Stranded Refugee Relief Organization

11/21/2025

11/21/2025

A New Jersey man convicted of defrauding investors of roughly a quarter-billion dollars is among a growing number of people granted clemency only to to be charged with new crimes.

04/01/2024

NO FLY LIST & government burden

FBI v. Fikre
US Supreme Court

March 19, 2024

The case involves Yonas Fikre, a U.S. citizen and Sudanese emigree, who brought a lawsuit alleging that the government unlawfully placed him on the No Fly List. Fikre claimed that the government violated his rights to procedural due process and placed him on the list for constitutionally impermissible reasons related to his race, national origin, and religious beliefs. In 2016, the government removed Fikre from the No Fly List, and argued in court that this action rendered Fikre's lawsuit moot. The district court agreed with the government's assessment, but the Ninth Circuit reversed, stating that a party seeking to moot a case based on its own voluntary cessation of challenged conduct must show that the conduct cannot “reasonably be expected to recur.”

The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the Ninth Circuit's decision. It held that the government failed to demonstrate that the case was moot. The Court stated that a defendant's "voluntary cessation of a challenged practice" will moot a case only if the defendant can prove that the practice cannot "reasonably be expected to recur." The Court found that the government's declaration that it will not relist Fikre based on "currently available information" did not suffice to demonstrate that Fikre will not be placed on the No Fly List in the future if he engages in the same or similar conduct. Therefore, the government has not borne its burden of proving that the dispute is moot.

04/17/2020

LEGAL ALLERT
"Honest and Upright Life" Requirement May Be Fulfilled While in Custody, California Supreme Court Holds.

The California Supreme Court unanimously held Thursday that a person convicted of a misdemeanor is entitled to expungement of the conviction under Penal Code section 1203.4a, subdivision (a), if the person has lived “an honest and upright life” during a specified period after judgment -- and even if the person has been in custody since completing the sentence imposed for the misdemeanor.

People v. Maya, Supreme Court of California.

01/23/2016

It was error for the trial court to deny defendant’s motion to withdraw a plea for lack of advice on immigration consequences based on his failure to show prejudice.

The court found the defendant failed to show prejudice because his declaration was not precise. However, since he would have received probation whether he entered a plea or went to trial, the only reasonable inference was that he would not have pled guilty if he had known it would threaten his permanent resident status.

11/02/2015

ONCE SUSPECT REQUESTS AN ATTORNEY, police questioning must stop. A break of several hours after release is not enough to resume questioning. Days must pass so that the suspect would have a reasonable opportunity to consult counsel.

Under Edwards v. Arizona (1981) 451 U.S. 477, police can’t ask more questions once the suspect requests counsel. The rule doesn’t apply if there has been a substantial break in custody AND the suspect has a reasonable opportunity to contact counsel.

In Maryland v. Shatzner (2010) 559 U.S. 98, the court ruled that police must wait 14 days before resuming questioning.

07/24/2014

Another Baha’i Couple Headed for Prison
BY EDITOR · JULY 22, 2014

Source: Taghato (Intersection), http://taghato.net/article/7417

Translation by Iran Press Watch



Date: July 15, 2014

Taghato: Continuing with arrests and imprisonments of Baha’is in Iran, another Baha’i couple is headed to Evin and Rajai Shahr prisons – within one month – to start their prison terms.

Based on reports, Shomeys Mohajer, a Baha’i citizen residing in Tehran who had previously been sentenced to one year imprisonment, was transferred to the women’s political and ideological ward of Evin prison on June 28th.

This happened under conditions in which Mrs. Mohajer’s husband, Shahab Dehghani, had also started his four year prison term, on May 24th. Mr. Dehghani was transferred to Rajai Shahr in Karaj one day after turning himself in to Evin prison.

This young Baha’i couple had been arrested in summer 2011 after security forces invaded their home, and they were later freed after bail was set.

The couple were later accused of “propaganda against the regime” and “forming an illegal group” by Branch 28 of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Court headed by Judge Moghiseh. They were subsequently sentenced to one and four year imprisonments, respectively. These sentences were confirmed by the Appeals Court.

In a conversation with the “International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran”, Mrs. Ruhollah Fada – Shomeys Mohajer’s mother – denied all the charges against her daughter and son-in-law and mentioned that the reason for their arrests was their open expression of their beliefs and attending Baha’i prayer gatherings. She said: “Thank God, my daughter is doing well. There are eight other Baha’i prisoners in the women’s ward of Evin prison and she is not lonely there. I have nothing else to say. I am not grieved and this will pass.”

Meanwhile, sources close to Baha’is also reported the arrest of Saghi Fadaei – a young Baha’i girl residing in Mashhad – by agents of the Ministry of Information in that city.

Ms. Fadaei’s arrest was done 35 days after a search of her home and the incarceration of her mother, May Kholousi, on June 2nd, at which time two other Baha’i citizens named Shayan Tafazzoli and Dori Amri were also arrested.

Moreover, on Thursday, July 3rd the “Supporters of Human Rights” website reported that Branch 1 of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Court in Oroumieh, headed by Judge “Chabok”, sentenced seven Baha’i citizens to a total of 20 years’ imprisonment.

According to this report, 3 of these 7 citizens – Fardin Aazayee (Aghsani), his wife, Farahnaz Moghadam and Guisou Sheykh Hassan Abadi – were sentenced to one year each for “teaching activities on behalf or the Baha’i sect” and “propaganda against the Islamic Republic Regime” and five years each for “assembling and planning against national security” through “membership in the Baha’i cult and relations with the Baha’i House of Justice in Israel”.

The court also sentenced four Baha’i citizens – Neda Forsatipour, Amir Maboudi, Nooshin Misaghi and Soheyla Aghdasi – to 6 months’ imprisonment each, for “teaching activities".

تقاطع: در ادامه‌ی بازداشت و زندانی کردن بهاییان در ایران، یک زوج بهایی دیگر به فاصله‌ی یک ماه جهت سپری کردن محکومیت حبس‌شان راهی زندان‌های اوین و رجایی‌شهر شده‌اند. بر اساس گزارش‌ها، شُمِیس مهاجر، شهروند …

12/12/2012

28 arrested in Iran for their alleged link to network advocating Baha'i faith.

08/25/2012

"Looking back, we were really very privileged to live in that thin slice of history where we changed how man looks at himself and what he might become and where he might go," Armstrong said.

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, has died, his family said Saturday. He was 82.

06/08/2012

The Plight of Iran's Baha'is
by KAMIAR ALAEI

01 JUN 2012

Arash and Kamiar Alaei, physicians specializing in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, were found guilty in 2009 of "cooperating with an enemy government" and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Kamiar was conditionally released after spending two and a half years in prison. Arash was granted final release after more than three years in prison. [ comment ] I spent two and half years of my life unjustly imprisoned in Iran. I'm fortunate I was released in the fall of 2010. But for my former cellmates, members of Iran's imprisoned Bahá'í leadership group, freedom has proved elusive.
In 2008, my brother, Dr. Arash Alaei, and I were serving sentences in Iran's notorious Evin prison after being accused of trying to overthrow the government. In reality, we were running a public health program for HIV/AIDS patients and drug addicts. We had been doing this not only with government approval but also government funding. However, the government's priorities changed, and my brother and I soon found ourselves in prison for doing what had been praised in the past.

My Baha'i cellmates, however, were never in the good graces of the government. Baha'is are the largest non-Muslim religious minority in the country. Since the 1979 revolution, their community has undergone severe persecution with many executed.

My cellmates, Behrouz Tavakkoli, Afif Naiemi and Jamaloddin Khanjani, had been accused of espionage, propaganda against the Islamic Republic and the establishment of an illegal administration -- false charges designed to conceal the religious bigotry motivating their imprisonment. Other members of the leadership group, Saeid Rezaie and Vahid Tizfahm, shared a prison cell with my brother, and Mahvash Sabet and Fariba Kamalabadi were imprisoned in one of the female wards at Evin. These seven individuals had done nothing wrong and were simply tending to the religious needs (marriages, divorces, funerals, etc.) of their community.

About 100 Baha'is are imprisoned in Iran, according to a recent report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. That is about double the number when I was in the country. The 300,000-member religious community faces restrictions on worship, education and employment designed to impoverish it and destroy its religious identity. For decades, Iranian citizens have been exposed to the government's pervasive propaganda against the Baha'is with harmful effects on attitudes. Inciting hatred towards them is an almost daily activity of the regime's state-sponsored media outlets.

When three Baha'is were placed in a cell with me shortly after their release from some four months in solitary confinement, they immediately found ways to serve their fellow prisoners. One of my Baha'i cellmates, Afif Naeimi, a businessman and a father of two, would go out of his way to wash other prisoners' dishes. He would also clean the bathroom for our cell, even when it was not his turn. Another Baha'i cellmate, Behrouz Tavakkoli, a social worker who lost his government job in the 1980s because of his religion, offered counseling services to his cellmates.

Knowing that the Baha'is were, like my brother and me, wrongfully jailed, I wanted to improve the prisoners' attitudes toward them -- so I competed with Naeimi for the chance to wash dishes. We supported each other in our plans to help the other prisoners in different ways. The prisoners began to see our friendship and how the Baha'is were doing more than their assigned chores. When I started teaching English classes to the inmates to encourage them to have some hope, the Baha'is would participate and urge others to join. This caused attitudes to change.

One of my vivid memories is of the oldest of the three Baha'is in my cell, Jamaloddin Khanjani, who was in his late 70s. He rose every morning at what must have been 5 a.m. -- I can't be sure since we did not have any watches or clocks -- to pray. And every night, he and the other two Baha'is prayed individually at length before going to sleep.

After a while, the guards saw that the prisoners began to be won over by the character of the Baha'i prisoners. This concerned the guards. So, they put the Baha'is in a cell to isolate them. The cell was too small for all five of them to be able to stretch their legs at night to sleep. They had to take turns.

For them, May 14 marked the beginning of the fifth year of their incarceration. Each is serving a 20-year sentence, which, for Khanjani, means life. I hope the international community will persuade the government of Iran to release them. We should continue to fight for the freedom of these prisoners of conscience.

related reading | 16 Days in Evin Prison | Three-Way Ties: Civil Society, State Ideology, and Geopolitics

Copyright © 2012 Tehran Bureau

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06/05/2012

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06/05/2012

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