Iran

Human rights defender Ms Shiva Nazarahari and six other members of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR), Mr Kouhyar Goudarzi, Mr Saeed Kalanaki, Mr Mehrdad Rahimi, Ms Parisa Kakaie, Mr Saeed Haeri and Mr Saeed Jalalifar are being pressurized to falsely confess that the CHRR is affiliated with the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO). Affiliation with the MKO is considered a very serious crime in Iran which carries a possible sentence of execution. Front Line previously sent an appeal in relation to Shiva Nazarahari on 23 June 2009 and in relation to Parisa Kakaie on 5 November 2009.

C'est une copie d'un texte original de Gender Equality for Iran: "En Iran, le mouvement des femmes est, depuis ces trente dernières années, à l’avant-garde de la lutte pour la démocratie. Comme les discriminations sexistes sont en lien étroit avec d’autres discriminations : sociales, politiques, religieuses et ethniques, la résistance pacifique des femmes, leur lutte contre les violences et les discriminations impactent de manière conséquente le développement des mouvements démocratiques au sein de la société iranienne. Depuis de nombreuses années, avec l’organisation de différentes campagnes et leurs revendications pour l’égalité, les femmes iraniennes marchent sur le chemin de la liberté. Dans ce processus, elles subissent la répression : insultes, violences, arrestations et emprisonnements. Nombreuses sont celles aujourd’hui emprisonnées.

Change for Equality: Somayeh Rashidi is an activist involved in the One Million Signatures Campaign. This women’s rights defender was summoned to court for interrogation, after her home was searched and her property seized. She appeared in court on December 19, 2009 and after a few hours of interrogation the investigative judge ordered an arrest warrant for her and transferred her to Evin prison.

Iranian judicial and prison authorities have refused to release any information about charges against women’s rights activist Somayeh Rashidi (24), who was arrested on 19 December 2009, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reported today. During the past two months, over a thousand people have been detained through the use of a blanket detention order, which is effectively a license for security and intelligence agents to arrest anyone at will. Hundreds of these detainees, similar to Somayeh Rashidi, have disappeared into Iranian prisons without any information available to their families or lawyers.