The sudden transfer of detained British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert from Evin Prison to an unknown location by Iran last month garnered attention from the international community. Arrested in September 2018, Moore-Gilbert is presently serving a ten-year sentence. Following the report released by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), several global news outlets quickly reacted to condemn the detention, leading to numerous speculations regarding her exact location.
As an individual who works in the field of human rights with a focus on Iran, I appreciate the swift and decisive response. However, what about the many grave and horrifying breaches of human rights that are occurring in Iran daily? These abuses are so numerous that they seem to be routine.
Following her transfer, peaceful protests were held outside the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum but were met with violence from state security forces. During October, over 130 Iranians were arrested for political or ideological activities, and at least 83 of them were detained for attending peaceful gatherings concerning the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
In the same month, Iran executed 19 people and sentenced eight more to death.
Twelve Baháʼí followers were denied university education because of their religious beliefs. One man was lashed 80 times for converting to Christianity, while a thief had his hand severed as punishment.
More than 70 political cases were tried in Iranian courts, leading to convictions totalling 295 years in prison and 2,590 lashes. A teacher was sentenced to 45 lashes for a cartoon he drew. Two women began serving 33-month sentences each for writing a letter asking the Supreme Leader to step down. A cleric was summoned to court for suggesting that women should be allowed to ride bicycles – a banned activity for women in Iran.
This list is far from being comprehensive.
These rights abuses are not concealed. HRANA, the original source that reported Moore-Gilbert’s situation, continues to report on daily human rights violations taking place in Iran. Yet there is hardly any response.