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For Immediate Release
November, 03 2010, 03:30pm EDT
Contact:
Suzanne Trimel, 212-633-4150, strimel@aiusa.org.
Amnesty International Demands Release of Lawyer and Son in Iranian Stoning Case
Organization Says the Two Apparently Were Taken Into Custody After an Interview to Publicize the Case
WASHINGTON
Amnesty International today called on the Iranian authorities to immediately release the lawyer and son of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman being held on death row and at risk of execution by stoning. The human rights organization said the lawyer and son appear to have been taken into custody solely for trying to publicize the woman's plight and save her life.
Two German nationals appear to have been conducting an interview with the lawyer, Javid Houtan Kiyan, and Sakineh Ashtiani's son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, in Kiyan's office when all four were arrested, according to reports received by Amnesty International.
The developments came to light amid increased international concern for Sakineh Ashtiani, 43, and the mother of two, who has been held on death row since her conviction in 2006 on charges of "adultery while married."
"She has been left for weeks without legal representation and without access to any family visits, which makes her situation all the more precarious," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Program.
The Iranian State Prosecutor, in his role as spokesperson for the judiciary, confirmed on Monday that Kiyan had been arrested on October 10 and that he was still under investigation for links to "anti-revolutionary groups abroad." He also said that Kiyan had been found in possession of three forged or duplicate identification cards.
"We fear that Javid Houtan Kiyan may have been detained for no more than fulfilling his responsibilities as Sakineh Ashtiani's lawyer, and for talking to foreign nationals," said Amnesty International's Sahraoui. "His detention- part of the Iranian authorities ongoing targeting of defense lawyers - further undermines an already deeply flawed justice system that has failed Sakineh Ashtiani from the start."
The Iranian authorities have not confirmed either the arrest or the whereabouts of Sakineh Ashtiani's son. Amnesty International has been unable to contact him since and believes he too has indeed been arrested.
Sahraoui said the lawyer and son should be granted immediate access to their family and lawyers of their choice.
The Iranian authorities have a track record of bringing politically-motivated trumped up criminal charges against defense lawyers.
The State Prosecutor Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei confirmed on October 11 that two foreign nationals had been arrested. On Monday he said that the two Germans had been granted consular access.
"It is hard to see that Javid Houtan Kiyan and Sajjad Qaderzadeh have been arrested for any other reason than because they wanted to publicize Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani's continuing plight and to save her life," said Sahraoui. "If so, they are prisoners of conscience and should be released immediately and unconditionally, along with anyone else held for similar reasons."
On October 12, the Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Ramin Mehmanparast, said that the two German nationals had entered the country on tourist visas and had no journalistic accreditation, adding that they had been arrested because they had a link to a "foreign anti-revolution network."
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
(212) 807-8400LATEST NEWS
'Holding The Line': Municipal Workers' Strike Enters Second Week as Philly Refuses to Pay Living Wage
"We got people that work and repair the water mains and can't afford their water bill," said union leader Greg Boulware last week. "I don't want to be rich. We just want comfort inside the city that we serve daily."
Jul 07, 2025
Philadelphia's largest municipal workers' strike in over 40 years is entering its second week after negotiations with the city broke down this weekend.
Over 9,000 sanitation workers, 911 dispatchers, water services workers, crossing guards, and other city employees walked off the job last week, demanding that the city increase their salary enough to meet the rising cost of living.
But even with trash piling up on the streets and other city services understaffed, Mayor Cherelle Parker (D) would not agree to the demands made by AFSCME District Council 33, Philadelphia's largest blue-collar union.
Parker has offered a pay increase of 8.75% over the next three years, which she described as historic.
But DC 33 president Greg Boulware said that's far too little for municipal workers, many of whom are among the city's "working poor," to survive.
"It's not like as if our members are making $80,000, $90,000 a year," Boulware said. "A 2% increase on those would be significantly higher than it would be on somebody making $40,000-$45,000 a year. So, her math truly is not mathing, and you're clearly not paying attention to the working people that are going on in this city."
The average municipal worker in Philadelphia makes around $46,000, which is $15,000 less than the median income in the city and less than half of what a single adult needs to live comfortably, according to a study by SmartAsset.
"We got people that work and repair the water mains and can't afford their water bill," Boulware said at a rally last week. "We got people that repair the runways at the airport and can't afford a plane ticket. I don't want to be rich. We just want a comfort inside the city that we serve daily."
The union initially asked for an 8% raise for the next four years, which the city dismissed. This weekend, they pared their proposal down to 5%, but the city still did not budge.
Parker has insisted that her smaller proposed increases are merely what is "fiscally responsible," and that the city cannot afford to offer more.
The union has disputed this, pointing out that Parker herself is budgeted to receive a 9% increase to her salary of more than $240,000. That increase alone is nearly half the current salary that the average DC 33 member makes in a year.
As of Monday, negotiations have stalled, with no clear end in sight. With a throng of picketers behind him, Boulware told NBC 10, a local affiliate, that the union was working on a third proposal, and that negotiations may resume Tuesday. But he seemed to expect more obstinacy from the city.
"We've been there to be able to sit and meet and negotiate," he said. "It doesn't seem like the city quite honestly wants to entertain any of the questions that we have about things and actually have a true dialogue... That's how you negotiate and that's not truly what's been going on."
Despite the city's refusal to budge, momentum around the strike has continued to grow. On Friday, rapper LL Cool J dropped out of a 4th of July festival in the city, saying, "There is absolutely no way I can perform across a picket line."
Other AFSCME councils around Pennsylvania have joined pickets in solidarity. This includes Philadelphia's Council 47, which represents thousands of "white collar" city workers.
With mounds of trash accumulating on streets, sometimes becoming as "tall as people," the environmental activists with the Sunrise Movement have also joined in the effort to pressure the city. On Monday, activists hauled bags of trash into the lobby of City Hall, labeled with the words "Meet DC 33 Demands" written in yellow tape.
AFSCME, meanwhile, has stated its resolve to fight on as the strike has gained national attention.
"City workers are holding the line until they get a FAIR contract with the wages and benefits they deserve," the national union's account wrote on X Monday. "One day longer, one day stronger, no matter what it takes."
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LA Residents Hurl Profane Insults at Border Patrol After Agents Sweep Local Park
"You are not helping by snatching people!" yelled one local woman.
Jul 07, 2025
Los Angeles residents lobbed profane insults at U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on Monday after they swept through the city's MacArthur Park.
Los Angeles-based news station KTLA reports that masked, heavily-armed federal agents were in the park as "part of an apparent immigration raid" although exact details about the operation are not known as of this writing. A video taken on the scene by Mel Buer, an independent labor journalist in the California city and posted on social media website Bluesky showed many agents riding through the park on horseback.
Border patrol walking McArthur park here in LA
[image or embed]
— Mel Buer (@melbuer.bsky.social) July 7, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) reacted angrily after seeing reports of the agents—some of whom had visible Border Protection patches—in the park and she went to the area to tell them to cease their operations.
"Minutes before, there were more than 20 kids playing—then, the MILITARY comes through," Bass wrote in a post on the social media website X. "The SECOND I heard about this, I went to the park to speak to the person in charge to tell them it needed to end NOW. Absolutely outrageous."
Additional videos posted on Bluesky by Buer showed angry Los Angeles residents following the agents as they drove slowly down the street away from the park while pelting them with verbal abuse.
"Get the fuck out of here!" one male resident can be heard shouting at the agents.
"You guys are a bunch of pussies!" yelled another.
Shortly after this, a woman can be heard scolding the agents: "You are not helping by snatching people!"
After Bass spoke with what I assume is a DHS rep, they packed shit up and headed out. The whole neighborhood turned out to chase them out of the park. Some fruit was thrown, alot of yelling
[image or embed]
— Mel Buer (@melbuer.bsky.social) July 7, 2025 at 2:29 PM
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, condemned the federal operations in Los Angeles shortly after they occurred.
"The actions of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and CBP during the raids in Los Angeles are not about safety or justice—they're about meeting enforcement quotas and striking fear in communities," he wrote on Bluesky. "We've filed a brief supporting a challenge to ICE and CBP's unlawful practices. We won't back down and we won't be silent."
Los Angeles has become a focal point in the Trump administration's mass deportation operations. President Donald Trump last month deployed the National Guard to the city after some protests against ICE operations there turned violent.
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Top Medical Organizations Warn RFK Jr. Putting American Kids 'At Grave and Immediate Risk'
"Truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary... he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies," stated a new lawsuit.
Jul 07, 2025
Six major medical organizations on Monday filed a lawsuit against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. alleging he is putting American children at "grave and immediate risk" because of his policy on vaccines.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit—including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians, the American Public Health Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Massachusetts Public Health Association, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine—charged that Kennedy earlier this year made a "baseless and uninformed policy decision" when he removed vaccinations against Covid-19 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) official immunization schedule for "healthy" children and pregnant women.
The organizations emphasized that unless Kennedy's decision is reversed, "all children remain at grave and immediate risk of contracting a preventable disease" and further warned that it "exposes... vulnerable populations to a serious disease with potentially irreversible long-term effects and, in some cases, death."
The plaintiffs further charged that Kennedy's directive removing the Covid-19 vaccines from the immunization schedule was "but one example of the secretary's agenda to dismantle the longstanding... science- and evidence-based vaccine infrastructure that has prevented the deaths of untold millions of Americans."
The complaint then documented Kennedy's long history of statements and articles that have peddled false claims about the safety of vaccinations and pointed to his mass dismissals of staff at HHS and his appointment of likeminded vaccine critics to argue that "it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies."
Given this, the plaintiffs argued that Kennedy's decision to remove the Covid-19 vaccine from immunization schedules was "arbitrary and capricious" based on what they described as "vast and irrefutable evidence," including congressional testimony delivered by Kennedy in which he acknowledged that people shouldn't "be taking medical advice from me"; that Kennedy's directive directly contradicted an article published by the Food and Drug Administration days earlier stating that pregnancy was a condition that "increased a person's risk of severe Covid-19"; and that Kennedy did not identify specific recommendations from professional staff that he used as justification to restrict the availability of the vaccine.
Should courts find that Kennedy's decision was "arbitrary and capricious" as alleged by the plaintiffs, they would have the power to enjoin the policy under the Administrative Procedures Act, which was also employed recently to halt planned mass layoffs at HHS. The medical organizations urged courts to declare Kennedy's policy change "unlawful" and demanded "the restoration of the Covid vaccine recommendations for pregnant women and healthy children ages six months to 17 years" of age.
The medical organizations' lawsuit against Kennedy's vaccination policy comes at a time when infections of measles in the United States have hit a level not seen in more than three decades. The Washington Post, citing data from Johns Hopkins University, reported on Monday that there have been at least 1,277 confirmed cases of measles so far in the U.S. this year and the paper noted that this development "marks a public health reversal in defeating a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease as the anti-vaccine movement gains strength."
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