Ms. magazine: Iran Cracks Down on Women's Rights Activists

Monday, 14 December 2009

Somayeh Rashidi, an Iranian women's rights activist with the One Million Signatures Campaign, was targeted this morning with a search of her home and a summons to court. She told Change for Equality, that she "asked the security officials to provide me with identification, but they refused, claiming instead that [she] will find out in the future what intelligence agency they are working with. [She] also objected to the search and seizure of property belonging to [her]

roommates, but the security officials did not pay any attention to [her] protests." Rashidi was also arrested in November in connection to public protests and spent two days in prison. Today's search is just the latest in a series of arrests of or attacks/threats towards Iranian women's rights activists.

The One Million Signatures Campaign, which seeks to collect one million signatures against the legal discrimination women face under Iranian law, has been particularly targeted. A number of activists associated with the campaign have been arrested and imprisoned in recent years, including American graduate student and feminist activist Esha Momeni.Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Laureate and one of Iran's leading human rights defenders, is also being harassed and her family is being targeted.

Iranian authorities not only froze her bank account, but also broke into Ebadi's safe deposit box and stole her Nobel medal, which has since been returned, according to the LA Times. Omid Memarian, an exiled Iranian journalist, told the Daily Beast, "I talked to Shirin Ebadi just a few days ago.

The authorities have summoned her husband, brother, and sister...Her organization in Iran cannot operate freely. She has been the most significant voice for human rights in Iran over the last five months. Harassing her is a very intimidating signal to others."According to the Daily Beast, in addition to the continued harassment of women's rights activists, last month "Iranian state television ran a documentary attacking the nation's women's rights movement."

Airing of the documentary preceded an announcement earlier this month from the head of Iran's state television, Ezatollah Zarghami, who declared that state-sponsored television programs will henceforth prohibit women who appear on air from using make-up. Zarghami told the newspaper Eternad that "make-up by women during television programs is illegal and against Islamic Sharia law.

There should not be a single case of a woman wearing make-up during a program."

Media Resources: Feminist Daily Newswire 11/12/08, 12/4/09, 8/14/09; Change for Equality 12/14/09; Daily Beast 12/13/09; LA Times 12/11/09

amnesty international: Iranian security forces condemned for protest crackdown

amnesty international: Iranian security forces condemned for protest crackdown

Amnesty International condemned the excessive use of force by Iranian security forces that saw scores of protesters beaten and detained during student-led demonstrations on Monday. In a number of instances, security forces - including the volunteer Basij militia - used batons and tear gas to disperse opposition supporters in the wake of threats by officials that all demonstrations would be considered illegal and met by force.

By the end of the day, the number of protestors arrested was not known. “Since the disputed election a pattern has emerged of the authorities preventing peaceful demonstrations, and then hastily resorting to violence against people who nevertheless choose to exercise their right to freedom of expression and assembly.” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “All those arrested for simply attending today’s demonstrations should be immediately and unconditionally released.

The Iranian authorities continue to treat peaceful dissenters as criminals in violation of Iran’s Constitution.” Others arrested should be released unless they are to be charged with a recognizably criminal offence and tried promptly and fairly. Thousands of opposition supporters and students had gathered in Tehran and cities across the country to mark the anniversary of the killing of three students by security forces in 1953. In recent years the anniversary has become a focus for demonstrations by students on campuses calling for reform and greater respect for human rights.

One eyewitness told Amnesty International that students from Shahid Beheshti University marched alongside the walls of Evin Prison in northern Tehran chanting “political prisoners should be free” and “students will die, we won’t accept oppression.” Another told Amnesty International that central Esfahan, along with the university in the southern part of that city was full of Basij militia and plain clothed security officers to stamp down on any protests.

In the course of the day, Amnesty International has been receiving reports of confrontations between plain-clothed security officers believed to be Basij and students at sites throughout the country, such as at Mazandaran and Sari universities, in the north of the country. Since the morning, security forces in Sari are said to have told students not to attend university.

According to reports, police used plastic bullets at Amir Kabir University in Tehran to stop students inside the campus from joining up with protestors outside.

In recent weeks, students suspected of organising the protests had received threats and scores were detained in an attempt to stifle the dissent. Protestors also faced other repressive restrictions as the authorities blocked the use of the internet and mobile phones. In a further crackdown the authorities banned foreign media from covering the protests.

On Saturday the security forces arrested up to 29 women taking part in a silent protest in Tehran. The group, Mourning Mothers, which is made up of mothers whose children died in the post election violence and other women who gather every week to call for an end to the human rights violation which have taken place since the election, including justice for their dead children.

UN: Situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran

29 October 2009

A/C.3/64/L.37
Sixty-fourth session
Third Committee
Agenda item 69 (c)

(e) Increasing discrimination and other human rights violations against
persons belonging to religious, ethnic, linguistic or other minorities, recognized or otherwise, including, inter alia, Arabs, Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds, Christians, Jews, Sufis and Sunni Muslims and their defenders, and, in particular, attacks on Baha’is and their faith in State-sponsored media, increasing evidence of efforts by the State to identify, monitor and arbitrarily detain Baha’is, preventing members of the Baha’i faith from attending university and from sustaining themselves economically, and the continuing detention of seven Baha’i leaders who were arrested in March and May 2008 and faced with serious charges without adequate or timely access to legal representation.