Update: Atena Farghadani has recently developed signs of lymphatic disease in Evin prison. Her case has been referred to Branch 54 of the Appeals Court where she will try to challenge a sentence of 12 years, handed down in June 2015. No date is set for the trial as yet. Farghadani, who was re-arrested in January 2015, is the recipient of Cartoonists Rights Network International’s 2015 Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award.

An alarming increase of execution rates in Iran has coincid ed with a massive number of prisoners going on hunger strike in protest of inhumane treatment in Evin prison. At least 44 prisoners, including two women, have reportedly been executed since 22 July 2015. The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) is concerned about the degrading situation of human rights in Iran, specifically the condition of human rights defenders sentenced to years in prison on charges related to their peaceful and legitimate human rights activities.

Several human rights defenders have been imprisoned for activities related to freedom of expression, association and assembly with serious charges and severe sentences. Last year, cartoonist and human rights defender Atena Farghadani was arrested on several charges including “insulting members of parliament” in reference to a cartoon she drew criticizing a draft law which would restrict access to birth control.

She was sentenced to 12 years in prison on 01 June 2015, due to her peaceful art activism defending women’s right to choose. Farghadani was previously arrested in August 2014 for a short period of time and after her release she shared some brutal experiences she had in prison. She was re-arrested six weeks later in November 2014. A short half-day trial resulted in charges that led to her sentence, based on daily nine-hour interrogations held while she was in solitary confinement without access to her lawyer. It is important to note that the prison she was held in has no special section for political prisoners.

According to Amnesty international: “While in prison last year, Atena flattened paper cups to use them as a surface to paint on. When the prison guards realised what she had been doing, they confiscated her paintings and stopped giving her paper cups. When Atena found some cups in the bathroom, she smuggled them into her cell. Soon after, she was beaten by prison guards when she refused to strip naked for a full body search. Atena says that they knew about her taking the cups because they had installed cameras in the toilet and bathroom facilities – cameras detainees had been told were not operating.”

In January this year, Farghadani’s health deteriorated dramatically after she went on a hunger strike to protest the extremely inhumane prison conditions. She suffered from a heart attack in February and lost consciousness so she was forced to cut her hunger strike short.

Recently, on top of everything else, during a visit from Farghadani’s lawyer, Mohammad Moghimi, they shook hands. According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Moghimi was arrested on 13 June 2015 for shaking Farghadani’s hand, and released three days later after he’d paid a bail amounting to around US$60,000. Both of them will be tried for indecent conduct for shaking hands in prison.

GCHR expresses its deepest concern about the judicial harassment to which Farghadani is currently subjected. We believe that this kind of harassment is merely aimed at deterring human rights defenders from their human rights activities and remind Iran of its pledge to protect freedom of speech, including through artistic activities, as a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Therefore, the GCHR urges the government of Iran to:

1. Immediately and unconditionally release Atena Farghadani and put an end to all acts of harassment against her as well as all human rights defenders in Iran;
2. Guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Atena Farghadani and all detained human rights defenders in Iran;
3. Guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders in Iran are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.