|The art of oppression.
||The art under gender apartheid regime.||The young women of today get their strength from the ancient messenger of human rights, Cyrus the great.||Protest by silence.|
Mohammad Mostafaei, Attorney at law and Human rights activist who fled Iran in 2011 and now resides in Norway is exposing one more step to tighten operation by more laws in Iran:
Some of the members of the so called Iranian parliament (Majlis-e-shora Islami) have recently proposed a dangerous bill to the parliament by which formation, membership and publicizing of any type of group which does not serve the interests of the Islamic Republic is considered a crime.
According to national and international laws, every person has the right to freedom of expression and thought.
Article one of this bill provides:
“To protect people from brainwash, inclination to misbelief, ideological induction to change meanings, deceptive seduction, establishing fear and intriguing believes, and further to prevent misuse of people, sects, and pervert ideas, the law of prohibiting formation, membership and publicizing sects, financial and spiritual supports of them is sanctioned”.
This law is totally against the freedom of thoughts which is recognized and protected by international laws that states every person should be able to express his/her thoughts. The constitution of Iran has also recognized the right to freedom of thought and expression.
In this law brainwash is defined as controlling people’s mind, dominating their souls, enforcing ideologies, disrespecting human dignity, insulting honor, deviation and intellectual reconstruction, induction, deceptive seduction and reinforcement of specific ideology.
According to this law, the perpetrators of this crime are deemed to be punished to execution or long term imprison.
Article two of this bill states:
“It is a crime if anybody with any type of belief in a form of sect, association, group, school of thought, movement, population, institution, organization and like it establishes a sect (enunciation, announcement, etc.…) administrates and receives members with the aim of brainwashing, and creating fear and confusion among religious believers. If the aforementioned groups are directed by enemies to disrupt the country’s security and if their acts damages religious beliefs in a way that is not counted war against God (Moharebeh), the perpetrator (leader, supporters) is convicted with the fifth grade punishment”.If this bill is turned into a law, fundamental freedoms of people are denied and nobody will have the right to form a group, party or organization as they will be easily charged with brainwash and subsequently convicted to grave punishments. This bill not only is against the rights of religious and ethnic groups such as Bahai, and Gonabadi Daravish in Iran, but also breaches the principles of Iran’s constitution.