist’ candidates, along with two other leaders of the party. President Khatami and several of his ministers threatened to resign in protest at the ban, as did all of the country’s 27 regional governors, and about 100 deputies staged a ‘sit-in’ at the Majlis. Although, as a result of two direct interventions by Ayatollah Khamenei, the Council of Guardians reversed its decision in relation to a small number of the barred candidates, in late January the Council vetoed emergency legislation that had been adopted by the Majlis with the intention of weakening the former's control over the election process and thereby reversing the bans on all of the candidates.” [1b] (Recent History)
3.29 The same source also noted:
“At the elections to the Majlis, held on 20 February, turn-out by voters was estimated to be as low as 51% (with a recorded rate of only 28% in Tehran); 229 candidates received enough votes to be elected directly to the Majlis, with the remainder of the 290 seats to be filled at a second round of voting, held on 7 May. The ‘reformist’ Speaker of the outgoing Majlis, Mahdi Karrubi, withdrew his candidacy after failing to secure re-election at the first round. As had been widely predicted, ‘conservatives’ were confirmed as having secured a majority in the legislature, and following the second round of voting were estimated to have secured 195 seats in the Majlis and the ‘reformists’ fewer than 50, with the remainder being held by ‘independents’.” [1b] (Recent History)

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Presidential elections – June 2005
3.30 The Center for Contemporary Conflict (CCC) report dated August 2005 stated that:
“Close observers of Iran for several years had anticipated that the June 2005 election would produce major change. The pro-democracy reform movement that emerged with the May 1997 election of President Mohammad Khatami stalled after several years, weakened by continual attacks from its conservative opponents. Although the reformists managed to achieve landslide victories in the 1999 municipal council elections, the 2000 parliamentary election, and the 2001 presidential election (when Khatami was re-elected), they were unable to use their control over these institutions to achieve significant change, either in domestic political conditions or in the economic and socio-cultural conditions that more directly affect common Iranians. As a result, the Iranian public became increasingly disillusioned with Khatami and his reformist allies. This was reflected in the 2003 municipal council elections and the 2004 parliamentary election, when reformist candidates were decisively defeated, amid sharply lower turnout. With Khatami unable to run for a third term, many observers believed that the reformists would suffer another defeat and turnout again would be low in the June 2005 election.” [72b] (p1)
3.31 An Update Briefing from the International Crisis Group, dated 4 August 2005 observed that “Over 1,000 people applied to run but the unelected Guardian Council approved only eight. Every female candidate was disqualified.” It continued:
“Of the eight presidential candidates authorised to run by the twelve-member Guardian Council, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad appeared among the least competitive until practically the end. Until a week prior to the election, he had barely surfaced in opinion polls and was denying rumours of imminent withdrawal. In the last week, most surveys predicted a three-man race between a centrist (former president Hashemi Rafsanjani), a conservative (former national police chief Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf), and a reformist (former Minister of Higher Education Mostafa Moin).” [84a] (p2)
3.32 The CCC, in a report dated August 2005, stated that:
“Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardline conservative Islamist, scored a stunning victory in the second round of Iran’s June 2005 presidential election. Many observers have described Ahmadinejad’s victory as a key turning point for Iran, predicting that it will produce a new era of radical, puritanical rule at home and greater militancy in Iran’s foreign policy. However, Iran’s new president will face important political obstacles that will limit his ability to act, so it is not clear whether, and to what extent, he will be able to carry out such drastic changes.” [72b] (p1)
3.33 The USSD Report 2008 stated that: “In 2005 hardline conservative Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad won the presidency in an election widely viewed by the international community as neither free nor fair.” [4a] (Introduction)
3.34 In its Country Report 2005, published in September 2005, the Economist Intelligence Unit stated that:
“The victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the presidential election in June marked the culmination of a campaign by conservatives – which began after the election of the reformist president, Mohammed Khatami, in 1997 – to reassert their dominance over domestic political affairs. There are fears, both locally and abroad, that Mr Ahmadinejad will rein in political, social and economic freedoms in line with an austere interpretation of the ideals of the Islamic Revolution. Some steps in this direction are likely, but the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is aware of the dangers of shutting political opponents out entirely – notably that they may form an alliance against the dominant movement – and will probably seek to prevent this occurring.” [24b]
3.35 In August 2008, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “praised the president for ‘standing up’ to the West and predicted he would be returned to office for four more years at the 2009 election.” (BBC News, 24 August 2008) [21c]
Assembly of Experts, local and parliamentary bye elections - 2006
3.36 The USSD for 2007 reported that:
“In December 2006 there were elections for the Assembly of Experts, municipal councils, and Majles by-elections. These elections were neither free nor fair, as the Guardian Council disqualified candidates based on ideological background. The parliamentary election commission and Guardian Council disqualified hundreds of potential candidates, largely reformists. Only 144 of the 492 prospective candidates were deemed eligible to run in the December 2006 Assembly of Experts elections. In the Assembly of Experts elections, Expediency Council chair Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a pragmatic conservative, received the most votes in the Tehran constituency by a significant margin. Reports indicated that 100 candidates withdrew their applications, and all female candidates failed the written exam on religious interpretation (‘ijtihad’) and were disqualified.” [4t] (Section 3)
3.37 A report from RFE/RL of 20 February 2007, commenting on the opening day of the Assembly of Experts fourth term, stated that: “Last December’s elections are thought to have consolidated the position of veteran clerics and establishment figures - like Expediency Council Chairman Hashemi-Rafsanjani - against a current of political radicalism associated with Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, considered an ideological mentor of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.” [42p] (p1)
Parliamentary elections – 2008
3.38 BBC News’s timeline for Iran, accessed on 22 October 2009, noted that in March 2008, the conservatives, who included supporters of President Ahmadinejad and also comprised other more pragmatic conservatives, won over two-thirds of seats in the parliamentary elections in which many pro-reform candidates were disbarred from standing. [21p]
3.39 Around one-third of the elected conservatives were reportedly members of the Broad Principlist Coalition, which was more critical of the President’s foreign and economic policies. “It was, therefore, generally assumed that Ahmadinejad would experience greater levels of opposition among Majlis deputies than had been the case in the previous parliament, especially in the run-up to the presidential polls scheduled for 2009. On 28 May 2008 Larijani was elected to the influential position of Speaker of the Majlis, in succession to Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel.” (Europa, accessed 20 October 2009) [1b] (Recent History)
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Recent developments (January to November 2009)


Nuclear programme and international diplomacy
4.01 Jane’s Sentinel Security Assessment for Iran, updated on 13 May 2009, stated that:
“Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) traces were detected by IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors in 2003 in at least two different sites, traces which were deemed pure enough to produce nuclear weaponry. The Iranian military have admitted to producing centrifuges to enrich uranium, yet Iran has repeatedly claimed that its nuclear programme is for the generation of electricity alone…
“In December 2006 the Security Council of the United Nations adopted Resolution 1737, imposing sanctions on Iran over its failure to halt uranium-enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. The sanctions were tightened in March 2007, under Resolution 1747.
“In December 2007 the US National Intelligence Estimate stated that Iran had ceased its military nuclear programmes in 2003. Nonetheless, the Bush administration remained concerned about Iran's continuing efforts to pursue enrichment - a programme Tehran maintained was for civilian nuclear power. In March 2008 the UN Security Council approved a third round of sanctions on Iran. In Resolution 1803 adopted that month, the Security Council tightened restrictions on Iran's proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities, and called on all states to exercise ‘vigilance and restraint’ in regard to individuals supporting such activities on the part of Iran or supporting the development of nuclear-weapon delivery systems. However, the council also welcomed an agreement between Iran and the IAEA to ‘resolve all outstanding issues’ concerning Iran's nuclear programmes. In June 2008 the European Union agreed to impose new sanctions against Iran over its failure to comply with demands to curb its nuclear programme.” [125a]
4.02 On 16 November 2009, the Guardian noted that a report published on that day by the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), “expressed fears that Iran may have other secret nuclear sites following the discovery of the facility hidden in a mountain near the holy city of Qom.” It was reported that:
“…the previously secret site at Fordo was in ‘an advanced state of construction’ and was scheduled to start up in 2011.
“The IAEA reprimanded Iran for failing to inform it until September about the site, even though construction had begun at least two years ago. In a more pointed criticism of Iran than usual, the IAEA says the delay ‘reduces the level of confidence in the absence of other nuclear facilities under construction and gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities not declared to the agency’.
“The expression of concern comes at a sensitive moment, with no sign of a peace deal between Iran and the US, backed by Britain, France and Germany. Iran has not yet formally replied to a compromise offered by Barack Obama, who said at the weekend that time was running out.” [16b]
4.03 On 17 November 2009, BBC News reported that Iran had “played down” the IAEA’s report. Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh, was reported as saying “’Iran has provided all information about the new facility and the material inside it. We will later proceed with installing the required equipment. The facility will go online in 2011.’ He said he was ‘comfortable’ with the report, as it confirmed Iran was ‘fully co-operating’ and that the activities at Qom were ‘in accordance with the IAEA instructions and limitations’”. [21h]
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