[JURIST] The Iranian government is engaged in systematic human rights abuses, an Iranian human rights group said in an annual report released Sunday. The Defenders of Human Rights Centre, a group founded and headed by 2003 Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi [Nobel profile], condemned the government for continued harassment and intimidation of dissidents, students, reporters, labor activists and other government critics. The government of Iran declared the Centre illegal [advocacy website] in 2006 and threatened to arrest its leaders.

The report criticized the government's increased policing of women's veils [JURIST news archive] and the harsh punishments meted out to women found to be insufficiently covered, considering the practices to be violations of womens' rights. Last year, Ebadi called for a UN probe [JURIST report] into allegations that the Iranian government was denying women's rights. AFP has more.