Human Rights Watch released its World Report 2018, highlighting the Iran human rights condition in 2017.
Human Rights Watch believes that executions, especially for drug-related offenses, continued at a high rate in 2017.
The organization details the condition of prisoners, human rights defenders, women, minorities, migrants and persons with disability summarizing human rights abuse under the Iranian regime.
The human rights organization condemned the Iranian Authorities in the security apparatus and Iran’s judiciary to “target journalists, online media activists, and human rights defenders in an ongoing crackdown, in blatant disregard of international and domestic legal standards.”
About the number of executions carried out in 2017, the report declares: “The judiciary continued to execute individuals at a high rate, particularly for drug offenses. Human rights groups reported that Iran executed at least 476 individuals as of November 27, 2017, including five individuals who were sentenced to death for crimes they allegedly committed as children.”
According to the report Scores of human rights defenders and political activists remain behind bars for their peaceful activism. It says: “Atena Daemi, a child rights activist, is still serving a seven year prison sentence from November 2016 for peaceful activism. Abdolfatah Soltani, a prominent human rights lawyer who has been in prison since 2011, is serving a 13-year prison sentence for his human rights work, including co-founding the Defenders of Human Rights Center. Zia Nabavi, a student activist, is serving a 10-year prison sentence in Karoon prison in the city of Ahvaz.
On March 16, Narges Mohammadi, a prominent human rights defender who was arrested in June 2015 to serve the remainder of her six-year prison sentence, began serving a new sentence of 10 years in prison on charges including “membership in the banned campaign of Step by Step to Stop the Death Penalty.”
