In December 2024, human rights defender Reza Khandan was arrested at his home and taken into custody at a police station in Tehran. His crime? Advocating against Iran’s compulsory veiling laws and the death penalty. Now in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, Reza faces a three-and-a-half-year sentence (on top of time already served) for supporting women’s rights in Iran.

Reza has been a vocal advocate against Iran’s compulsory veiling laws and the death penalty for decades, and his December 2024 arrest was far from his first run-in with Iran’s repressive regime. In 2019, Reza was unjustly sentenced in absentia by Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court to six years in prison on fabricated charges of “gathering and collusion with the intent to act against national security” and “propaganda activities against the state.” His only crime was producing and distributing “I Oppose the Mandatory Hijab” buttons in support of women’s rights and freedom of expression. 

Reza’s wife, Nasrin, has also long fought for the rights of women, children, religious minorities, journalists and artists, and those facing the death penalty. Nasrin rose to prominence after the 2009 anti-government protests, known as the Green Revolution, following Iran’s presidential elections. Nasrin has been frequently imprisoned, including in solitary confinement, since 2010. In March 2019, she was sentenced to a total of 38 years in prison and 148 lashes on made-up charges, including stoking “corruption and prostitution.” During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Nasrin went on hunger strikes to protest the continued arbitrary detention of political prisoners amid abysmal conditions in Iranian prisons. In November 2020, Nasrin was temporarily released with the consent of the prosecutor in charge of women’s prisons to allow her to undergo treatment for her heart. However, in October of 2023, Nasrin was assaulted and re-arrested while attending the funeral of Armita Garawand, who activists say was beaten to death by Tehran’s morality police. Garawand’s death echoes Mahsa Amini’s, whose alleged killing invigorated a feminist movement in Iran – “Woman, Life, Freedom.” One month later, Nasrin was released on bail, and she still faces charges of national security and for disregarding the mandatory veiling laws.

The case of Silvia Elena Rivera Morales et al. v. Mexico concerns seven women and girls, all under the age of 20 and one as young as 24 days old, who went missing between 1995 and 2003. In each case, the State’s response has been critically deficient, with the investigations riddled with inaction and mistakes.

While the seven femicides represented in the Silvia Elena case occurred over 20 years ago, the issue of violence against women in Mexico has only grown—along with the subsequent impunity, in spite of international pressure and the Inter-American Court for Human Rights’s demands for reform.

The case, litigated by Centro para el Desarrollo Integral de la Mujer, AC (CEDIMAC) and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, alleges that the inaction by the Mexican government—and the consequent impunity for the perpetrators—was on account of the victim’s gender and constitute violations of the victims’ right to life, freedom from violence, liberty and integrity, and judicial protection, and their families’ rights to be free from torture and inhumane treatment.

In December 2021, the IACHR determined that the State of Mexico was responsible for violating the rights of the victims and their families, and recommended a series of measures of reparations and gave the State a deadline to comply. In March 2024, the Mexican government signed a compliance agreement, issued a public apology, and recognized their responsibility for the inaction, impunity, and negligence in the case.