Sexual assault in prison

Call for investigation into sexual attack on detained journalist Abdolreza Tajik, a journalist and member of the member of the Human Rights Defenders Centre, has been the victim of mistreatment since his arrest on 12 June. Relatives say that when they visited him for the first time in Evin prison on 14 July, he told them he had been victim of violence in the presence of the Tehran deputy prosecutor general during his first night in prison. In the course of the conversation in the visiting room, Tajik used the Farsi term “hatke hormat,” which means “to be dishonoured.” His lawyer, Mohammad Sharif, said the term is used in legal language to refer to a sexual assault. Conversations in the visiting room between detainees and family members are recorded by the prison authorities, who let it be known that they are doing this. The aim is both to monitor what is said and to discourage prisoners from saying too much. Tajik was therefore not free to specify what he meant by “being dishonoured.” Mehdi Karoubi, one of the opposition candidates in the June 2009 presidential election, published an open letter in his newspaper Etemad e-Melli on 29 July 2009 in which he said young people were being raped in Iran’s prisons. “Young people have been brutally raped and have subsequently suffered depression and seriously psychological and physical problems,” Karoubi wrote. Former detainees who have managed to flee abroad have confirmed being the victims of sexual attacks, despite the pressure put on them and their families and despite the government’s repeated denials (http://en.rsf.org/iran-newspaper-suspended-in-latest-18-08-2009,34223.html). Four journalists and political activists have told Reporters Without Borders about cases of sexual abuse in Iran’s prisons. “The international community has been fully alerted to what is happening in Iranian prisons for the past year,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It is time for Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay to press the Iranian authorities to accept a visit from the UN special rapporteur on torture, so that he can investigate the allegations of mistreatment in Iranian prisons.” The authorities did not reveal where they were holding Tajik for nearly a month after his arrest at his home on 12 June. His lawyer has still not been able to see him or examine his case file. When a detainee is held incommunicado in this manner, it can be regarded as a case of forced disappearance and as a crime against humanity. Ali Malihi, an online journalist who used to work for Etemad e-Melli and Sahrvand, was meanwhile sentenced by a Tehran revolutionary court on 25 July to four years in prison and a fine of 100,000 toman (80 euros) on charges of “activity against national security” and insulting the president.