The Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has called on the head of Iran’s judiciary to step down after a string of hunger strikes by political prisoners.



Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani is also facing mounting pressure from the government of Hassan Rouhani, which is demanding greater financial transparency.

Larijani was appointed by the supreme leader, cannot be summoned by MPs for questioning and is not directly accountable to the public. Under his watch the judiciary has made a number of high-profile arrests of dual nationals that are seen as undermining the president Rouhani’s advances on foreign policy.

Ebadi, a human rights lawyer and women’s rights activist living in exile in the UK, said she considered Larijani to be “directly responsible for the injustices and corruption” in the system.

She said that “in the name of religion and with the excuse of national security”, the judiciary was “overseeing a miscarriage of justice”.

“Civil and social activists and thinkers who voice criticism or protest are put in jail and condemned to lengthy prison sentences and torture and persecution, while criminals, serial killers and those involved in embezzlement continue to abuse people under the shadows of a corrupted judicial system,” she said in a statement posted on the website of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, of which she is president.

“A considerable number of prisoners are those held on political or religious grounds. In what part of the world and according to what history, you would call this judicial system fair?”

This week Arash Sadeghi, a student activist serving a 15-year prison sentence, ended a 71-day hunger strike over the detention of his wife, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, after she was released on bail. Iraee had been sentenced to six years for writing an unpublished fictional story about stoning to death in Iran.

The case had sparked rare demonstrations near Tehran’s Evin prison. Amnesty said Sadeghi had lost 20kg (44lbs) while on hunger strike, and it called on Iran to provide him with urgent specialised medical care for a kidney malfunction.

Other prisoners remain on hunger strike. Ali Shariati, given a five-year sentence for what Amnesty said was “peaceful activism, including his participation in a peaceful protest to condemn acid attacks against women in Iran”, has been refusing food since the end of October. Saeed Shirzad, who is in jail for protesting against child labour, and Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese citizen and IT expert accused of spying for the US, are also on hunger strikes.



Tara Sepehri Far, of Human Rights Watch, echoed Ebadi in condemning Larijani. “Iran’s judiciary regularly violates the rights of political prisoners, often charging them under ill-defined national security crimes,” she said.

“Larijani, as the head of the judiciary since 2009, is ultimately responsible for this dismal record. The reality in today’s Iran is that the judiciary often acts as a fundamental obstacle to justice, even threatening parliamentarians who have called for due process for arrested human rights defenders, which only shatters public trust in the institution.”

Amnesty’s Philip Luther said the Iranian authorities’ treatment of Sadeghi had been deplorable. “First they unjustly imprisoned him, then they ignored his legitimate protest against his wife’s unwarranted imprisonment for weeks, and now they are denying him urgent medical care,” he said. “They must stop endangering his health and his life and order his transfer to hospital immediately, pending his unconditional release.”

Iran’s judiciary has repeatedly denied claims of violations, saying criticism voiced from the west is hypocritical and that the US and the UK remain mute about rights abuses committed by allies such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.



Larijani belongs to an influential family and he is seen as a potential candidate to succeed the supreme leader, Ayatollah Alli Khamenei. One of his brothers is the head of Iran’s state-run human rights council; another is the parliamentary speaker.



Recently Rouhani and Larijani have been at odds over financial transparency. This week Rouhani tweeted that his government was prepared to make its income and expenses public, “but on the other side, it also expects the judiciary to be transparent about its accounts too”.

In November an Iranian MP questioned a minister over allegations that Larijani possessed 63 personal bank accounts filled with public funds. The judiciary later attempted to arrest the MP but was unsuccessful. Larijani has denied the allegations.