Parisa Kakaee and Mehrdad Rahimi joined the five other detained members of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR) after being summoned to the Investigative office of the Intelligence Ministry tonight. The arrests bring the number of detained CHRR members to 7, with other members being at serious risk of arrest as well.
Saeed Kalanaki and Saeed Jalaifar are two CHRR members who have been subjected to physical and psychological pressure since their arrest on December 3rd, 2009

Koohyar Gudarzi, Saeed Haeri and Shiva Nazar-Ahari were arrested and taken to Evin on December 20th, 2009 as they were leaving to attend Ayatollah Motazeri’s funeral in Qum. Shiva Nazar-Ahari started a dry hunger strike as soon as she was arrested and had to be taken to prison’s clinic after her condition became critical. Previously, on September 23rd, 2009, Nazar-Ahari was released on $200,000 bail, after spending 100 days in prison

Yesterday 4 other members of the Committee, Saeed Habibi, Hesam Misaghi, Parisa Kakaee and Mehrdad Rahimi were summoned to the Investigative office of the Intelligence Ministry. The two latter were arrested upon appearance. Prison interrogators have put extreme pressure on the detained CHRR members and want the committee to completely stop its activities. Alavi who is the chief interrogator has told the detained CHRR members, “Either you shut down the CHRR website and delete its contents or all your members will be arrested”

At a time when the cases of human rights violations are on the rise in Iran, the pressure exercised on an independent rights group is a clear sign that the Islamic Republic is setting the ground for harsher and more repressive measures against dissidents. In Iran independent human rights groups are not officially recognized and their activities are considered to be illegal. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is the foundation for the activities of all human rights organizations including the CHRR

Madyar