Evin Prison is a prison located in the Evin neighborhood of Tehran, Iran. The prison has been the primary site for the housing of Iran's political prisoners since 1972, before and after the Islamic Revolution, in a purpose-built wing nicknamed "Evin University" due to the number of students and intellectuals housed there. Evin Prison has been accused of committing "serious human rights abuses" against its political dissidents and critics of the government.
The state of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran has been criticized by Iranians and international human rights activists, writers, and NGOs. The United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission have condemned prior and ongoing abuses in Iran in published critiques and several resolutions. The government is criticized both for restrictions and punishments that follow the Islamic Republic's constitution and law, and for "extrajudicial" actions by state actors, such as the torture, rape, and killing of political prisoners, and the beatings and killings of dissidents and other civilians. Capital punishment in Iran remains a matter of international concern.
Bahareh Hedayat is an Iranian activist and campaigner for women's rights. She was one of the activists who worked on the One Million Signatures campaign to change laws that discriminate against women in Iran. She has been arrested and imprisoned several times.
Jila Baniyaghoob is an Iranian journalist and women's rights activist. She is the editor-in-chief of the website Kanoon Zanan Irani. Baniyaghoob is married to fellow journalist Bahman Ahmadi Amou'i, an editor at Sarmayeh, a business newspaper.
Zeynab Jalalian is a Kurdish Iranian who has been convicted a mohareb and sentenced to death by an Islamic Revolutionary Court for allegedly being a member of the Kurdish militant group PJAK, which she denies. Jalalian's sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.
Human rights organizations have condemned Jalalian's verdict, torture, conditions of incarceration and the inattention to her medical care.
Majid Tavakoli is an Iranian student leader, human rights activist and political prisoner. He used to be a member of the Islamic Students' Association at Tehran's Amirkabir University of Technology, where he studied shipbuilding. He was arrested at least three times by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, during the student protests over the disputed Presidential Election of 2009. In response to allegations that he cross-dressed as a disguise to avoid arrest, a campaign protesting his imprisonment featured men posting photos of themselves wearing hijab.
The Mourning Mothers are a group of Iranian women whose spouses or children were killed by government agents in the protests following the disputed Iranian presidential election of 2009. The group also includes relatives of victims of earlier human rights abuses, including mass executions during the 1980s. The principal demand of the Mourning Mothers is government accountability for the deaths, arrests, and disappearances of their children. The mothers meet on Saturdays in Laleh Park in Tehran, and are often chased by the police and arrested.
Nasrin Sotoudeh is a human rights lawyer in Iran. She has represented imprisoned Iranian opposition activists and politicians following the disputed June 2009 Iranian presidential elections and prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors. Her clients have included journalist Isa Saharkhiz, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Heshmat Tabarzadi. She has also represented women arrested for appearing in public without a hijab, which is a punishable offense in Iran. Nasrin Sotoudeh was the subject of Nasrin, a 2020 documentary filmed in secret in Iran about Sotoudeh's "ongoing battles for the rights of women, children and minorities." In 2021, she was named as of Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World. She was released on a medical furlough in July 2021.
Narges Mohammadi is an Iranian human rights activist and Nobel laureate. She is the vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), headed by her fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi. Mohammadi has been a vocal proponent of mass feminist civil disobedience against the hijab in Iran and a vocal critic of the hijab and chastity program of 2023. In May 2016, she was sentenced in Tehran to 16 years' imprisonment for establishing and running "a human rights movement that campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty." She was released in 2020 but sent back to prison in 2021, where she has since given reports of the abuse and solitary confinement of detained women.
Maryam Shafipour is an Iranian human rights activist. Following seven months of pre-trial detention in Evin Prison, including more than two months in solitary confinement, Shafipour was sentenced in March 2014 to seven years in prison for her political activities. Human rights organization have called for her release and condemned her conviction and prison sentence. She was released in July 2015.
Atena Daemi Khoshknudhani is an Iranian civil rights activist, children's rights activist, human rights activist and political prisoner in Iran. Daemi was last arrested in November 2016 and sentenced seven years prison sentence. Peaceful activities for which she was charged include distributing anti-death penalty leaflets and making posts on Facebook and Twitter criticising Iran's execution record. Later, Daemi and her sisters were arrested and sentenced on charges of having "insulted officers on duty". Subsequent appeals have overturned that conviction and reduced Daemi's original sentence.
Marjan Davari is an Iranian researcher, translator and writer who has been studying, teaching, translating and researching philosophical texts for more than 20 years.
The Girls of Enghelab protests are protests against the compulsory hijab in Iran, part of the wider Iranian Democracy Movement. The protests were inspired by Vida Movahed, an Iranian woman known as the Girl of Enghelab Street, who stood in the crowd on a utility box on Enghelab Street in Tehran on 27 December 2017 during the 2017–2018 Iranian protests who tied a white headscarf, to a stick, and waved it to the crowd as a flag. She was arrested on that day and was released temporary on bail a month later, on 28 January 2018. Some people interpreted Movahed's action as being based on Masih Alinejad's call for White Wednesdays, a protest movement that the presenter at VOA Persian Television started in early 2017. Other women later re-enacted her protest and posted photos of their actions on social media. These women are described as the "Girls of Enghelab Street" and the "Girls of Revolution Street" in English sources. Some of the protesters however claim that they were not following Masih Alinejad's call. The protests intensified in 2022 due to the death of Mahsa Amini.
Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee or Golrokh Iraee is an Iranian writer, accountant, political prisoner and a human rights defender who advocates against the practice of stoning in Iran. As a religious prisoner of conscience she was represented by Vice Chair of the USCIRF Gayle Manchin.
Farhad Meysami is an Iranian physician, teacher and civil activist. He believes in non violence and civil disobedience. He was sentenced to five year sentence in August 2018 for crimes such as “spreading propaganda against the regime”. He was released in February 2023 after a four-month hunger strike that grew international attention.
Saba Kord Afshari is an Iranian political prisoner. She appeared without a head scarf in public, in defiance of Iran’s compulsory hijab laws, and posted a video about it on social media.
Qarchak Prison is a prison for women located in Qarchak, in Qarchak County, previously part of Varamin County, Tehran Province, Iran. It is also called Persian: زندان زنان ری, romanized: Rey Women Prison, "Gharchak Women’s Prison", Rey Penitentiary or Varamin prison.
Shaparak Shajarizadeh is an Iranian women's rights activist and a former political prisoner. She is also a member of women's committee of Iran Transition Council. Shajarizadeh is well known for her efforts in empowering Women's rights in Iran and activism against Iran's contemporary compulsory hijab law. She possess anti-headscarf sentiments and also pioneered online campaigns such as "Girls of Revolution Street" and "White Wednesdays" as a part of the protests against compulsory hijab in an effort to encourage both men and women in Iran to post images in the social media platforms of themselves without wearing headscarves. She was arrested and imprisoned twice for defying Iran's laws about compulsory hijab laws.
Soheila Hejab Bidsorkhi is an Iranian lawyer, political activist, and civil rights activist.
Raheleh Ahmadi is an Iranian political prisoner and the mother of Saba Kord Afshari. She was arrested on 10 July 2019 after protesting the arrest and treatment of her daughter, who had been arrested a month earlier for protesting Iran's compulsory hijab law.
Yasaman Aryani without her head scarf – YouTube