On December 5 in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, known as a center of art and culture, women’s rights campaigner Hayedeh Tabesh was publicly seized by authorities as she was participating in a language class. In May, Tabesh had been banned from traveling outside Iran after she received a letter inviting her to attend an activist training in South Africa. And in October, the authorities served her son with a summons demanding that his mother report to the Intelligence Ministry.
Tabesh’s lawyer, Mina Jafari, told the Iranian feminist Web site Signforchange.org that the procedure of the summons likely violated Iranian law, but that her client reported to the ministry anyhow, to “signal her good intentions.”
Tabesh’s play for goodwill didn’t pan out. A few weeks later, she was sent to prison. She wasn’t alone. Last month, Mehrnoosh Etemadi, another Isfahan activist who frequently led workshops on violence against women, was arrested in her home and also jailed. Her computer and personal writings were seized. When Etemadi’s mother asked a state security officer what crime her daughter was charged with, he simply replied, “Her activities in the campaign.”
“The campaign” is the One Million Signatures Campaign, a national effort by Iranian feminists to collect 1 million signatures on a petition demanding an end to discrimination against women. Human-rights organizations working within and outside Iran say the ordeals of the two Isfahan women—who have since been released on a combined $55,000 bail—are part of an intensified crackdown against civil-rights activists in recent weeks, a shift in government policy that is making feminist organizing increasingly difficult.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-12/irans-new-crackdown-on-women/
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
