Government officials materially contributed to human rights abuses in Syria, through their military support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hizballah forces; in Iraq, through aid to pro-Iran militia groups; and in Yemen, through support for Houthi rebels, who targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Despite repeated calls from the international community, including the United Nations, the government effectively took no steps to investigate, prosecute, punish, or otherwise hold accountable officials who committed these abuses, many of which were perpetrated as a matter of government policy. This included abuses and numerous suspicious deaths in custody from previous years. Impunity remained pervasive throughout all levels of the government and security forces.

Significant human rights issues included executions for crimes not meeting the international legal standard of “most serious crimes” and without fair trials of individuals, including juvenile offenders; numerous reports of unlawful or arbitrary killings, forced disappearance, and torture by government agents, as well as systematic use of arbitrary detention and imprisonment; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; hundreds of political prisoners; unlawful interference with privacy; significant problems with independence of the judiciary, particularly the revolutionary courts; severe restrictions on free expression, the press, and the internet, including violence, threats of violence, and unjustified arrests and prosecutions against journalists, censorship, site blocking, and criminalization of libel; substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, such as overly restrictive nongovernmental organization (NGO) laws; severe restrictions of religious freedom; restrictions on political participation through arbitrary candidate vetting; widespread corruption at all levels of government; unlawful recruitment of child soldiers by government actors to support the Assad regime in Syria; trafficking in persons; violence against ethnic minorities; harsh governmental restrictions on the rights of women and minorities; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons; criminalization of LGBTI status or conduct; and outlawing of independent trade unions.

In response to widespread protests that began November 15 after a fuel price increase, the government blocked almost all international and local internet connections for most of a week, and security forces used lethal force to end the protests, killing approximately 1,500 persons and detaining 8,600, according to international media reports. There was no indication government entities were pursuing independent or impartial investigations into protester deaths.

The supreme leader holds ultimate authority over all security agencies. Several agencies share responsibility for law enforcement and maintaining order, including the Ministry of Intelligence and Security and law enforcement forces under the Interior Ministry, which report to the president, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which reports directly to the supreme leader. The Basij, a volunteer paramilitary group with local organizations across the country, sometimes acted as an auxiliary law enforcement unit subordinate to IRGC ground forces. The IRGC and the national army, or “Artesh,” provided external defense. Civilian authorities maintained effective control over the security forces.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is an authoritarian theocratic republic with a Shia Islamic political system based on velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist). Shia clergy, most notably the r ahbar (supreme leader), and political leaders vetted by the clergy dominate key power structures. The supreme leader is the head of state. The members of the Assembly of Experts are nominally directly elected in popular elections. The assembly selects and may dismiss the supreme leader. The candidates for the Assembly of Experts, however, are vetted by the Guardian Council (see below) and are therefore selected indirectly by the supreme leader himself. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has held the position since 1989. He has direct or indirect control over the legislative and executive branches of government through unelected councils under his authority. The supreme leader holds constitutional authority over the judiciary, government-run media, and other key institutions. While mechanisms for popular election exist for the president, who is head of government, and for the Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliament or m ajles ), the unelected Guardian Council vets candidates, routinely disqualifying them based on political or other considerations, and controls the election process. The supreme leader appoints half of the 12-member Guardian Council, while the head of the judiciary (who is appointed by the supreme leader) appoints the other half. Parliamentary elections held in 2016 and presidential elections held in 2017 were not considered free and fair.

Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from:

a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings The government and its agents reportedly committed arbitrary or unlawful killings, most commonly by execution after arrest and trial without due process, or for crimes that did not meet the international threshold of “most serious crimes.” Media and human rights groups also documented suspicious deaths while in custody or following beatings of protesters by security forces throughout the year. On December 23, Reuters reported that the supreme leader ordered security forces to do “whatever it takes” to end several days of protests against a hike in fuel prices on November 15. Security forces killed approximately 1,500 persons across the country in response to the demonstrations, according to the Reuters report, which was sourced to four unidentified government officials. In a December 16 report, Amnesty International cited at least 304 persons killed by security forces in the demonstrations. Authorities reportedly used firearms, water cannons, tear gas, and snipers against the largely peaceful protesters. In one incident in the city of Mahshahr, IRGC forces reportedly shot and killed up to 100 protesters who had sought refuge in a marsh, after authorities violently dispersed the initial protest in an adjacent town, according to media and NGO reporting based on witness accounts. As of December 26, there was no indication that officials were conducting impartial investigations into those deaths or, more broadly, into law enforcement officials’ use of excessive force to repress protests. Government officials asserted casualty figures in international media and NGO reports were “fake news.” In June, Amnesty International called on authorities to investigate the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Benyamin Alboghbiesh, a 28-year-old Ahwazi Arab held at a detention center in Ahvaz believed to be under the control of the IRGC. Authorities initially detained Alboghbiesh, along with his brother and mother, for several months beginning in March 2018, on unspecified national security accusations. All three individuals were rearrested on May 26, and the IRGC reportedly notified Alboghbiesh’s family of his death on June 26. There was no information available on any investigation into the cause of Alboghbiesh’s death. As documented by international human rights observers, revolutionary courts continued to issue the vast majority of death sentences, and trials lacked due process. Legal representation was denied during the investigation phase, and in most cases, no evidence other than confessions, often reportedly extracted through torture, was considered. Judges may also impose the death penalty on appeal, which deterred appeals in criminal cases. According to the NGO Human Rights Activists in Iran, the government does not disclose accurate numbers of those executed, and as many as 60 percent of executions are kept secret. As of December 11, NGOs Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center reported there were more than 200 executions during the year, while the government officially announced only 62 executions in that time period. The government often did not release further information, such as names of those executed, execution dates, or crimes for which they were executed. The Islamic penal code allows for the execution of juvenile offenders starting at age nine for girls and age 13 for boys, the legal age of majority. The government continued to execute individuals sentenced for crimes committed before the age of 18. According to Amnesty International, authorities executed seven persons in 2018 who were children at the time of their alleged crimes. In May, UN human rights experts expressed serious concerns for the up to 90 individuals on death row for alleged offenses committed when they were younger than age 18. In May, according to widespread media and NGO reports, authorities in Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz secretly executed two 17-year-olds, Mehdi Sohrabifar and Amin Sedaghat. According to the reports, authorities arrested the two boys in 2017 when they were 15 on various accusations, including alleged rape. Reporting indicated a court convicted the two teens following a “grossly unfair” trial and that they were flogged before their execution. According to human rights organizations and media reports, the government continued to carry out some executions by torture, including hanging by cranes. Prisoners are lifted from the ground by their necks and die slowly by asphyxiation. In addition, adultery remains punishable by death by stoning, although provincial authorities were reportedly ordered not to provide public information about stoning sentences since 2001, according to the NGO Justice for Iran. Although the majority of executions during the year were reportedly for murder, the law also provides for the death penalty in cases of conviction for “attempts against the security of the state,” “outrage against high-ranking officials,” moharebeh (which has a variety of broad interpretations, including “waging war against God”), fisad fil-arz (corruption on earth, including apostasy or heresy), rape, adultery, recidivist alcohol use, consensual same-sex sexual conduct, and “insults against the memory of Imam Khomeini and against the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic.” Prosecutors frequently used “waging war against God” as a capital offense against political dissidents and journalists, accusing them of “struggling against the precepts of Islam” and against the state that upholds those precepts. Authorities expanded the scope of this charge to include “working to undermine the Islamic establishment” and “cooperating with foreign agents or entities.” The judiciary is required to review and validate death sentences. On April 17, an appeals court ordered the release of spiritual leader and founder of the spiritual doctrine Interuniversalism and the Erfan-e Halgheh group Mohammad Ali Taheri, who had twice been sentenced to death. On April 24, Judiciary Spokesperson Gholam-Hossein Esmaili stated all outstanding sentences in Taheri’s case had been rescinded but that he was “still under certain legal and social restrictions” in proportion to his alleged crimes. Taheri had been in prison–mostly in solitary confinement–since his arrest in 2011. He was sentenced to five years in 2011 for “insulting the sanctities,” then sentenced to death in 2015 for “corruption on earth,” and sentenced to death for a second time in 2017. As of November the overall number of executions remained low in comparison with previous years, reportedly as a result of a 2017 amendment to the 1997 Law to Combat Drugs raising the threshold for the death penalty for drug-related offenses. Under the amended law, capital punishment applies to the possession, sale, or transport of more than approximately 110 pounds of natural drugs, such as opium, or approximately 4.4 to 6.6 pounds of manufactured narcotics, such as heroin or cocaine. According to the previous law, capital punishment applied to similar offenses involving slightly more than 11 pounds of natural drugs or two-thirds of a pound of manufactured drugs. Capital punishment, however, still applies to drug offenses involving smaller quantities of narcotics, if the crime is carried out using weapons, employing minors, or involving someone in a leadership role in a trafficking ring or someone who has previously been convicted of drug crimes and given a prison sentence of more than 15 years.

b. Disappearance There were reports of politically motivated abductions during the year attributed to government officials. Plainclothes officials seized journalists and activists without warning, and government officials refused to acknowledge custody or provide information on them. In most cases the government made no efforts to prevent, investigate, or punish such acts. In July, Amnesty International reported authorities were using incommunicado detention, as well as prolonged solitary confinement and threats against family members, to extract forced video “confessions” from women’s rights defenders detained for campaigning against the country’s mandatory hijab law. Amnesty highlighted the case of Saba Kordafshari, whose fate and whereabouts the government concealed from her family for 12 days. On August 27, a revolutionary court sentenced Kordafshari to 24 years in prison for protesting compulsory hijab. In July, IranWire, a human rights reporting agency, reported on the case of Hamed Rezvani, a Bahai musician and teacher, who left his home in Isfahan in December 2018 and has not been heard from since. Repeated requests by Rezvani’s family members for information from police and local intelligence agents have not produced any information about his disappearance. According to IranWire, Intelligence Ministry agents also raided Rezvani’s home in 2016 under the pretext that Rezvani had spread “propaganda against the regime” through spreading the Bahai faith; he was beaten and detained for 21 days.

c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Although the constitution prohibits all forms of torture “for the purpose of extracting confession or acquiring information,” use of physical and mental torture to coerce confessions remained prevalent, especially during pretrial detention. There were credible reports that security forces and prison personnel tortured and abused detainees and prisoners throughout the year. Impunity remained a problem within all security forces. Human rights groups frequently accused regular and paramilitary security forces, such as the Basij, of committing numerous human rights abuses, including acts of violence against protesters and participants in public demonstrations. According to Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi, the attorney general is responsible for investigating and punishing security force abuses, but the process was not transparent, and there were few reports of government actions to discipline abusers. Commonly reported methods of torture and abuse in prisons included threats of execution or rape, forced tests of virginity and “sodomy,” sleep deprivation, electroshock, including the shocking of genitals, burnings, the use of pressure positions, and severe and repeated beatings. Human rights organizations frequently cited some prison facilities, including Evin Prison in Tehran and Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj, for their use of cruel and prolonged torture of political opponents, particularly Wards 209 and Two of Evin Prison, reportedly controlled by the IRGC. Numerous human rights organizations, including the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), reported on allegations that in late 2018 Intelligence Ministry agents tortured Esmail Bakhshi, a labor activist and leading representative of Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Company workers in Khuzestan Province, and Sepideh Gholian, a journalist and human rights activist. Both Bakhshi and Gholian were forced to make confessions that the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) broadcast. Authorities released both individuals in December 2018. On January 4, Bakhshi posted a letter on Instagram stating he was severely beaten during his 25 days of detention following his arrest in November 2018. Bakhshi, referring to the Intelligence Ministry agents, said, “[T]hey tortured me and beat me with their fists and kicked me until I was going to die. They beat me so much I couldn’t move in my cell for 72 hours… I turned into a washed-up rat. My hands are still trembling. I still get severe panic attacks.” Gholian said she witnessed authorities severely beating Bakhshi at the time of his arrest when they were peacefully protesting unpaid wages for fellow Haft Tappeh workers. Despite demands for an investigation following Bakhshi’s disclosure, no one has been held accountable. On January 20, Bakhshi and Gholian were rearrested. BBC Persian broadcast a video of Gholian recorded prior to her second arrest saying authorities beat her with a cable to force her to confess that she was “after overthrowing the government and hijacking the demands of the laborers in Iran.” Authorities reportedly released Gholian and Bakhshi on unusually high bail amounts of nearly three billion rials (more than $70,000) on October 30. Authorities again arrested Gholian on November 17 for participating in the fuel price demonstrations (see section 1.a.) and released her on December 3 on bail of two billion rials ($47,000). According to a report by Haft Tappeh activists on the messaging app Telegram, an appellate court sentenced Bakhshi, Gholian, and five others to five years in prison on December 14. As of December 16, they had not been rearrested to serve these sentences. NGOs reported that predominantly Shia prison guards tortured numerous Sunni Muslim prisoners at Ardabil Prison for their religious beliefs. Guards also reportedly retaliated against prisoners for “security issues” that occurred elsewhere in the country. According to reports, torture at Ardabil included severe beatings, being tied to flag poles for prolonged durations of time, and being forced to watch executions of fellow prisoners. Authorities also allegedly maintained unofficial secret prisons and detention centers, outside the national prison system, where abuse reportedly occurred. Judicially sanctioned corporal punishments continued. These included flogging, blinding, stoning, and amputation, which the government defends as “punishment,” not torture. At least 148 crimes are punishable by flogging, while 20 can carry the penalty of amputation. According to media and NGO reports, in October authorities in Mazandaran amputated the hand of a man imprisoned for theft. According to a media report in May, 23 prisoners convicted of theft and held at the Greater Tehran Prison were awaiting hand amputation. State media reported Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri stating he regretted that international pressure had caused an alleged drop in amputations in the country. In August, Amnesty International reported that authorities flogged Kurdish singer and prisoner of conscience Peyman Mirzazadeh on July 28. According to the report, officials flogged Mirzazadeh 100 times for a conviction of drinking alcohol, and “insulting Islamic sanctities.” The flogging, which Amnesty characterized as an “unspeakably cruel punishment,” left Mirzazadeh in agonizing pain with a severely swollen back and legs. In May, Tehran University student Parisa Rafiei alleged in an open letter that an interrogator sent her to a medical examiner’s office for a “virginity test” after she was arrested for participating in street protests. After Rafiei told officials she would file a complaint, they reportedly withdrew the demand. Extrajudicial punishments by authorities involving degrading public humiliation of alleged offenders were also frequently reported throughout the year. The government regularly forced alleged offenders to make videotaped confessions that the government later televised. On January 19, a state-run television channel aired a “documentary” about labor rights in the country that included filmed “confessions” of several prominent labor activists. Two of the activists said the confessions were coerced.

Prison and Detention Center Conditions Prison conditions were harsh and life threatening due to food shortages, gross overcrowding, physical abuse, and inadequate sanitary conditions and medical care. Prisoner hunger strikes in protest of their treatment were frequent. Physical Conditions : Overcrowding remained a problem in prisons with many prisoners forced to sleep on floors, in hallways, or in prison yards. In a 2018 local media report, Asghar Jahangir, the country’s chief prison warden, estimated the total number of prisoners at a quarter of a million, a threefold increase in 20 years. There were reported deaths in custody and prisoner-on-prisoner violence, which authorities sometimes failed to control. In June, CHRI reported that a prisoner killed prisoner of conscience Alireza Shir Mohammad Ali in a knife attack at the Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary. Shir Mohammad Ali was serving an eight-year sentence based on content he posted on social media. He had protested being kept in a ward with prisoners convicted of violent crimes; the law requires that prisoners be separated by the type and duration of their sentence (see below). Authorities prosecuted the prisoner accused of the killing, but there was no information whether any prison officials were held accountable. According to IranWire and human rights NGOs, guards beat both political and nonpolitical prisoners during raids on wards, performed nude body searches in front of other prisoners, and threatened prisoners’ families. In some instances, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), guards singled out political prisoners for harsher treatment. Prison authorities often refused to provide medical treatment for pre-existing conditions, injuries that prisoners suffered at the hands of prison authorities, or illnesses due to the poor sanitary conditions in prison. Human rights organizations reported that authorities used denial of medical care as a form of punishment for prisoners and as an intimidation tool against prisoners who filed complaints or challenged authorities. On July 10, eight UN officials issued a statement expressing serious concern about a consistent pattern of the government denying medical treatment to detainees. The statement cited the cases of human rights defenders Arash Sadeghi and Narges Mohammadi, and dual nationals Ahmadreza Djalali, Kamran Ghaderi, and Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe. The UN experts also cited unsafe and unsanitary detention conditions, including overcrowding, contaminated food and water, rodent and insect infestations, unhygienic facilities, and inadequate temperature controls. Medical services for female prisoners were reported as grossly inadequate. The human rights community and international media reported on frequent water shortages, insufficient food, intolerable heat, unsanitary living spaces, poor ventilation, infestations with cockroaches and mice, chronic overcrowding, and prisoners being forced to sleep on the floor with little bedding in prisons throughout the country. Prisoner hunger strikes occurred frequently. In August, CHRI reported 200 inmates at Gharchak Prison for Women wrote an open letter to the State Prisons Organization chief Heshmatollah Hayatolgheyb, complaining of overcrowding, unsafe drinking water and food, unsanitary living conditions, and denial of medical treatment at the prison. There was no indication that authorities investigated the December 2018 death of political prisoner Vahid Sayyadi-Nasiri, who had been on hunger strike since October 2018 to protest conditions at Langroud Prison in Qom. According to Amnesty International, at least 10 Gonabadi Sufi dervish women were unjustly detained in Shahr-e Rey Prison on national security-related charges since February 2018. The women were routinely denied urgently needed medical care and kept in unsanitary, inhuman conditions. CHRI and the UN special rapporteur (UNSR) on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Javaid Rehman, reported that one of the detained women, Elham Ahmadi, who is serving a two-year sentence, was reportedly sentenced to a further 148 lashes in January for speaking out about the denial of medical treatment. In April a prisoner allegedly beat another of the detained women, Sima Entesari, after prison authorities reportedly promised the attacker a case review if she carried out the attack. The two detained women were reportedly placed in the same ward as prisoners convinced of drug-related charges, theft, and social crimes in contravention of the prison’s rules and regulations. Authorities occasionally held pretrial detainees with convicted prisoners. According to a June report from IranWire, there was a noticeable increase over the past two years of the practice of holding political prisoners in wards with allegedly violent and dangerous criminals, with the goal of “breaking” the political prisoners’ wills. Also, according to HRANA, juvenile detainees were held with adult prisoners in some prisons, including Saghez Central Prison in Kurdistan Province. Male juvenile detainees were held in separate rehabilitation centers in most urban areas, but female juvenile detainees and male juvenile detainees in rural areas were held alongside adults in detention facilities, according to NGO reports. Authorities held women separately from men. In 2017 Mohammad Javad Fathi, a member of parliament’s judicial committee, was quoted in the media saying that 2,300 children lived in prisons with their incarcerated mothers. Fathi urged the Prisons Organization to provide transparent statistics on the number of imprisoned mothers. IranWire reported multiple prisons across the country held older children who lived with their incarcerated mothers without access to medical care or educational and recreational facilities. There were numerous reports of prisoner suicides throughout the year in response to prison conditions or mistreatment. In October the local newspaper Qanun reported that a clergyman committed suicide in Evin Prison due to unspecified “hardships” faced by prisoners. Administration : According to reports from human rights NGOs, prison authorities regularly denied prisoners access to visitors, telephone, and other correspondence privileges. Prisoners practicing a religion other than Shia Islam reported experiencing discrimination. According to an October 24 report from CHRI, Evin Prison Director Gholamreza Ziaei appeared to target prisoners of conscience for denial of communication with family. Authorities did not initiate credible investigations into allegations of inhuman conditions or suspicious deaths in custody. There was no further investigation into the February 2018 death of Iranian-Canadian Kavous Seyed-Emami, an environmentalist, at Evin Prison. Authorities labeled the death a suicide, but there was no independent investigation to verify the cause of death. A lawyer representing the family told CHRI in April 2018 that a preliminary state medical examiner’s report “showed evidence of an injection on his skin” as well as “bruises on different parts of the body.” Authorities placed a travel ban on Seyed-Emami’s wife, Maryam Mombeini. Prisoners were able to submit complaints to judicial authorities but often faced censorship or retribution in the form of slander, beatings, torture, and denial of medication or furlough requests. Families of executed prisoners did not always receive notification of their scheduled executions, or if they did, it was often on very short notice. Authorities frequently denied families the ability to perform funeral rites or an impartial autopsy. Independent Monitoring : The government did not permit independent monitoring of prison conditions. Prisoners and their families often wrote letters to authorities and, in some cases, to UN bodies to highlight and protest their treatment. For more information on treatment of political prisoners, see section 1.e., Political Prisoners and Detainees.

d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention Although the constitution prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention, the practices occurred frequently during the year. President Rouhani’s 2016 Citizen’s Rights Charter enumerates various freedoms, including “security of their person, property, dignity, employment, legal and judicial process, social security, and the like.” The government did not implement these provisions. Detainees may appeal their sentences in court but are not entitled to compensation for detention.

Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees The constitution and law require a warrant or subpoena for an arrest and state that arrested persons should be informed of the charges against them within 24 hours. Authorities, however, held some detainees, at times incommunicado, for prolonged periods without charge or trial and frequently denied them contact with family or timely access to legal representation. The law obligates the government to provide indigent defendants with attorneys for certain types of crimes. The courts set prohibitively high bail, even for lesser crimes, and in many cases, courts did not set bail. Authorities often compelled detainees and their families to submit property deeds to post bail, effectively silencing them due to fear of losing their families’ property. The government continued to use house arrest without due process to restrict movement and communication. At year’s end former presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, as well as Mousavi’s wife Zahra Rahnavard, remained under house arrest imposed in 2011 without formal charges. Security forces continued to restrict their access to visitors and information. Concerns persisted over Karroubi’s deteriorating health, reportedly exacerbated by his treatment by authorities. Individuals often remained in detention facilities for long periods without charges or trials, and authorities sometimes prevented them from informing others of their whereabouts for several days. Authorities often denied detainees’ access to legal counsel during this period. International media and human rights organizations documented an increase in detentions of dual nationals–individuals who are citizens of both Iran and another country–for arbitrary and prolonged detention on politically motivated charges. A July, 7 UNSR report estimated there were at least 30 cases of dual and foreign nationals who authorities had arrested arbitrarily and subjected to mistreatment, denial of appropriate medical treatment, or both. Several detainees were American citizens, including Xiyue Wang, arbitrarily arrested in 2016 and released December 7 after more than three years in prison. A doctoral student at Princeton University, Wang had been conducting research for his dissertation on the history of the Qajar dynasty. In 2017 a revolutionary court sentenced him to 10 years in prison on charges of “cooperating with an enemy state.” Revolutionary court judge Abolqasem Salavati presided over the case. In August 2018 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention stated Wang’s detention was arbitrary and “motivated by the fact that he is a United States citizen.” Additional cases of arbitrarily detained dual and foreign nationals continued. In January an appeals court ruled against Siamak Namazi, who challenged a 10-year prison sentence for “espionage” following a lower court trial with numerous procedural irregularities, according to international media and NGO reports. Authorities initially detained Namazi in 2015, and he remained in prison at year’s end. The UNSR concluded the government subjected dual and foreign nationals to “sham trials which have failed to meet basic fair trial standards and convicted them of offenses on the basis of fabricated evidence or, in some cases, no evidence at all, and has attempted to use them as diplomatic leverage.” Dual nationals, like other citizens, faced a variety of due process violations, including lack of prompt access to a lawyer of their choosing and brief trials during which they were not allowed to defend themselves. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), since January 2018, the IRGC’s intelligence organization arbitrarily arrested at least 50 environmental activists. These included the January-February 2018 arrests of a group affiliated with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, which had been tracking the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah. The conservationists had reportedly set up camera traps to assist with tracking the animals. The IRGC claimed the detainees were gathering intelligence on missile sites. In October prosecutors dropped the charge of “corruption on Earth,” which carries the death penalty, against four of the conservationists. On November 20, the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced six of them–Houman Jokar, Sepideh Kashani, Niloufar Bayani, Amirhossein Khaleghi, Taher Ghadirian, and Morad Tahbaz–to between six and 10 years in prison on charges of collaborating with an “enemy state”; two other defendants, Sam Rajabi and Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, were awaiting sentencing as of December 10. According to HRW, the judge handed down the sentences in secret, without the presence of defense lawyers, and ignored the defendants’ claims of abuse in detention. Pretrial Detention : Pretrial detention was often arbitrarily lengthy, particularly in cases involving alleged violations of “national security” law. Authorities sometimes held persons incommunicado for lengthy periods before permitting them to contact family members. Instances of unjust and arbitrary pretrial detention were commonplace and well documented throughout the year involving numerous prisoners of conscience. According to HRW, a judge may prolong detention at his discretion, and pretrial detentions often lasted for months. Often authorities held pretrial detainees in custody with the general prison population.

e. Denial of Fair Public Trial The constitution provides that the judiciary be “an independent power” that is “free from every kind of unhealthy relation and connection.” The court system was subjected to political influence, and judges were appointed “in accordance with religious criteria.” The supreme leader appoints the head of the judiciary. The head of the judiciary, members of the Supreme Court, and the prosecutor general were clerics. International observers continued to criticize the lack of independence of the country’s judicial system and judges and maintained that trials disregarded international standards of fairness.

Trial Procedures According to the constitution and law, a defendant has the right to a fair trial, to be presumed innocent until convicted, to have access to a lawyer of his or her choice, and to appeal convictions in most cases that involve major penalties. These rights were not upheld. Panels of judges adjudicate trials in civil and criminal courts. Human rights activists reported trials in which authorities appeared to have determined the verdicts in advance, and defendants did not have the opportunity to confront their accusers or meet with lawyers. For journalists and defendants charged with crimes against national security, the law restricts the choice of attorneys to a government-approved list. When postrevolutionary statutes do not address a situation, the government advised judges to give precedence to their knowledge and interpretation of sharia (Islamic law). Under this method judges may find a person guilty based on their own “divine knowledge.” The constitution does not provide for the establishment or the mandate of the revolutionary courts. The courts were created pursuant to the former supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini’s edict immediately following the 1979 revolution, with a sharia judge appointed as the head of the courts. They were intended as a temporary emergency measure to try high-level officials of the deposed monarchy and purge threats to the regime. The courts, however, became institutionalized and continue to operate in parallel to the criminal justice system. Human rights groups and international observers often identified the revolutionary courts, which are generally responsible for hearing the cases of political prisoners, as routinely employing grossly unfair trials without due process, handing down predetermined verdicts, and rubberstamping executions for political purposes. These unfair practices reportedly occur during all stages of criminal proceedings in revolutionary courts, including the initial prosecution and pretrial investigation, first instance trial, and review by higher courts. The IRGC and Intelligence Ministry reportedly determine many aspects of revolutionary court cases. Most of the important political cases are referred to a small number of branches of the revolutionary courts, whose judges often have negligent legal training and are not independent. During the year human rights groups and international media noted the absence of procedural safeguards in criminal trials, and courts admitted as evidence confessions made under duress or torture. UNSR Javaid Rehman expressed concerns about allegations of confessions extracted by torture and a lack of due process or a fair trial. According to Iran Human Rights, on August 4, authorities at Dezful Prison executed two Arab men after a court found them guilty of “waging war against God;” Amnesty International reported the men were tortured to gain confessions. The Special Clerical Court is headed by a Shia Islamic legal scholar, overseen by the supreme leader, and charged with investigating alleged offenses committed by clerics and issuing rulings based on an independent interpretation of Islamic legal sources. As with the revolutionary courts, the constitution does not provide for the Special Clerical Court, which operates outside the judiciary’s purview. Clerical courts were used to prosecute Shia clerics who expressed controversial ideas and participated in activities outside the sphere of religion, such as journalism or reformist political activities. In January cleric Seyed Hasan Aghamiri posted on Instagram that the Special Clerical Court had sentenced him to two years in prison and permanent defrocking for social media posts critical of the clerical establishment. He said authorities subsequently reduced the sentence to a suspended five-year sentence.

Political Prisoners and Detainees Official statistics regarding the number of citizens imprisoned for their political beliefs were not available. According to United for Iran, as of December 12, there were an estimated 610 prisoners of conscience held in the country, including those jailed for their religious beliefs. The government often charged political dissidents with vague crimes, such as “antirevolutionary behavior,” “corruption on earth,” “siding with global arrogance,” “waging war against God,” and “crimes against Islam.” Prosecutors imposed strict penalties on government critics for minor violations. The political crimes law defines a political crime as an insult against the government, as well as “the publication of lies.” Political crimes are those acts “committed with the intent of reforming the domestic or foreign policies of Iran,” while those with the intent to damage “the foundations of the regime” are considered national security crimes. The court and the Public Prosecutor’s Office retain responsibility for determining the nature of the crime. The political crimes law grants the accused certain rights during arrest and imprisonment. Political criminals should be held in detention facilities separate from ordinary criminals. Political criminals should also be exempt from wearing prison uniforms, not subject to rules governing repeat offenses, not subject to extradition, and exempt from solitary confinement unless judicial officials deem it necessary. Political criminals also have the right to see and correspond with immediate family regularly and to access books, newspapers, radio, and television. Many of the law’s provisions have not been implemented, and the government continued to arrest and charge students, journalists, lawyers, political activists, women’s activists, artists, and members of religious minorities with “national security” crimes that do not fall under the political crimes law. Political prisoners were also at greater risk of torture and abuse in detention. They were often mixed with the general prison population, and former prisoners reported that authorities often threatened political prisoners with transfer to criminal wards, where attacks were more likely. Human rights activists and international media reported cases of political prisoners confined with accused and convicted violent criminals, and with criminals carrying contagious diseases such as HIV or hepatitis (see section 1.c., Physical Conditions). The government often placed political prisoners in prisons far from their families, denied them correspondence rights, and held them in solitary confinement for long periods. The government reportedly held some detainees in prison for years on unfounded charges of sympathizing with real or alleged terrorist groups. The government issued travel bans on some former political prisoners, barred them from working in their occupations for years after incarceration, and imposed internal exile on some. During the year authorities occasionally gave political prisoners suspended sentences and released them on bail with the understanding that renewed political activity would result in their return to prison. The government did not permit international humanitarian organizations or UN representatives access to political prisoners. Prison authorities reportedly denied human rights defender and journalist Narges Mohammadi phone contact with her family, as well as appropriate medical treatment related to a major operation she underwent in May. Security forces arrested Mohammadi in 2016, and a revolutionary court sentenced her to 16 years in prison for “propaganda against the state,” “assembly and collusion against national security,” and establishing the illegal Step by Step to Stop the Death Penalty organization, allegedly harming national security. Lawyers who defended political prisoners were often arrested, detained, and subjected to excessive sentences and punishments for engaging in regular professional activities. The government continued to imprison lawyers and others affiliated with the Defenders of Human Rights Center advocacy group. In 2018 the government arrested at least eight human rights attorneys in what the United Nations characterized as “increasing levels of intimidation, arrest and detention for providing legal counsel to dissenting voices.” In January imprisoned human rights attorney Mohammad Najafi was sentenced to an additional two years in prison, bringing his total sentence to 19 years for “national security-related” charges. On March 11, a revolutionary court sentenced human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh to a cumulative 38 years in prison and 148 lashes for providing legal defense services to women charged with crimes for not wearing hijab. Sotoudeh was previously arrested in 2010 and pardoned in 2013. On July 30, a revolutionary court upheld a 30-year prison sentence–plus 111 lashes–against Amir Salar Davoudi, a lawyer and civil rights activist. International human rights organizations reported the arrest of several other human rights lawyers during the year because of their work. In January security agents arrested Farhad Mohammadi, a Kurdish human rights lawyer, and Masoud Shamsnejad, a lawyer and professor.

Politically Motivated Reprisal Against Individuals Located Outside the Country There were credible reports that the government attempted to misuse international law enforcement tools for politically motivated purposes as reprisals against specific individuals located outside the country. In March the government filed an INTERPOL Red Notice on Bahareh Zare Bahari, an Iranian national who had resided for several years in the Philippines, claiming she faced charges of “assault and battery” in Iran for alleged threats she made against other Iranian nationals in the Philippines. Media and NGOs noted that Bahari had publicly expressed opposition to the Iranian government, and displayed a poster of a government opponent during an international beauty pageant in which she participated. Authorities detained Bahari at the airport in Manila in October when she returned to the country after an international trip. On November 8, Philippine authorities granted Bahari refugee status in the country.

Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies Citizens had limited ability to sue the government and were not able to bring lawsuits through the courts against the government for civil or human rights violations.

Property Restitution The constitution allows the government to confiscate property acquired illicitly or in a manner not in conformity with Islamic law. The government appeared to target ethnic and religious minorities in invoking this provision.

f. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence The constitution states that “reputation, life, property, [and] dwelling[s]” are protected from trespass, except as “provided by law.” The government routinely infringed on this right. Security forces monitored the social activities of citizens, entered homes, offices, and places of worship, monitored telephone conversations and internet communications, and opened mail without court authorization. The government also repeatedly detained the family members of activists as a form of intimidation and reprisal. A semiofficial news agency in Iran reported December 24 that authorities arrested approximately 10 family members of Pouya Bakhtiari, a protester reportedly killed by security forces in the city of Karaj during the November fuel price-hike demonstrations. The detained persons reportedly included Bakhtiari’s 11-year-old nephew and two of his elderly grandparents. According to other family members, security forces detained these individuals to prevent them from holding a traditional memorial service for Bakhtiari 40 days after his death. According to international human rights organizations, the Ministry of Intelligence arrested and intimidated BBC employees’ family members, including elderly family members, based in Iran. The government also froze and seized assets of family members, demoted relatives employed by state-affiliated organizations, and confiscated passports. The government also compelled family members of journalists from other media outlets abroad to defame their relatives on state television. In January a revolutionary court sentenced Nasrin Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, to six years in prison for “conspiring against national security” and “propaganda against the system” related to publicly expressing his support for his detained wife, according to his lawyer. Khandan filed an appeal, and as of November, authorities had not detained him to serve the sentence. In September, Amnesty International reported that authorities arrested three family members of women’s rights activist and founder of anticompulsory hijab movement Masih Alinejad–her brother, Alireza Alinejad, and siblings of her former husband, Hadi and Leila Lotfi. NGOs expressed concern they were potentially being held in solitary confinement. Authorities reportedly released Hadi Lotfi after interrogation.