In response to the news of the violent arrest of women’s rights activist and anti-death penalty campaigner Atena Daemi today by Revolutionary Guards, Philip Luther Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa said: “This is an extremely...

By: Nazila Nik (Iran Coordination Team) I remember growing up in Iran in the 80s: revolution and war, the dramatic shift of political and social landscape, uncertainty and a sense of suffocation. Among the enormous changes forced upon my generation, was a massive cultural purge that followed the...

By Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada English Branch. Originally published in the Globe and Mail.  When Dr. Homa Hoodfar was arrested in Iran 100 days ago, the circumstances and motivation behind her unfounded and illegal imprisonment were far from clear. While much of...

July 19 UPDATE: Saman Naseem’s new trial has been rescheduled to September 7, 2016 With a new trial set for July 12, Saman Naseem – who featured in Amnesty’s global letter-writing campaign Write for Rights in 2015, sends a message to his supporters. Last year, hundreds of thousands of...

To mark 1 June – International Children’s Day – Raha Bahreini from our Iran team describes how Amnesty has managed to raise awareness about the death penalty and save juvenile offenders from the gallows in Iran. It starts with a panicked phone call. Our contact tells us that a juvenile...

By Ezat Taheri, Canada, 4 May 2016, 11:16 UTC Iranian spiritual teacher and prisoner of conscience Mohammad Ali Taheri has been in pre-trial solitary confinement for five years, and has launched over a dozen hunger strikes in protest at his detention. His mother Ezat tells us of her long fight...

On 1 August 2015 Mohammad Ali Taheri was sentenced to death in Iran for ‘spreading corruption on earth” His family in Canada live in shock and fear that the life of their son and brother could be brutally taken from them for nothing more than the peaceful expression of his beliefs.  The Taheri...

Narges Mohammadi has been in and out of prison for more than a decade for her support of human rights in Iran. Three months after her most recent imprisonment, she wrote this personal letter from jail on what it means to be apart from her children.   MY TWINS WERE BORN ON 28 NOVEMBER 2006...

By Elise Auerbach, AIUSA As if it weren’t bad enough. Iranian women face persistent systemic discrimination in terms of family law. New legislation being considered by Iran’s parliament is intended to roll back many of the gains women have made in the past decades and consign them to being...

By Jackie Hansen, Major Campaigns and Women’s Rights Campaigner Campaigning against laws in Iran which discriminate against women and girls has just gotten a whole lot harder for Bahareh Hedayat and other activists with the Campaign for Equality, as Iran moves to enact laws set to turn...

DONATE Pride was and will always be a PROTEST At Amnesty International, we recognize that Pride is more than just a celebration – it is a powerful symbol of resilience, defiance and solidarity in the face of discrimination and injustice. Since its inception, Pride has been intertwined with...

Executions soared to their highest number in almost a decade in 2023 with a sharp rise across the Middle East, Amnesty International said today as it released its annual report on the global use of the death penalty. A total of 1,153 executions took place in 2023, which does not include the...