Human Rights Watch Calls for Investigations and UN Intervention Regarding the Death of Javad Rouhi

Human Rights Watch has called for an international investigation and UN intervention regarding the death of Javad Rouhi. In a statement released on Friday, September 1, it noted that given the Islamic Republic's history of torture and mistreatment of prisoners, the circumstances surrounding Rouhi's death are "suspicious." Tara Sepehri Far, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, stated that since there is little hope for transparent investigations by Iranian authorities, international investigations are necessary. Human Rights Watch also requested that the UN fact-finding committee investigate this matter. Following last year's protests, the UN fact-finding committee regarding the suppression of protesters in Iran was established by the UN Human Rights Council last December, with members including Sara Hussein, Shahin Sardar Ali, and Viviana Krstic. Javad Rouhi was in "temporary detention" at Nowshahr prison since September 21, 2022, in connection with the protests in the second half of 2022 in Mazandaran. He was sentenced to death three times, but this sentence was later overturned by the Supreme Court. However, in mid-August, his lawyer stated that the case was "lost in a strange administrative loop." Human Rights Watch's statement on September 1 indicated that it had obtained information showing that Javad Rouhi was held for forty days without his family's knowledge after his arrest by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on September 21, and was tortured by IRGC agents. The torture methods included being kept in extreme cold, having ice placed on his testicles, and being beaten with batons. One day after the confirmation of Javad Rouhi's death in the prison infirmary, while political and legal activists explicitly stated that he was murdered and called for investigations into the details of his death, local officials in Nowshahr attempted to justify his death by citing "addiction" and his medical history. The public relations office of Nowshahr prison claimed in a statement sent to Iranian state news agencies that Rouhi had a "history of addiction, including prescribed methadone use, and had been trying to quit methadone and reduce his consumption in recent months." The statement also mentioned that he had a "history of seizures" in 2016, 2017, and 2020 and had even attempted suicide. While the prison infirmary and public relations office attempted to justify his death, Mohsen Barahani, a lawyer critical of the Iranian government, criticized the treatment of Javad Rouhi, questioning why he was "in prison given his medical history?" On Thursday, September 1, the news of Javad Rouhi's death in Nowshahr prison sparked a wave of anger and disgust among Iranians, reflected in social media discussions claiming that "he was killed in Nowshahr prison contrary to the claims of Iranian officials." Hamidreza Taghipour, a human rights activist and director of the Human Rights website in Iran, currently residing in Central Europe, told Voice of America that Javad Rouhi was killed due to physical and psychological torture in prison. Some social media users have exposed the identities of local officials in Nowshahr, accusing them of Rouhi's "murder." Hossein Ahmadi Niaz, a lawyer, told Voice of America that Javad Rouhi was killed through a deliberate and premeditated government murder. This lawyer and international attorney added, "Execution is a judicial murder, but preventing treatment while simultaneously torturing and obstructing freedom is an extrajudicial murder, a model of killings that has been systematically carried out in the Islamic Republic over the past 44 years without any cost to the perpetrators and continues to this day." Hassan Nayeb Hashem, a physician and human rights activist, also told Voice of America that an independent committee should be formed for every death in prison, with the approval of the family and lawyer. Additionally, Roya Boroumand, executive director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, commented on Javad Rouhi's death in Nowshahr prison, stating that "international organizations and global bodies, as they have no access to prisons and files inside Iran, ultimately resort to verbal condemnation or meetings with relevant officials in the Islamic Republic or at most sanctioning a few regime agents, and since these actions have no practical cost for the Islamic Republic, they will never stop."