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Leader Grants Clemency to over 2,800 Iranian Prisoners

mahla — Sat, 21 Sep 2024 18:55:15 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) The pardon was granted at the request of the country’s Judiciary Chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei on the occasion of the birth anniversaries of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Imam Jafar Sadiq (AS), the sixth Imam of Shiite Muslims.

The top judge had proposed the amnesty for 2,887 prisoners.

The 17th day of the month of Rabi al-Awwal in the lunar Hijri calendar marks the birth anniversaries of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Imam Jafar Sadiq (AS). This year it falls on Saturday, September 21.

Article 110 of the Constitution grants the Leader the right to pardon or reduce the sentences of convicts upon a recommendation from the head of the Judiciary.

The clemency, however, does not apply to certain types of convicts, including those who have been sentenced for their role in the armed struggle against the country, armed or organized drug trafficking, armed robbery, arms smuggling, abduction, bribery, and embezzlement.

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Charity allots $2.6m to free inmates of unintentional crimes

mahla — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 14:18:59 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The Ehsan Foundation, affiliated to the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, allocated 110 billion rials (nearly $2.6 million at the official rate of 42,000 rials) to release prisoners of unintentional crimes.

The foundation also distributed 70,000 food packages to the families of involuntary crime doers, Saeed Soleimani, head of the Foundation said.

Some 1,202 prisoners were released in 27 provinces of the country, he further stated, IRNA reported on Monday.

This year, the Ehsan Foundation held the sixth edition of a campaign to distribute food packages among the coronavirus-affected groups. Through each edition, one million packages are distributed among the underprivileged.

9,398 inmates freed nationwide

Iranian benefactors helped release a total of 9,398 inmates of unintentional crimes across the country over the past Iranian calendar year (March 2020-March 2021), according to the Blood Money Organization.

Freeing prisoners of involuntary crimes is done in three ways; the first way is granting prisoners leave and the second way is providing a number of them with loans to be paid inside the prison.

The third way of assistance is the release of unintentional convicts by paying their debt; last year, a total of 35 trillion rials (nearly $833 million) has been donated to pay the debt of the released prisoners.

Last year, Isfahan province topped the list for releasing the highest number of prisoners amounting to 677 involuntary crime doers, while Sistan-Baluchestan at the bottom of the list.

As an annual tradition, benefactors come together in a ceremony to raise funds for releasing prisoners of unintentional crimes during the holy month of Ramadan (which started on April 13 this year), through which, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has donated 5 billion rials (about $120,000).

Last year, heads of the three branches of the government and the private sector donated 6.5 billion rials (nearly $150,000) to release prisoners who had committed involuntary crimes.

President Hassan Rouhani, former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, and Former Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Seyed Ebrahim Raeisi made a total of 3.9 billion rials (around $92,000) in contributions to free prisoners of unintentional crimes.

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Saudi Arabia Sends Six Human Rights Activists to Jail

reporter 1222 — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 09:10:35 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced to prison six men – mainly writers, academics, and journalists – arbitrarily detained in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s 2017 crackdown on dissent, activists said.

The men were handed down sentences ranging from three to seven years by the special criminal court. Activists say the harsh sentences show the emptiness of the kingdom’s much-touted social reforms.

Abdullah al-Maliki, a writer who defended members of the banned civil rights group ACRPA, was tried under a counter-terrorism law and sentenced to seven years.

Dr Ibrahim al-Harthi and Dr Yousef al-Qassim were sentenced to five years under charges of freedom of speech.

Dr Khaled al-Ojaimi and Dr Ahmad al-Saiwan were sentenced to 44 months and three years respectively, also under freedom of speech charges.

Meanwhile, Dr Fahad al-Sunaidi was handed a three-and-a-half year sentence on charges relating to freedom of speech, defending the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings and for posting inflammatory tweets.

“These prison sentences handed down against several writers and journalists are based on nothing more than their freedom of expression, namely tweeting in support of human rights,” Yahya Assiri, a Saudi Arabian human rights activist, told the Middle East Eye.

“The specialized criminal court is well known for its disregard of basic legal safeguards, and the counter-terrorism law under which prominent writer Abdullah al-Maliki was tried has been frequently used to criminalise peaceful acts.”

Assiri, a Saudi dissident who is part of ALQST, a London-based campaign group, called on the international community to pressure the kingdom.

“While the Saudi authorities attempt to portray the country as striving for reform, such sentences show that the harsh crackdown on dissent remains as intense as ever,” he said.

“The international community, especially in the run up to the G-20 summit in Riyadh in November, must apply more pressure to stop these violations.”

The September 2017 arrests came just months after Mohammed bin Salman initiated a clampdown on dissent after being anointed as crown prince and de-facto ruler that June. He had come to power promising civil and social reform.

The 2017 purges were notable for the number of high-profile figures detained, including moderate clerics Salman al-Odah and Awad al-Qarni, and Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the son of Saudi Arabia’s former King Fahd.

Abdulaziz al-Shubaily and Issa al-Hamid, founding members of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), were also detained. Pioneering human rights activist Abdullah al-Hamid, another ACRPA co-founder who had been earlier detained, died this year while in custody.

The wave of arrests also targeted feminist and human rights activists, powerful business figures and judges in what Human Rights Watch described as “a coordinated crackdown on dissent”.

Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s working group on arbitrary detention found that the kingdom was failing to comply with international norms on arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearances.

“The working group is concerned that this indicates a systemic problem with arbitrary detention in Saudi Arabia, which amounts to a serious violation of international law,” it said in a report.

“Under certain circumstances, widespread or systematic imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty in violation of the rules of international law may constitute crimes against humanity.”

Earlier this week, the Riyadh received criticism from rights groups after horrific pictures emerged showing hundreds of Ethiopian migrant workers locked up in airless rooms.

Commenting on the latest sentences, Ines Osman, director of the Geneva-based MENA Rights Group, told MEE: “Since the ascension of Mohammed bin Salman to power, the crackdown on peaceful dissenting voices has reached a peak and these recent sentencings are there to remind people that if they speak up they will be punished.

“Any pretense of ‘reforms’ in the country are meaningless as long as prisoners of conscience are imprisoned.”

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Over 2,000 Convicts in Iran Granted with Leader Clemency

reporter 1222 — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 12:47:15 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei approved a proposal from Iran’s top judge to pardon or commute the prison terms of 2,135 convicts found guilty by various Iranian courts.

The pardon was granted on Wednesday on the occasion of two Muslim festivals, namely Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Ghadeer, which marks the appointment of the first Shiite Imam, Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS), by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as his successor.

Iran’s Judiciary Chief Hojatoleslam Ebrahim Raeisi had sent a letter to the Leader, proposing a list of convicts deserving clemency.

Article 110 of the Constitution grants the Leader the right to pardon or reduce the sentences of convicts upon a recommendation from the head of the Judiciary.

The clemency, however, does not apply to several types of convicts, including those who have been sentenced for their role in armed struggle against the country, armed or organized drug trafficking, rape, armed robbery, arms smuggling, abduction, bribery, and embezzlement.

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Granting Leave for Prisoners in Iran amid COVID-19 Outbreak

reporter 1222 — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 08:40:43 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran’s Judiciary spokesperson unveiled instructions for granting more prisoners leave in the wake of a new wave of the COVID-19 in the country.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Gholam Hossein Esmaeili said courts and prisons across Iran have been given a new directive on permitting prisoners to get furlough as part of precautionary measures to contain the second wave of the COVID-19.

He said the Judiciary has also commuted the sentences in many judicial cases and considered the maximum employment of other punishments in lieu of prison sentence.

Moreover, the Judiciary has enhanced the health and precautionary measures in penitentiaries and launched special plans for cooperation with the Health Ministry to monitor the health of prisoners, he added.

Some 2,600 inmates convicted of financial crimes have been released from prisons under the auspices of charity organizations, Esmaeili further noted.

Tens of thousands of prisoners across Iran have been granted leave after the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic in February.

Iran’s Health Ministry on Monday reported 203 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, one of the highest single-day tolls since the viral disease broke out in February.

At least 222,000 patients have recovered from the coronavirus infection so far or have been discharged from hospitals across Iran.

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Spokesman: Iran, US May Exchange Prisoners

reporter 1222 — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 11:45:27 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Foreign Ministry spokesman did not rule out the possibility of Iran and the US doing prisoner exchange.

“We have already announced readiness to secure the release and return to the country of Iranian hostages (jailed) in the US,” Seyed Abbas Mousavi said.

“They (the Americans) have some prisoners in our country due to security-related crimes and their crimes are indisputable,” he said.

Mousavi referred to the goodwill efforts made by some countries, including those by the Swiss ambassador to Iran, and said Tehran has hailed the efforts from the humanitarian point of view and taken measures in this regard.

He added that if there are grounds for exchange of prisoners, Iran will use all its diplomatic capacities to secure the release of Iranians jailed in the US on baseless charges.

On Monday, Iranian scientist Majid Taheri, who had been imprisoned in the US for more than 16 months, finally returned home on Monday.

The Iranian national who was a longtime resident of the US state of Florida, spent 16 months in prison for allegedly violating US sanctions on Iran.

The development came days after another Iranian scientist Sirous Asgari, a professor of material sciences at Sharif University of Technology, also returned home.

He spent about three years in US detention on trumped-up charges of fraud and theft of information relating to his work with a university in Ohio. The case however, was dismissed by a US district judge and he managed to return to his country.

Iran has called on Washington to release all other Iranian citizens taken hostage. The country says the US must make up for the damages caused by detaining Iranian scientists.

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Loujain Al-Hathloul Situation in Saudi Prison Not Clear

reporter 1222 — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 10:48:44 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Saudi Arabia must immediately disclose the status of detained activist Loujain Al-Hathloul who has been unable to contact her family for three weeks, the Prisoners of Conscience rights group said.

The calls came after Al-Hathloul’s family said they remain unable to contact her.

“@LinaAlhathloul confirms that her sister @LoujainHathloul did not call the family for the third week in a row, and that visits are denied since March. She adds: “the first period she was held incommunicado was when she was being tortured,” the group wrote on Twitter, the Middle East Monitor reported.

“We demand the Saudi authorities immediately disclose Loujain Al-Hathloul’s situation and health condition by allowing her to communicate with her family, and to release her immediately without delay or preconditions,” the activists added.

“The continued denial of the activist’s right to communicate is legally unacceptable, and we should not forget that her arrest is also invalid, and the crime of torturing her brutally will not be overlooked,” the tweet continued.

On Sunday, Loujain’s sister Lina wrote on Twitter, “Loujain did not call this week. This is the 3rd week in a row. Visits are forbidden since mid-March. I’m worried. First period she was held incommunicado was when she was being tortured.”

It was not possible to obtain an immediate comment from the Saudi authorities on this complaint, but the Kingdom usually denies any failure to care for detainees in its prisons.

On May 15 2018, Saudi authorities arrested a number of prominent human rights activists, most notably Loujain Al-Hathloul, Samar Badawi, Nassima Al-Sadah, Nouf Abdulaziz and Mayya Al-Zahrani.

Reports at the time attributed the reasons for the arrest to their defense of women’s rights in the kingdom.

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About 70,000 prisoners temporarily out for coronavirus outbreak

reporter 1222 — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 04:29:27 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran’s judiciary said Monday it has temporarily released around 70,000 prisoners as part of efforts to prevent a further spread of the new coronavirus.

“The release of the prisoners amid coronavirus outbreak should continue to the point where it doesn’t cause insecurity in society,” Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raeisi told a meeting of judicial authorities.

“Priority goes to those who have underlying health conditions,” he added.

MIZAN

Raeisi said Iran’s judicial apparatus has also prioritized processing the cases of individuals accused of hoarding hygiene products and other medical requirements amid the country’s efforts to curb the epidemic.

“The hoarders will be tried earlier than they are due in open courts, and the hoarded items will soon be distributed throughout the nation,” he said.

43 deaths confirmed

The outbreak of the coronavirus in Iran is one of the deadliest outside China, where the disease originated.

The Health Ministry on Monday reported 43 new deaths from the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, bringing the overall toll to 237 dead.

“Our colleagues have confirmed 595 new cases across the country,” Kianoush Jahanpour, the Health Ministry’s spokesman said in a televised conference.

“This brings the overall number of confirmed cases to 7,161 as of today noon,” he added.

Jahanpour said the rate of new infections was dropping but added “it is still too early to judge” when the outbreak could be brought under control.

“Forty-three people have unfortunately been added to the number of those who have died of the disease, so to date there are 237 dead.”

“So far, 2,394 of the confirmed cases have recovered,” Jahanpour added.

With 1,945 cases, Tehran remains the province with the highest number of cases, according to the official.

The second worst-hit province with 712 confirmed cases in Qom, the Shia pilgrimage city south of the capital Tehran where the first cases were reported.

Indigenous testing kits

Separately, an Iranian official said the country’s science-based organizations have managed to produce indigenous diagnostic kits, which will be supplied to the market as of March 20.

Mostafa Qanei, the secretary of the Biotechnological Development Center of the Science and Technology Department of the Presidential Office, said diagnosis is the most important first step in treating the coronavirus patients.

The devices are being produced to meet domestic demand because the kits that have been supplied by China, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF – the United Nations’ children fund – and those which the country has imported would last out only two months, he said.

AFP, Reuters and Press TV contributed to this story.

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Iranian Prisoners Extradited from Kuwait

reporter 1222 — Sat, 01 Feb 2020 11:33:59 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Nineteen Iranian prisoners returned home from Kuwait to serve the rest of their sentences in the Islamic Republic based on an extradition treaty between the two countries.

The prisoners in Kuwait were transferred onto Iranian officials hands on Friday night to serve the rest of their sentences in their homeland.

The men were extradited to the Islamic Republic after the follow-up efforts made by the Islamic Republic Embassy in Kuwait.

The Kuwaiti officials handed over the convicts to the representative of Iran’s judicial authorities.

Iran and Kuwait have been implementing an agreement on the extradition of prisoners since 2004, which allows Iran nationality prisoners in Kuwait and Kuwaiti inmates in Iran to return to their respective countries and complete their prison terms at home.

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France interference in Iran affairs unacceptable

reporter 1222 — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 07:39:55 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran has rejected France interference in its internal affairs as unacceptable, saying Tehran will not tolerate Paris’ meddlings.

In a post on his Twitter page on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi dismissed President Emmanuelle Macron’s call for Tehran to free two jailed French nationals.

“The French should not forget that Iran is a sovereign state. Neither our government nor the judiciary will take any advice from anyone,” Mousavi said on Wednesday. Addressing France he added, “any interference in Iran domestic matters and affairs is unacceptable to us.”

On Tuesday, Macron said the imprisonment of two French nationals in Iran was unbearable and demanded their immediate release

“On Human Rights Day, my thoughts go to Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal, our compatriots held in Iran, and their families,” Macron said on Twitter.

“Their imprisonment is intolerable. They must be freed without delay. I told President Rouhani, I repeat it here,” he wrote.

Adelkhah, a 60-year-old anthropologist and researcher at Sciences Po’s Center for International Studies (CERI) in Paris, and her colleague Marchal were arrested in Iran in June on espionage charge.

In October, Mousavi said that Iran’s national law does not recognize the dual citizenship of Iranian citizens, and thus Adelkhah is regarded as an Iranian national.

He, however, said that as an Iranian national, she enjoys full citizenship rights, adding that the Iranian Judiciary is carefully pursuing her case within the framework of the country’s fair trial law.

Macron’s appeal followed a prisoner swap at the weekend between Iran and the United States.

Iranian stem cell scientist Masoud Soleimani, who had been held in the US for allegedly breaching sanctions, was released by the US on Saturday in exchange for Xiyue Wang — a Chinese-born US citizen who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage in Iran in 2017.

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