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PDF Document Iran Human Rights Documentation Center The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) believes that the development of an accountability movement and a culture of human rights in Iran are crucial to the long-term peace and security of the country and the Middle East region. As numerous examples have illustrated, the removal of an authoritarian regime does not necessarily lead to an improved human rights situation if institutions and civil society are weak, or if a culture of human rights and democratic governance has not been cultivated. By providing Iranians with comprehensive human rights reports, data about past and present human rights violations and information about international human rights standards, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the IHRDC programs will strengthen Iranians’ ability to demand accountability, reform public institutions, and promote transparency and respect for human rights. Encouraging a culture of human rights within Iranian society as a whole will allow political and legal reforms to have real and lasting weight. The IHRDC seeks to: . Establish a comprehensive and objective historical record of the human rights situation in Iran since the 1979 revolution, and on the basis of this record, establish responsibility for patterns of human rights abuses; . Make such record available in an archive that is accessible to the public for research and educational purposes; . Promote accountability, respect for human rights and the rule of law in Iran; and . Encourage an informed dialogue on the human rights situation in Iran among scholars and the general public in Iran and abroad. Iran Human Rights Documentation Center 129 Church Street New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA Tel: +1-(203)-772-2218 Fax: +1-(203)-772-1782 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.iranhrdc.org Photograph: The front cover photo shows a female protestor during the post-election demonstrations facing approaching security forces. © 2010 All Rights Reserved. Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, New Haven, Connecticut Silencing the Women’s Rights Movement in Iran Iran Human Rights Documentation Center August 2010 Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 1. The Women’s Rights Movement in Iran ....................................................... 3 1.1 Before the Islamic Republic .....................................................................................3 1.2 The Islamic Republic ...............................................................................................5 1.2.1 Ahmadinejad’s First Term (2005-2009) ................................................................ 8 2. Targeting of Women’s Rights Activists in Lead-Up to the June 2009 Election ........................................................................................................... 12 2.1 Promises by Presidential Candidates .....................................................................12 2.2 Suppression of Activists ........................................................................................13 3. Targeting of Women’s Rights Activists and Defenders Post-Election ...... 16 3.1 Discrediting the Leadership ..................................................................................19 3.2 Arrests of Other Women’s Rights Activists ..........................................................23 3.3 Arrests of Leaders, Members and Signature Collectors of One Million Signatures Campaign ...............................................................................................................30 3.4 Arrests of Members of the Mourning Mothers ......................................................32 3.5 Interrogations .........................................................................................................33 3.6 Restriction on Freedom of Movement ...................................................................38 4. Violations of International and Iranian Law ..............................................40 4.1 Violation of Fundamental Freedoms of Expression, Assembly and Association ..40 4.2 Denial of Due Process ............................................................................................42 4.3 Mistreatment and Torture in Detention ..................................................................45 4.4 Use of Bail as Punishment .....................................................................................46 4.5 Offi cial Harassment ...............................................................................................48 4.5.1 Right to Privacy .................................................................................................. 48 4.5.2 Right to Work .......................................................................................................49 4.5.3 Freedom of Movement ........................................................................................ 49 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 50 Methodology .......................................................................................................... 51 Introduction 1 Introduction On the morning of July 17, 2009, Shadi Sadr, the prominent lawyer and women’s rights activist, was walking with friends to Tehran University where they planned to attend the Friday prayer led by Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Suddenly, plainclothesmen jumped out of a car and threw her into it. They drove her to the Tracking Offi ce (Daftar-i Paygiri) in the center of Tehran, which houses personnel from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence. Later that night, they took her to Evin prison, where she was held for twelve days, much of the time in solitary confi nement and in unsanitary conditions. Rotating teams continuously interrogated her about her personal life, other women’s rights activists, her foreign travels, and her opinion about the recent election. Interrogators tried to pressure her into divulging the passwords to her e-mail accounts. Two or three days after her arrest, she was told she was charged with endangering national security through causing riots (iqtishash). Three or four days before her release, interrogators blindfolded her and put her in a room where she could hear the screams and moans of about 15-20 men being beaten. The room shook with the loud noises of weapons, batons, and whips. After 30-45 minutes, they took her, still trembling, to another room for further interrogation. A few days after her release, prosecutors read the indictment at the fi rst mass show trial in Tehran. It named Sadr as a leader of the women’s rights movement that was fomenting an alleged velvet revolution to overthrow the Islamic Republic. Sadr was stunned—these accusations and her charges were very serious and could merit the death penalty in Iran. She fl ed for Turkey forty-eight hours later. The women’s rights movement in Iran can trace its origins to the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 during which women advocated for equal education rights. After the Pahlavis took power in 1925, many of the demands for equality became part of their drive to modernize Iran. By the time Ayatollah Khomeini took power in 1979, veiling was no longer mandatory, and women could vote and run for political offi ce. The Family Protection Law, passed in 1966 and amended in 1975, gave women more rights relating to marriage, divorce and inheritance. Many of these rights were abrogated in the years following the 1979 revolution. While women were encouraged to organize during the presidency of reformist Seyyed Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005, conservative elements of the regime continued to suppress activists. The suppression increased during the fi rst Ahmadinejad administration. Activists were regularly harassed, interrogated, arrested and imprisoned. However, the women’s rights movement not only survived but prospered. In 2006, a group of veteran activists created the One Million Signatures Campaign. The Campaign is a grassroots effort to gather signatures and educate the Iranian public on the inequalities suffered by women. Women’s rights activists were successful in convincing the Parliamentary Judicial Committee to temporarily shelve the controversial parts of a “Family Protection Law” introduced by Ahmadinejad during the summer of 2008. The proposed law made polygamy easier for men, divorce more diffi cult for women, and criminalized the marriage of a non-Iranian man to an Iranian woman without government authorization. The impact of the movement was also refl ected in the fact that, although Iran’s Guardian Council rejected the candidacy of women who sought to run in the June 2009 presidential election (as it had in all prior presidential elections), three of the four candidates permitted to run endorsed many of their calls for equality. Considering the movement as an increasing threat, the Iranian government took calculated steps during the months leading up to the election to silence women’s rights activists. It closed the offi ces of the Defenders of Human Rights Center that had been founded by Nobel Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi; it implemented, for the fi rst time, the prison sentence of a women’s rights activist that had been imposed for her activism; and it arrested, interrogated, and detained activists. It prohibited many from leaving the country. 2 Silencing the Women’s Rights Movement in Iran As reported in
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