i Annual Report 2021 ii 1 CONTENTS FOREWORD 2 Clampdown on Human Rights Defenders 4 Political prisoners tied to the opposition 01 10 Banishment and abrupt relocations s women around the world are starting The mothers of execution victims and the victims 14 Denial of medical treatment a new year on March 8, International of the November 2019 uprising as well as the 18 Trumped up charges against political prisoners Women’s Day, we are happy to bring families of the victims of the Ukrainian Airliner 20 Kurdish political prisoners A you another Annual Report of the NCRI downed by the IRGC, remained vocal throughout 23 Arab political prisoners Women’s Committee. the year, seeking justice for their children. 25 Women arrested during protests This is an effort every year to shed light on the Their quest for justice spreads hope in society 28 Detention and intimidation of journalists various aspects of women’s life and struggle for prosecution of the regime’s leaders. 31 Conditions of religious minorities in Iran and violations of their basic rights as Women continue to have a prominent presence 32 The situation in women’s wards stipulated in the CEDAW and BPfA. in all protests by teachers, nurses, pensioners 40 Attacks on political prisoners in Qarchak This year, however, all the issues had been and defrauded investors. exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, We excluded all these issues and summarized 42 Violence Against Women in Iran making it difficult to address them all. the parts dealing specifically with women’s basic 42 Imposing the Veil As we are publishing our Annual Report 2021, rights, and yet we ended up with a book double 02 46 Fate of bill to prevent VAW the COVID-19 has exacted a death toll of at the size of the previous reports. 49 World record in domestic violence least 230,000 from our nation of 85 million. As We hope to have brought to light the most crucial 52 Defenseless victims of honor killings the country is going through the fourth peak, issues concerning Iranian women, namely the 55 Child abuse, the worst social ailment in Iran the mullahs’ leader has banned purchase of Iranian regime’s brutal attempt to suppress all 56 Early and child marriages, 100 per day vaccines from other countries, promising to start and every voice of freedom, the various aspects 58 Top executioner of women, 15 per year inoculating everyone next spring. of violence against women both sponsored by In the meantime, the economy is in shambles the state or promoted by state laws and policies, 60 Gender gap and lack of equal opportunities and poverty is spreading by the day leading to and the whopping gender gap in Iran as a result 03 60 Gender Discrimination harrowing incidents, such as parents selling their of gender discrimination in all fields. 66 Pandemic Impacts Women Heads of Households liver and heart - yes, heart - to provide for the As we begin another year on March 8, we 72 Nurses Left Defenseless at the Forefront expenses of their families. Sometimes, they do are filled with hope and confidence that the 76 Young Girls Deprived of Education not find any solution but to take the lives of their courageous women of Iran will bring about own children and then kill themselves. regime change and realize the dawn of freedom But despite the misery the treacherous mullahs on their homeland. And in this effort, they hope have inflicted on Iran’s great nation, there is to enjoy the support and recognition of human great hope for change. The courageous women rights and women’s rights advocates from Annual Report 2021 of Iran are holding up the beacon of hope in the around the world. Copyright©2021 by Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran dark of the night. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without Women who demonstrated their heroism in NCRI Women’s Committee permission in writing from the publisher five nationwide uprisings are now organizing March 2021 ISBN: 978-2-35822-028-6 resistance units and preparing for more protests women.ncr-iran.org @womenncri @womenncri and uprisings. The NCRI Women’s Committee Annual Report 2021 2 3 Clampdown on opponents and human rights defenders ne of the most serious These brave women who dare By violating the principle violations of women’s to oppose the mullahs’ savage of separation of prisoners’ Orights in Iran is the regime or defend human categories, the regime banished persecution and suppression rights, are deprived of the due political prisoners and confined of opponents and human rights process of law. In unfair trials them in prisons beside common defenders. This is one of the and without having access to This is one of the and dangerous criminals. It main forms of violence against a lawyer, they are sentenced thereby prepared the grounds women in Iran carried out by full to disproportionate prison main forms of for their physical elimination. support of the government and sentences. violence against In some instances, prison under careful supervision of the On numerous instances, authorities hired dangerous Judiciary. prisoners have to endanger their women in Iran prisoners to murder their political For exercising their freedom of health by going on hunger strike carried out by opponents. speech and opinion, the Iranian as a last resort to achieve their One of the regime’s common regime arbitrarily and violently demands. full support of the practices is torturing political arrests opponents of the ruling Throughout the past year, government and prisoners by depriving them of religious fascism and human the Coronavirus pandemic medical treatment. The method rights defenders in Iran. They aggravated the already abysmal under careful proved even more efficient are even brutalized on the conditions in Iranian prisons. supervision of the during the pandemic. Prisoners way to prison. Then they are The mullahs’ regime deliberately infected by the virus are detained confined in solitary cells without refused to provide the minimum Judiciary. in contaminated sub-standard standing trial. They endure great equipment to prisons to fight the quarantines, and left unattended pressure and various forms virus. They did not grant leaves as a bid to torture and murder of psychological and physical to prisoners and particularly them. torture under interrogation. political prisoners until the end of The information available on Often, they are not allowed to pandemic. political prisoners in Iran is contact their families and inform Even the pandemic did not stop scarce and incomplete. The them of their place of detention the regime from its arbitrary following pages provide the let alone, having visits or access arrests, forced disappearances, available information on these to lawyer. torture, mistreatment of prisoners prisoners. and issuing heavy jail sentences for opponents and human rights defenders, sending more of them to prisons. In fact, the clerical regime took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic, using the virus to put further pressure on its political opponents and physically eliminate them. The NCRI Women’s Committee 01Annual Report 2021 4 5 POLITICAL PRISONERS SUPPORTING THE OPPOSITION PMOI/MEK n the past year and particularly after the November 2019 uprising in Iran, the clerical regime made a considerable number of Iarbitrary arrests among supporters of its main opposition force, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The following pages contain information on some of these prisoners. Zahra Safaei Parastoo Mo’ini Forough Taghipour Political prisoner Zahra Safaei was arrested with Political prisoner Parastoo Mo’ini, 20, was arrested Political prisoner Forough Taghipour, 25, and her daughter, Parastoo Mo’ini, on February 24, on February 24, 2020. She was incarcerated in the her mother, Nassim Jabbari, were arrested on 2020. They were interrogated in the Intelligence notorious Intelligence Ministry Ward 209 in Evin February 24, 2020. Ministry Ward 209 in Evin Prison and pressured Prison. For nearly two months, she was under Mrs. Jabbari, 58, was released on bail in mid- to appear on TV and make confessions against pressure to appear on TV and make confessions March, but Forough remained in detention and themselves. against herself. under interrogation. In mid-April, she was banished After completion of their interrogations, they were She was finally banished to Qarchak Prison in mid- to Qarchak Prison. banished to the notorious Qarchak Prison in mid- April. Forough Taghipour and Parastoo Mo’ini have been April and detained among common criminals. On September 14, 2020, Parastoo Mo’ini and under tremendous pressure. Inmates hired and Zahra Safaei, 57, was imprisoned for 8 years in Forough Taghipour were attacked by two hired incited by the warden of Qarchak have harassed the 1980s. Her father, Hassan Ali Safaei, was a inmates who attempted to pour boiling water and attacked them several times. renowned Bazaar businessman in Tehran who was on their heads and faces. But their cellmates Forough Taghipour contracted the COVID-19 while executed in 1981 for supporting the PMOI/MEK. prevented the assailants from doing so. in detention in Qarchak. Mrs. Safaei was temporarily released on bail on Ms. Mo’ini also contracted the Coronavirus while in On January 5, 2020, a Tehran court convened June 28, 2020. However, she was rearrested on detention in Qarchak. and arraigned Forough Taghipour and her mother July 26, and returned to Qarchak Prison. She was once again badly brutalized and injured of their charge of “propaganda against the state.” Mrs. Safaei has been threated to death by on December 13, 2020, during a vicious raid on But the judge also threatened to hand down a dangerous criminals in Qarchak in June, August, their ward.