Iranian Officials Commit Rights Violations with Impunity While Parliament Votes to Further Persecute Human Rights Defenders
Bolstering a state campaign aimed at crushing dissent, the Iranian Parliament has voted to “investigate” the Iranian Bar Association in a bid to further persecute human rights lawyers who serve as the last remaining lifeline for defendants facing politically motivated charges in the judicial system.
#Iran’s government is exhausting every avenue to stifle dissent.
Now it’s trying to dismantle the Iranian Bar Association, to block civil society’s access to due process.
Bar associations and rights organizations around the world must speak out. https://t.co/wzDXodUGn4
— IranHumanRights.org (@ICHRI) June 28, 2023
“Iranian officials commit blatant human rights violations with impunity, while mechanisms to scrutinize publicly funded state institutions don’t exist in Iran,” said Hadi Ghaemi, Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
“Meanwhile the Iranian Bar Association, an independent body that does not receive public funding, is being subjected to a bogus ‘investigation’ that also happens to be unlawful,” he added. “This is essentially state-sponsored persecution under the guise of a legal process.”
According to the Iranian Parliament’s internal regulations, the legislative branch can only investigate government bodies or organizations that receive funding from the national budget.
“This assault on justice in Iran should be strongly condemned by bar associations and international human rights organizations around the world, as well as by government and UN officials,” said Ghaemi.
CHRI also urges bar associations to highlight individual cases of imprisoned and detained human rights lawyers, condemn their persecution, especially in international forums such as legal conferences, and call attention to the systematic denial of due process in the Islamic Republic—including in death penalty cases where lives are at stake.
Parliament Grants State Extraordinary Powers Over Legal Profession
A motion titled “The Request to Investigate the Operations of Bar Associations and their Union” was passed in Iran’s parliament by 158 votes in favor, 20 against and 3 abstentions on June 27, 2023.
The investigation will enable the judiciary chief, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, and state security agencies including the Intelligence Ministry and the intelligence organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Crops, to scrutinize bar associations throughout the country as well as their central union in Tehran.
The state security apparatus will also be empowered with “reviewing the legal qualification” of lawyers who are members of the bar, which will enable it to pick and choose which lawyers are allowed to officially work in the country.
Iran: State’s “Investigation” of Bar Association Aims to Crush Dissent
