Mohammad Maleki, Prominent Human Rights Activist Dies at 87

Dr Mohammad Maleki passed away on the morning of Tuesday, 1st December, after dedicating decades of his life fighting for civil and human rights and was considered one of the most prominent and leading human rights defenders and death penalty abolitionists in Iran.

Following the 1979 revolution, he was elected as the first president of the University of Tehran. At his insistence, his tenure was the only time in the university’s post-revolution history that it was governed by a council of professors, students and administration staff.

After protesting university closures as part of the “cultural revolution”, on 3 July 1981, Dr Maleki was arrested without an arrest warrant or informed of the charges, and initially sentenced to death and later to ten years imprisonment. He was released after serving five years in the harsh and brutal conditions of prisons in the 1980s. He was arrested and imprisoned at least twice more in the years that proceeded including in 2000 and 2009.

The prominent human rights activist was also banned from leaving the country between 1986 and 2006, depriving him of being able to attend oversees research seminars and conferences in his academic field. He was banned from leaving the country again after writing an open letter to then UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, Ahmad Shaheed in 2011.

Mohammad Maleki’s most notable human rights activities include, supporting the families of prisoners, defending the rights of minorities, including Bahaiis and establishing LEGAM. In the Autumn of 2013, a group of prominent critics of the Islamic Republic issued a statement calling for a step by step campaign to limit and abolish the death penalty and to stop the brutal methods of execution used in Iran, with a focus on stoning and public executions.

Speaking to Iran Human Rights regarding the establishment of LEGAM in 2015, Dr Maleki said: “We started thinking when we saw that the executions had reached a level that was no longer tolerable, and apart from the political executions of the 1980s and the aftermath, these executions include both political as well as the drug-related executions, the issues around addiction and other acts.”

Since its inception, LEGAM has lost three of its prominent members, Simin Behbahani, Fariborz Raisdana and now Mohammad Maleki.

While expressing our deepest condolences to Dr Maleki’s family, Iran Human Rights calls on the people of Iran to continue his path of fighting to abolish the inhumane death penalty, advocating and promoting human rights.