Watchdog

Human Rights Watch (HRW) is calling on Iran to repeal provisions of a new legislation that it says undermine women's rights, dignity, and health, denying them access to reproductive health care and information.

"Iranian legislators are avoiding addressing Iranians' many serious problems, including government incompetence, corruption, and repression, and instead are attacking women's fundamental rights," Tara Sepehri Far, senior Iran researcher at HRW, said in a statement on November 10.

First approved by parliament in March, the "rejuvenation of the population and support of family" bill was backed by Iran's Guardians Council on November 1.

It is set to become law when it is signed and published in the official gazette, which HRW said is expected within the next month.

The legislation bans sterilization and free distribution of contraceptives in the public health-care system unless a pregnancy threatens a woman's health.

Several articles also "further limit already restricted access to safe abortion," HRW said.

By adding to existing limits on access to contraception and abortion, the legislation violates women's rights to sexual and reproductive health and puts women's health and lives at risk, according to the New York-based human rights watchdog.

Currently, abortion can be legally performed in Iran during the first four months of pregnancy if three doctors agree that a pregnancy threatens a woman's life or the fetus has severe physical or mental disabilities that would create extreme hardship for the mother.

The Russian human rights group Gulagu.net has released new videos purportedly showing instances of torture and rape in a prison hospital in the city of Saratov.

The group said the clips published on YouTube on November 9 had been recorded in the OTB-1 tuberculosis infirmary between July 2015 and September 2020.

The nine videos appear to show instances of anal and oral rape allegedly recorded in the infirmary. Seven of them have dates on them.

Gulagu.net founder Vladimir Osechkin, who resides in France, said that the men involved in raping and torturing the inmates were hired by the prison hospital as administrative managers and nurses.

Osechkin said they were supervised by the regional branch of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), a FSIN deputy director, and a top official of the regional directorate of the Federal Security Service (FSB).

He gives the names of 13 men directly involved in the alleged abuses and their supervisors.

According to Osechkin, the footage was handed to the infirmary's administration, which then passed it on as classified material to the FSIN and FSB.

FSB and FSIN officers recruited the victims as informants after telling them that the videos would be made available to other inmates, he said.

In penitentiaries across Russia and most of the former Soviet republics, raped inmates and gays are treated as pariahs, face humiliation on a daily basis, and do dirty menial work.

Last month, Osechkin said his group obtained a large batch of videos showing prison inmates being tortured so that FSB and FSIN officers could use rape and other forms of torture to force inmates to cooperate with them.

Osechkin released several videos at the time, with one of them showing several people using a large stick to rape a naked man who is tied to a bed.

The videos sparked public outcry that led to resignation of the chief of the FSIN's directorate in Saratov and the firing of five senior prison officials in the city.

After that, more than 400 inmates have made statements saying they were tortured in the prison hospital.

Osechkin has said that the videos were provided by a former prison inmate and an IT expert, Belarusian national Syarhey Savelyeu.

Savelyeu fled to France last month, where he applied for political asylum. Russia issued an arrest warrant, accusing him of "illegal access to digital information."