(HRW/IFEX) – The following is a 19 July 1999 Human Rights Watch press release: **Updates IFEX alert of 15 July 1999** Identities of Iran Detainees Must Be Public Iranian Government Should Release Non-Violent Protesters (New York, July 19, 1999) — Human Rights Watch today called on the Iranian authorities to release the names of the […]
(HRW/IFEX) – The following is a 19 July 1999 Human Rights Watch press
release:
**Updates IFEX alert of 15 July 1999**
Identities of Iran Detainees Must Be Public
Iranian Government Should Release Non-Violent Protesters
(New York, July 19, 1999) — Human Rights Watch today called on the Iranian
authorities to release the names of the hundreds of students and others
taken into detention following violent clashes last week, and to release
those not implicated in any criminal conduct.
Although the violence, between students and civilian groups linked to senior
conservative clerics, ended four days ago, arrests have continued.
“The Iranian authorities should officially confirm the number of people
arrested and make their names public,” said Hanny Megally, executive
director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch.
“We are gravely concerned that the fate of hundreds remains unknown.”
In a communiqué issued Sunday July 18, student leaders from the Elected
Council of Student Protesters, a coordinating body of Tehran students which
has emerged after the clashes, estimated the number of detainees at 1,400.
So far there has been no official statement on the number arrested.
Human Rights Watch urged that those not involved in any criminal activities
should be released immediately while others against whom there is evidence
of criminal conduct should be given fair, public trials with full access to
the procedural safeguards required in international law. The organization
fears that many of the detainees are being held for exercising their right
to nonviolent freedom of expression.
Human Rights Watch said that in addition to arrests during the
demonstrations, there were reports of student leaders and journalists being
detained from their homes by security forces and paramilitaries working with
them. Among those detained are three leaders of the opposition political
party, the Iran Nation Party. Khosrow Seif, the seventy-year-old
spokesperson for the INP, which has been banned but is still tolerated, as
well as Behzad Namazi and Mehran Abdolbaghi, were detained from their homes
on Wednesday July 14. The founders of the INP, Darioush and Parvaneh
Forouhar, were murdered in their Tehran home by agents linked to the
Ministry of Information in November 1998.
Human Rights Watch also urged the Supreme National Security Council to make
good on its pledge to carry out an independent and public inquiry into the
assaults and killings of students which took place at Tehran University in
the early hours of Friday July 9, 1999.
Human Rights Watch said it remained deeply troubled by the involvement of
violent semi-official civilian groups in suppressing nonviolent protest and
threatening proponents of reform.
“Government security forces are supposed to protect citizens from these
unaccountable groups, not act in collusion with them,” said Hanny Megally.
He urged that those involved in such activities be identified and
prosecuted.
