Tuesday June 30th 2009, 6pm

Venue: Thatcher Room, Portcullis House, Houses of Parliament

Speakers included:

Ivan Lewis MP, Minister of State with responsibility for the Middle East, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, President, Stop Child Executions

Geraldine Van Bueren, Professor of International Human Rights Law, Queen Mary, University of London

Drewery Dyke, Researcher, Amnesty International

Chair: Alistair Carmichael MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for the Abolition of the Death Penalty

The Foreign Policy Centre, in partnership with Stop Child Executions, hosted the launch of a major new pamphlet entitled 'From Cradle to Coffin: A report on Child Executions in Iran'. Written by Nazanin Afshin-Jam, President of Stop Child Execution, her team and Tahirih Danesh, FPC Senior Research Associate, the report aims to provide a comprehensive documentation and analysis of Iran's executions of minors since the 1979 Revolution. It highlights inconsistencies in the Iranian legal system and contradictions between Iran's record of executing minors and its international human rights commitments. The report puts forward clear recommendations for action by the international community and human rights campaigners.

To download the report, please see: http://fpc.org.uk/fsblob/1063.pdf

Date: Tuesday 25 November, 6.15-7.45pm

Venue: Wilson Room, Portcullis House, Houses of Parliament, Victoria Embankment, London SW1A 2LW

Speakers:

• Mike Gapes MP, Chair, Foreign Affairs Select Committee
• Baroness Afshar OBE, Professor of Politics and Womens' Studies, University of York
• Kaveh Moussavi, Head of Public Interest Law, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford
• Nazanin Afshin-Jam, President of the Stop Child Executions Campaign and Iranian Recording Artist

Chair: Stephen Twigg, Director, Foreign Policy Centre

The Foreign Policy Centre launched a new pamphlet, 'A revolution without rights? Women, Kurds and Baha'is searching for equality in Iran', written by Geoffrey Cameron and Tahirih Danesh on 25 November. In the pamphlet, the authors examine the religious, legal and social obstacles to equality faced by women, Baha'is and Kurds in Iran, comparing the experiences of the groups. They also evaluate the Iranian government's compliance with its own constitution and look at how Iran's treatment of women and minorities measures up to the international agreements it has signed. The pamphlet lays out practical steps that British and European policy-makers can take to support the equal treatment of women and minorities with their fellow citizens in Iran.

To purchase a copy of the pamphlet, please see: http://fpc.org.uk/publications

Download A Revolution Without Rights? in full (3.14 megabyte PDF)

Date: 18 March 2008, 6pm to 7.30pm

Venue: Committee Room 15, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

Speakers:

Baroness Shirley Williams

Nazenin Ansari, Diplomatic Editor, Kayhan

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, Professorial Fellow, RUSI

Mark Fitzpatrick, Senior Fellow for Non-proliferation, International Institute for Strategic Studies

Chair: Stephen Twigg, Director, Foreign Policy Centre, and Chair, Progress

The discussion at this event considered how progressives can respond to the challenge of Iran. The seminar sought to consider the possibilities of engagement with the government of Iran over the nuclear issue, regional security and trade co-operation. It also examined government human rights abuses and ways in which progressives in Britain could build a 'dialogue of civilisations' with reformers in Iran.

Held in association with Progress www.progressonline.org.uk

By Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, Tahirih Danesh.

FPC Senior Research Associate Tahirih Danesh and Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, Senior Fellow at European Foundation for Democracy have produced a hard hitting and challenging briefing that explores the way in which the Iran regime's revolutionary character defines the way it operates both within and beyond its borders.

Download FPC Briefing: Terroracracy (220 kilobyte PDF)

By Adam Hug, Tahirih Danesh.

The Foreign Policy Centre made a submission to the UN UPR of Iran on the basis of its two most recent Iran publications 'From Cradle to Coffin: A Report on Child Executions in Iran' and 'A Revolution without Rights: Women, Kurds and Baha'is Searching For Equality in Iran'.

The FPC's information featured significantly in the UN Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights summary of stakeholder submissions. To see the UN OHCHR report visit:

http://lib.ohchr.org/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/Session7/IR/A_HRC_WG6_7_IRN_3_E.pdf

Download FPC UPR Submission on Iran (210 kilobyte PDF)

By Chris Phillips. Source: www.majalla.com

After four years of isolation, Syria is back from the cold. Visitors from the US Congress and Western-aligned Arab states have all recently arrived in Damascus echoing President Obama's sentiment of engagement with the Ba'ath regime. Despite uncertainty surrounding the peace intentions of the new Israeli government, many in Washington hope Tel Aviv will soon resume peace talks with a seemingly compliant Damascus. By dangling the occupied Golan Heights as reward, it has been argued that President Bashar al-Asad can somehow be 'flipped' from his long-standing alliance with Iran, leading to a Sadat-esq realignment with the West. Yet such an assessment misunderstands the nature of the Iran-Syria relationship. With or without a peace with Israel, Damascus has no interest in forsaking Tehran.

Full text 

Nazenin Ansari (Ed.), Tahirih Danesh (Ed.)

May 2011

Download Iran Human Rights Review: Access to Information (950 kilobyte PDF)

The Iran Human Rights Review, edited by Nazenin Ansari and Tahirih Danesh, is a new Foreign Policy Centre project that seeks to be an important resource for policy makers and activists by combining information and opinion with analysis and recommendations for action.

This new edition of the Review focuses on the emergence of access to information as a pivotal element in promoting and protecting the Iranian human rights movement. It contains opinion pieces and detailed articles from a wide range of experts and activists with a focus on promoting a culture of human rights in Iran and the region. Contributors include: Dame Ann Leslie, Nasrin Alavi, Ramin Asgard, Shahriar Ahy, Negar Esfandiari, Claudia Mendoza, Saba Farzan, Nazanine Moshiri, Rossi Qajar, Mojtaba Saminejad, Ali Sheikholeslami, Meir Javedanfar, Potkin Azarmehr, Mariam Memarsadeghi.

Tahirih Danesh (Ed.), Adam Hug (Ed.)

Download Iran Human Rights Review: Religion (1.16 megabyte PDF)

The Iran Human Rights Review is a new Foreign Policy Centre project that seeks to be an important resource for policymakers and activists that combines information and analysis with recommendations for action.

This inaugural edition of the review focuses on the critical issue of religion in relation to human rights in Iran. It contains short essays from some of the world's leading experts on Iranian human rights: Dr Shirin Ebadi, Dr Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, Dr Shireen Hunter, Dr Abdol-Karim Lahidji, Hamid Hamidi, Dr Hossein Ladjevardi, Dr Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, and John Weston MP. Cherie Blair has kindly provided a preface.

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Tahirih Danesh

Download Persian (Farsi) translation of 'From Cradle to Coffin' (420 kilobyte PDF)

The full text of 'From Cradle to Coffin: A Report on Child Executions in Iran' translated into Persian (Farsi)is now available to download here.

Tuesday June 30th 2009, 6pm

Venue: Thatcher Room, Portcullis House, Houses of Parliament

Speakers included:

Ivan Lewis MP, Minister of State with responsibility for the Middle East, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, President, Stop Child Executions

Geraldine Van Bueren, Professor of International Human Rights Law, Queen Mary, University of London

Drewery Dyke, Researcher, Amnesty International

Chair: Alistair Carmichael MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for the Abolition of the Death Penalty

The Foreign Policy Centre, in partnership with Stop Child Executions, hosted the launch of a major new pamphlet entitled 'From Cradle to Coffin: A report on Child Executions in Iran'. Written by Nazanin Afshin-Jam, President of Stop Child Execution, her team and Tahirih Danesh, FPC Senior Research Associate, the report aims to provide a comprehensive documentation and analysis of Iran's executions of minors since the 1979 Revolution. It highlights inconsistencies in the Iranian legal system and contradictions between Iran's record of executing minors and its international human rights commitments. The report puts forward clear recommendations for action by the international community and human rights campaigners.

To download the report, please see: http://fpc.org.uk/fsblob/1063.pdf

Date: Tuesday 25 November, 6.15-7.45pm

Venue: Wilson Room, Portcullis House, Houses of Parliament, Victoria Embankment, London SW1A 2LW

Speakers:

• Mike Gapes MP, Chair, Foreign Affairs Select Committee
• Baroness Afshar OBE, Professor of Politics and Womens' Studies, University of York
• Kaveh Moussavi, Head of Public Interest Law, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford
• Nazanin Afshin-Jam, President of the Stop Child Executions Campaign and Iranian Recording Artist

Chair: Stephen Twigg, Director, Foreign Policy Centre

The Foreign Policy Centre launched a new pamphlet, 'A revolution without rights? Women, Kurds and Baha'is searching for equality in Iran', written by Geoffrey Cameron and Tahirih Danesh on 25 November. In the pamphlet, the authors examine the religious, legal and social obstacles to equality faced by women, Baha'is and Kurds in Iran, comparing the experiences of the groups. They also evaluate the Iranian government's compliance with its own constitution and look at how Iran's treatment of women and minorities measures up to the international agreements it has signed. The pamphlet lays out practical steps that British and European policy-makers can take to support the equal treatment of women and minorities with their fellow citizens in Iran.

To purchase a copy of the pamphlet, please see: http://fpc.org.uk/publications

Download A Revolution Without Rights? in full (3.14 megabyte PDF)

Date: 18 March 2008, 6pm to 7.30pm

Venue: Committee Room 15, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

Speakers:

Baroness Shirley Williams

Nazenin Ansari, Diplomatic Editor, Kayhan

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, Professorial Fellow, RUSI

Mark Fitzpatrick, Senior Fellow for Non-proliferation, International Institute for Strategic Studies

Chair: Stephen Twigg, Director, Foreign Policy Centre, and Chair, Progress

The discussion at this event considered how progressives can respond to the challenge of Iran. The seminar sought to consider the possibilities of engagement with the government of Iran over the nuclear issue, regional security and trade co-operation. It also examined government human rights abuses and ways in which progressives in Britain could build a 'dialogue of civilisations' with reformers in Iran.

Held in association with Progress www.progressonline.org.uk