Amnesty urges EU’s Mogherini to press Iran to free activists

Amnesty International urges EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini to use a visit to Iran this weekend to demand that Tehran immediately release all imprisoned human rights activists.

London-based Amnesty calls on the European Union to take a tougher stance as the group published a report accusing Iran of a “vicious crackdown” that it says has dashed hopes of rights reform under President Hassan Rouhani.

File: European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini at a press conference at the Romanian Foreign Ministry in Bucharest on October 7, 2016. (AFP/Daniel Mihailescu)

Amnesty’s Iran researcher Nassim Papayianni says the rights organisation is urging Mogherini to request a meeting with jailed human rights defenders and ensure they are not targeted later for retribution.

“We would also call on her to forcefully call for the release, immediately and unconditionally, of all human rights defenders that are imprisoned in Iran,” Papayianni tells AFP.

The Amnesty report published Wednesday highlights 45 cases of activists, some of whom were jailed for 10 years or more over their fight for justice in cases of mass extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances in the 1980s.

— AFP