No one should be above the law. But all too often, those who commit the worst kinds of human rights abuses are not brought to justice.
Iran’s government continued to clamp down on all forms of dissent in the wake of the mass demonstrations following the disputed June 2009 presidential elections. The authorities deployed the paramilitary Basij and other security forces to prevent protestors gathering, arrested hundreds more political activists, journalists, students and women’s and human rights defenders, and continued to mount grossly unfair “show trials” resulting in long prison terms and, in a few cases, death sentences.