Forced Psychiatric Hospitalization Cannot
Become New Means of Silencing Dissent in Iran
بستری شدن روانپزشکی اجباری نمیتواند
به عنوان ابزار جدید خلع سلاح در ایران تبدیل شود
NOVEMBER
6, 2018
Teachers’
Rights Activist, Held Against His Will at Psychiatric Hospital in Iran and
Forcibly Given Medications, Must Be Released Immediately
Wife
and Son of Hashem Khastar Arrested with Other Protestors, Released Same Day
November 6,
2018—The Iranian government should immediately release teachers’ rights
activist Hashem Khastar from the psychiatric facility where
he has been forcibly and unlawfully held, the Center for Human Rights in Iran
(CHRI) said in a statement today.
In addition,
CHRI condemns the arrest on November 5, of Khastar’s wife, Sedigheh Maleki, and
their two sons, Jahed Khastar and Ahmad Khastar, in addition to the other
protesters who were with them, in front of the hospital where Khastar is being
unlawfully held. While they were released at the end of the day, these arrests
were a transparent means of intimidation to shut down protest over Khastar’s
forced admittance into the psychiatric hospital.
“The Iranian
authorities are using imprisonment in a psychiatric facility in order to
silence a civil rights activist, and arresting family members or anyone else
that dares to protest this abuse of power to enforce this silence,” said Hadi
Ghaemi, executive director of CHRI. “This is right out of the playbook of the
worst abuses by authoritarian powers.”
