The U.S. Department of State’s 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices was released on April 13, 2022.
One of the parts of the report focuses on the situation of political prisoners and detainees, including the case of political prisoner Maryam Akbari-Monfared.
“In March, as reprisal for signing an open letter accusing the government of routinely denying medical care to prisoners, authorities transferred Maryam Akbari-Monfared from Evin Prison to a prison 124 miles away from her family.
“Akbari-Monfared had been imprisoned for nearly 12 years for seeking justice for her siblings, who were disappeared and extrajudicially executed in secret in 1988.
“Authorities originally tried and convicted Akbari-Monfared on charges of supporting the banned MEK opposition group in 2010, on the offense of ‘waging war against God.’”
The U.S. Department of State’s 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Iran also asserts that lawyers who defended political prisoners were often arrested, detained, and subjected to excessive sentences and punishments for engaging in regular professional activities. The government continued to imprison lawyers.
Other parts of the report specify that the clerical regime in Iran has issued travel bans on some former political prisoners and barred them from working in their occupations for years after incarceration. The report then indicates that the Iranian regime has not permitted international humanitarian organizations or UN representatives access to political prisoners.
2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Iran
Significant human rights issues included credible reports of unlawful or arbitrary killings by the government and its agents, most commonly executions for crimes not meeting the international legal standard of “most serious crimes” or for crimes committed by juvenile offenders, as well as after trials without due process; forced disappearance attributed to the government and its agents; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment by the government and its agents; arbitrary arrest or detention; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; political prisoners and detainees…
Other issues covered in the 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in Iran include severe restrictions on free expression and media, including violence, threats of violence, unjustified arrests and prosecutions against journalists, censorship, criminalization of libel and slander; serious restrictions on internet freedom; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association; severe restrictions on religious freedom; the inability of citizens to change their government peacefully through free and fair elections; serious and unreasonable restrictions on political participation; serious government corruption; serious government restrictions on or harassment of domestic or international human rights organizations; lack of meaningful investigation of and accountability for violence against women; trafficking in persons; violence against ethnic minorities, etc.
