Abolfazl Jahandar, a student activist and former member of the Alameh University Islamic Association,was in charge of the news website Pouya. He is currently serving a three-year sentence on charges such as “insulting authorities”, “publicity against the regime.” Based on information provided by his mother, his treatment in prison has led to injuries of several vertebra.

ُSource : Human Rights Activists in Iran / ABF translation

Mahboubeh Hosseinzadeh was arrested along with her fellow women rights activist Nahid Keshavarz, on April 2, 2007, while collecting signatures for the One-Million Signature Campaign Demanding Changes to Iran’s Discriminatory Laws. They both were charged with "acting against national security and propaganda against the regime" These two prominent activists were released on April 15th, after posting a 200 million rial bail with the revolutionary court [around 25 thousand U.S. dollars]. The present text is Hosseinzadeh's testimony about her detention and other women detainees's cases. change for Equality

NEW YORK – Bahá'í students in primary and secondary schools throughout Iran are increasingly being harassed, vilified, and held up to abuse, accordingto recent reports from inside the country. During a 30-day period from mid-January to mid-February, some 150 incidents of insults, mistreatment, and even physical violence by school authorities against Bahá'í students were reported as occurring in at least 10 Iranian cities.

In an ominous move, Iran’s Ministry of Interior has ordered officials throughout the country to step up the surveillance of Iranian Bahá'ís, focusing in particular on their community activities.

Dr Roya Toloui, an Iranian-Kurdish women's rights activist, and the editor of a banned publication was arrested in August 2005, following the demonstrations that took place in several cities in the Iranian Kurdestan in reaction against the torture and murder, by the Islamic Republic security forces, of Shavaneh Ghaderi (a young pro-democracy militant who had peacefully advocated the boycott of June's presidential election). Ms. Toloui spent 66 days in prison. After being coerced to confess against herself, she was set free and fled the country. In an interview with Radio Farda (Maryam Ahmadi), she briefly talked about what happened to her in prison and concluded : "My main point to the powers of the world is that our issue is not limited to atomic energy. Violation of human rights is the biggest problem in Iran. If Iran ('s case) is really going to the Security Council, it must be for violation of human rights. Couldn't the Security Council put these people under pressure so that our nation can have the right to a free election and choose its desired government? Or could it not help us have a democratic government? Is the value of the human rights less than the issue of atomic energy? If we have a democratic government which protects human rights, then our nuclear energy would not be a problem."

The present text is an excerpt from Ali Afshari's open letter to the Head of the Islamic Republic's Judiciary, Ayatollah Shahrudi. Ali Afshari, a Student Union Leader and pro-democracy advocate, was arrested in December 2000 for a speech he delivered at the Amir Kabir University (Tehran) regarding Iran's political impasse. He was charged with "propaganda against the regime", "agitating public opinion", and " insulting the Leader". In this letter Mr. Afshari describes the torture he was subjected to and the confession he was violently forced to make. The content of this letter was first aired by the BBC Persian on Wednesday, 17 August 2005.

On November 22nd 1998, Darioush and Parvaneh Forouhar,two peaceful nationalist dissidents and outspoken critics of the Islamic Republic, were brutally murdered in their home by agents of the Ministry of Information.In the “Report to the Nation”, the Forouhars’ daughter, Parastou, provides a public account of her parents’ deaths and the subsequent investigation and prosecution.

Excerpts of Mr. Manuchehr Mohammadi's letter to the European Union. Translated in English by About Iran. Manuchehr Mohammadi, a pro-democracy imprisoned student, addressed a letter to the European Union, asking the world's freedom loving people to save him from the ongoing cruelties committed against him by the Islamic Republic regime . Manouchehr Mohammadi had tried to organize an independent Student Union.

Ahmad Batebi is a student arrested during the students uprising of 1999 in Tehran. He was photographed while lifting a bloody T-shirt of one of his fellow students. The photograph was published on the cover of the Economist. He was arrested, tried and sentenced to death. A world wide campaign in his favor led to the commutation of his sentence to 13 years imprisonment. He wrote the present letter to report on his conditions of detention.

This piece is a report documenting the persistent efforts of the families of mass execution victims to keep the memory of their loved ones alive. It was published in the magazine "Noghteh", 6, 1996.

In the summer of 1997, "Noghteh," an Iranian political magazine, published by political refugees in Paris, released an issue entitled "Prison and torture in Iran." This article series is the recollection of what the relatives of the political prisoners went through during the last months of 1988, when the regime engaged in a systematic killings of political opponents previously sentenced to prison terms.

The present text is the testimony of Helmut Szimkus, a German engineer who was detained in Evin prison by the Islamic Republic's authorities for over five years and was released on July 1st, 1994 as a result of the German government's intervention. Back in Germany, he was interviewed by Andreas Gutzeit and Josef Hufelschulte for Focus, the German news magazine, Number 28, dated 11 July 1994. He talked about the conditions of detention in the Iranian prison, and the torture of detainees, including children. He called for an international court to try the Iranian government.

An interview with Reza Fani Yazdi, who was a prisoner in Mashhad in 1988…. “Just a few days after they had taken out the third group of our guys for execution, they called the names of another 23 of us and transferred us from Ward 2 to the quarantine. They, then, took the rest to Ward 1. The assistant prosecutor who had run into one of the guys in the corridor had told him offhandedly that they were going to be the next group. “The next time the Commission comes to Mashhad, it’s gonna send you guys off to hell as well.” These are the exact words that Haji Valipur, a young clerical student and the acting assistant prosecutor for the political prisoners’ ward, expressed to our friends.”

On August 19th, 1978, Islamist militants set on fire the Rex, a movie theater in Abadan. The flames and fire fighters' ineptitude caused the death of scores of people. At that time, public rumors pointed to the Shah's political police's responsibility in the arson. The tragedy was a determining factor in the escalation of public anger against the monarchy. On February 23rd, 1979, less than two weeks after the victory of the revolutionary movement, Captain Monir Taheri, a police officer, was arrested, charged for the arson (among other counts) and executed 48 hours later. Later investigations proved that religious figures linked to the revolutionary movement were part of the conspiracy and no officials of the former regime had been involved in the arson. The document presented here is an open letter by Mr. Taheri's family, in which they deny the veracity of the charges brought against him. It was published in the daily Ayadegan.