The authorities refused to cease and In January, parliament further undermined provide accountability for the unlawful killing the right to freedom of religion and belief by of scores of unarmed Kurdish cross-border introducing two articles to the Penal Code couriers (kulbars) between the Kurdistan that prescribe up to five years’ imprisonment regions of Iran and Iraq, and of unarmed and/or a fine for “insulting Iranian ethnicities, Baluchi fuel porters (soukhtbar) in Sistan and divine religions or Islamic denominations” or Baluchestan province.8 for engaging in “deviant educational or More than 200 Kurds, including dissidents proselytizing activity contradicting … Islam”. and civil society activists, were swept up in In July, three Christian converts were two waves of arbitrary arrests in January and sentenced to lengthy imprisonment on this July-August.9 Most were released after weeks basis. or months of being forcibly disappeared or Several Gonabadi Dervishes remained detained incommunicado, while several unjustly imprisoned, including in connection remained in prison and several others were with a peaceful protest that authorities sentenced to imprisonment. violently quashed in 2018. One of them, RELIGIOUS MINORITIES Behnam Mahjoubi, died in custody on 21 Religious minorities, including Baha’is, February following months of torture and Christians, Gonabadi Dervishes, Jews, other ill-treatment, including deliberate denial Yaresan and Sunni Muslims, suffered of adequate medical care. discrimination in law and practice, including Authorities continued to raid house in access to education, employment, child churches. adoption, political office and places of RIGHT TO HEALTH worship, as well as arbitrary detention, and torture and other ill-treatment for professing The authorities’ response to Covid-19 was or practising their faith. marked by a lack of transparency and failure People born to parents classified as Muslim to address shortages of vaccines, hospital by the authorities remained at risk of arbitrary beds, oxygen supplies and nurses. detention, torture or the death penalty for Iran launched its Covid-19 vaccination “apostasy” if they adopted other religions or programme in February, but given the atheist beliefs. Supreme Leader’s January decision to ban Members of the Baha’i minority suffered vaccines produced in the UK and USA, by widespread and systematic violations, August less than 6% of the population had including arbitrary detention, torture and been vaccinated. The ban was lifted in other ill-treatment, enforced disappearance, August and over 80% of the population had forcible closure of businesses, confiscation of received the first dose of the vaccine by the property, house demolitions, destruction of end of the year. cemeteries, and hate speech by officials and The authorities failed to devise a national state media, and were banned from higher strategy to ensure timely and equitable education. In April, authorities prevented access to Covid-19 vaccines for thousands of Baha’is from burying their loved ones in undocumented Afghan nationals, with local empty plots at a cemetery near Tehran, officials in some provinces establishing insisting they bury them between existing special vaccination centres for this group graves or at the nearby Khavaran mass grave from October. site related to the 1988 prison massacres; In some cities, mobile vaccination teams authorities lifted the ban after a public were dispatched to informal settlements and outcry.10 In June, security forces demolished areas where people experiencing around 50 Baha’i homes in the village of Ivel homelessness were living, but outreach in Mazandaran province as part of a long- remained uneven nationally. standing campaign to expel them from the The vaccination of prisoners did not start region. until August. Amnesty International Report 2021/22 200