Iran

By Olivia Ward, former bureau chief, correspondent and foreign affairs writer for the Toronto Star for more than two decades. She works as a documentary filmmaker with Shelley Saywell's Bishari film company.  

Saeed Malekpour came to Canada in 2004, drawn by its promise of unspoiled nature, fresh air and open spaces to explore.  But on Oct. 4, 2008, he was arrested, beaten, tortured and cast into the airless, dungeon-like cells of Iran’s Evin prison. Today marks his ninth year behind bars.

Malekpour was a Canadian permanent resident awaiting citizenship when an urgent call from his family brought him to Tehran to visit his dying father. A metallurgical engineer, he had been working in Victoria B.C.as a web programmer to put himself through a graduate degree he hoped would open up new employment opportunities. Instead, he was charged by the Iranian regime with managing a pornographic website at the instigation of western countries plotting to corrupt the morals of Iranians – a spurious charge that was supported by no evidence.

On March 8 Amnesty Internatonal members from Group 46 in Peterbourough hosted their annual fundraising and awareness dinner.  This year their special guests were former Iranian-Canadian prisoner, Hamid Ghassemi Shall and his wife Antoella Mega. Amnesty International members across Canada campaigned for years for Hamid's release from prison and return to Canada.  Hamid now campaigns for others, particularly Saeed Malekpour, a permanent resident of Canada now detained in Iran.

Read about Group 46's event and their work to support human rights.

Human Rights’ Groups Play Vital Role, Says Former Iranian Prisoner

Join Amnesty International supporters around the world on International Human Rights Day for our global campaign Write for Rights, and call on Iran to free women human rights defender Narges Mohammadi from prison.

Narges Mohammadi is a prominent human rights advocate in Iran campaigning for justice and gender equality, and against the death penalty. She has been targeted and imprisoned by Iranian authorities before for her peaceful activism and has spent the last decade in and out of prison. Narges has spent the last year in Iran's notorious Evin prison, and has been sentenced to 16 years in prison following an unfair trial for trumped up national-security related charges.

Her only 'crime' is standing up for human rights--including the rights of women and girls--amidst Iran's crackdown on women's rights and those who advocate for women's rights. Narges remains in prison because of peaceful human rights work. Iran needs to know that it is not acceptable to persecute peaceful activists. And Narges needs to know that the world is watching and advocating for her freedom.

Ezat Taheri, Mohammad Ali Taheri's mother, sits front and centre as Amnesty International campaigner Gloria Nafziger thanks everyone for their commitment.

In Amnesty International’s Toronto office there is a bookcase full of 3 inch thick non-descript black binders. Each binder contains 100 Urgent Actions, case files for people around the world at risk of human rights violations – unfair detention or arrest, torture, disappearance, harassment and censorship. Around 350 cases come in every year. They get sent out to letter writers, form online actions, get turned into petitions, spread via social media and power campaigns.

By Gloria Nafziger, Amnesty International Canada's Campaigner for Iran

Where would you spend a Sunday in July?

On Sunday July 17, the members of Amnesty International’s TriCities Group in Coquitlam BC chose to stand in solidarity with Iranian prisoner of conscience, Narges Mohammadi

Narges Mohammadi is a human rights defender who received a 16-year prison sentence after she was convicted, following an unfair trial in April 2016, of the charges of “founding an illegal group”, “gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security”, and “spreading propaganda against the system”. She is already serving a six-year prison sentence from a previous case. Her convictions are based solely on her human rights work.

Narges is critically ill. She suffers from a pulmonary embolism (a blockage in the blood vessel that carries blood from the heart to the lungs) and a neurological disorder that has resulted in her experiencing seizures and temporary partial paralysis. She needs ongoing specialized medical care, which she cannot receive in prison, as well as daily medication.

To mark 1 June – International Children’s Day – Raha Bahreini from our Iran team describes how Amnesty has managed to raise awareness about the death penalty and save juvenile offenders from the gallows in Iran.

It starts with a panicked phone call.

Our contact tells us that a juvenile offender (a person aged below 18 at the time of their crime) has just been transferred to solitary confinement – the final step before execution.

This is often our first glimpse of this young person and the desperate situation they are in. Why? Because the families of those on death row often fear reprisals if they publicize the plight of their loved ones. They sometimes believe that international lobbying and public campaigning will only complicate the situation and hasten the execution. At times, the authorities themselves give families false assurances, claiming that if the family does not publicize the case, their loved ones might be spared.

The moment we are prompted to intervene is often the moment when the authorities’ promises are exposed as hollow and the young person is just days or hours away from execution. 

On 1 August 2015 Mohammad Ali Taheri was sentenced to death in Iran for ‘spreading corruption on earth”

His family in Canada live in shock and fear that the life of their son and brother could be brutally taken from them for nothing more than the peaceful expression of his beliefs.  The Taheri family in Canada have been cautious about making public statements.  For years they have lived in the hope that Mohammad Ali Taheri would be set free from his nightmare of imprisonment, solitary confinement and interrogation. They don’t want to do anything to jeopardize his safety and well-being. Now a death sentence is threatening to take away their loved family member and they are beginning to speak publicly.