Urgent Action

Amnesty International

Dozens of student activists kept behind bars in Iran, some since 2009, must be freed immediately and unconditionally. They have been arrested, summoned to serve prison sentences for vaguely worded offences or banned from pursuing their education, which is in violation of Iran’s international human rights obligations. Amnesty International has been actively campaigning for the release of two prisoners of conscience in particular, Bahareh Hedayat, and Zia Nabavi.

Eight years ago, everything was set for the marriage ceremony of a young Iranian couple who had met and fallen in love at university. But on the day before the wedding, plain clothes officers raided the house of Bahareh Hedayat, a leading student activist, and took her to prison. When she was released a month later, she didn’t feel in mood for a big ceremony. The couple simply moved in together. Since then, Hedayat and her husband, Amin Ahmadian, have spent only a year together. She has been in jail the rest of the time.

Bahareh Hedayat, a founding member of the One Million Signatures campaign, a petition for women’s rights in Iran, was arrested after the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009. She fell afoul of the authorities for speaking out about the post-election crackdown, especially for giving an interview to the BBC’s Persian service, which is loathed by the Iranian establishment. She was subsequently sentenced to seven and half years in jail. That includes five years for acting against the national security, two years for insulting the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and six months for insulting Ahmadinejad. In August 2015, the authorities refused to release Hedayat even though she was eligible to be released under Iranian law.

Student activist Sayed Ziaoddin (Zia) Nabavi was a student in chemical engineering at Norshirvani University in Babol, northern Iran. He was banned from further study in 2007 after receiving three “stars”, a form of warning, for his political activities. He has been serving a 10-year prison sentence after conviction of the vague charge of “enmity against God” since his arrest on 14 June 2009 shortly after attending a mass protest following the disputed election result. He was ordered to serve his sentence in “internal exile” far away from his family in Karoun Prison, in the south-western city of Ahvaz, where prison conditions are poor. Amnesty International believes that Nabavi is imprisoned solely for his peaceful activities with the Advocacy Council for the Right to Education, a body set up in 2009 by students barred from further study because of their political activities.

Amnesty International expects the Iranian government, which is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social- and Cultural Rights, to respect ICCPR and releases the imprisoned students. According to ICCPR, Iran agreed to prohibit discrimination on grounds of “race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinions, national or social origin, property, birth or any other status”.

We, the signatories of this petition, urge the Iranian authorities to stop the convictions of Bahareh Hedayat and Zia Nabavi, and respect human rights to freedom of expression and education.