Following the way Iranian officials treated Abdollah Momeni and a number of student and human rights activists who were on their way to attend the annual international conference on national human rights institutions in Asia and the Oceania that was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the issue of official bans for human rights activists and civil society researchers in Iran to leave the country has become a hot topic of discussion.
Iranian judiciary officials, including the head of the country’s judiciary branch, have never taken a clear and precise stand on the issue and have not explained how a judge or a prosecutor can issue an order banning a person from leaving the country without going through a defined and open legal process prior to any court judgment. Furthermore, if it is true that such a ban can be enforced for six months, and extended for another six months based on separate legal rules, then how can this heavy punishment continue to exist for political or civil society activists for years.
One of course must also note the unlawful activities of the country’s executive and security officials who when arresting or detaining political activists or civil society advocates confiscate the passports of their victims, and refrain from returning these even after the issue for which they were originally arrested is either ended or dropped, all of which simplifies the work of the judiciary in this regard.
Notwithstanding these unlawful actions of the executive and security officials of the state, this “clear hostage taking” is contrary to the spirit and specific terms of the Iranian constitution and also the numerous international conventions to which Iran has officially announced its adherence, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Protocols on Civil Rights, etc.
The third chapter of the current Iranian constitution that deals with the “right of the nation”, there are several provisions that continue to be violated despite the passage of three decades since the acceptance of the constitution. In addition to article 37 which stresses that everybody is innocent until proven guilty, and that nobody can be viewed as a criminal unless he has been sentenced as such through a competent court, there are numerous other provisions in the document that address the same subject but are also violated. This includes article 36 that specifically says that punishment can only be passed on through the legal proceedings of a competent court and based on law. Another article in this regard is number 31 that states that nobody can be exiled from his place of dwelling or banned from his place or residence or forced to live in any place unless this is specifically provided by the law. This last provision is taken directly from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or at the least is very close to it. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration specifically states that:
1-Every person has the right to move freely in his country of residence and choose his place of residence.
2-Every person has the right to leave any country, including his country of residence, or return to his own country
These provisions exist in numerous international conventions that have been signed by Iran, thus committing it to uphold and respect them.
It appears that under the current circumstances when the different branches of the Iranian government increasingly resort to such methods as imposing “exit bans”, “entry bans”, “bans on the issuance of a passport”, etc and do not show any accountability to the country’s legal and international responsibilities and thus turn their citizens into “indirect hostages” by confiscating their passports, or forcefully returning them from airports and thus practice hostage taking of political activists and civil society advocates, a coordinated and group response to expose such practices at the international level may prevent the continuation of these unlawful practices that violate the basic human rights and rights of citizenship of Iranians.
