IRAN - Women’s rights activists in Iran increasingly face jail time amid cultural crackdown

Women’s rights activists in Iran increasingly face jail time amid cultural crackdown

“I don’t think it’s anticipated that drawing cartoons or writing poems would get you 15 to 20 years in prison”

Atena Farghadani told advocates she was beaten, held in solitary confinement, verbally abused and forced to strip naked by prison guards. (AtenaFarghadani/Facebook)

Twenty-eight year-old Atena Farghadani felt a sense of outrage when her government, the conservative legislators of Iran, tried to criminalize voluntary sterilization in 2014. It was the latest move to restrict women’s reproductive choices, and Farghadani, a talented painter and budding activist, decided to speak out.

Farghadani drew a cartoon depicting legislators who supported the bill as monkeys and cows and posted it to Facebook. Shortly after her post, the Revolutionary Guard showed up at Farghadani’s doorstep, searched her home, arrested her, and charged her with insulting the government, disseminating propaganda, and colluding against national security. They alleged that her meetings with the families of political prisoners constituted a crime in itself, and quickly made her a political prisoner, too.

Farghadani has told advocates that she has been beaten, held in solitary confinement, verbally abused, forced to strip naked, and forced to undergo virginity and pregnancy tests by the prison guards, according to advocates and experts with Movements.org, a human rights organization that helps digitally connect activists in closed societies and has been compiling stories of political prisoners like Farghadani.

Farghadani, who appeared in a YouTube video criticizing her arrest in 2014 and was subsequently re-arrested, for “illegitimate sexual relationship short of adultery” and indecency charges after shaking hands with her lawyer, also posted an open letter to Facebook addressed to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2015, criticizing the Revolutionary Guard for her maltreatment.

Iran: Negar Haeri, former political prisoner is deliberately ran over

Iran: Negar Haeri, former political prisoner is deliberately ran over

The news has just got out that Negar Haeri, a lawyer and former political prisoner, was deliberately ran over by unidentified persons on December 17, 2015.

She had previously been threatened time and again and finally on December 17, she was chased by a black Peugeot 405 with dark windows and hit after she got out of her car in Shahrara district. The Peugeot then sped away and disappeared.

Ms. Haeri was subsequently transferred to hospital. She suffered a broken right arm and a broken left leg and bruises all over her body.

Ms. Haeri had been summoned on phone to Evin’s Prosecutor’s Office on May 18, 2015, where she was insulted and arrested in front of her mother. She was held in the Evin’s women’s ward for one day and transferred to solitary confinement for another nine days where she was interrogated under torture. She was ultimately released on May 27, 2015.

Before this, she spent eight months in Varamin’s Qarchak prison and was released only after much efforts and on a 2billion-touman bail.

Ms. Haeri’s license for law practice was annulled and she was not banned from giving legal advice to her clients. Security and intelligence officers have instructed her not to leave Tehran in any circumstances.

Women in History - 22 December

Mukhopadhyaya

Mukhopadhyaya was the wife and spiritual counterpart of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a nineteenth century mystic of Bengal. Sarad Devi is also reverentially addressed as the Holy Mother. Sarada Devi played an important role in the growth of the Ramakrishna Movement.

Lucy Burns

American suffragist and women’s rights advocate, formed the National Woman’s Party with Alice Paul

LucyBurns (July 28, 1879 – December 22, 1966) was born in New York to an Irish Catholic family. She was so inspired by their activism and charisma that she dropped her graduate studies to stay with them and work in the Women's Social and Political Union, an organization dedicated to fighting for women's rights in the United Kingdom. While working with the WSPU, Lucy Burns met Alice Paul at a London police station. Both women had been arrested for demonstrating, and Alice Paul introduced herself when she noticed that Lucy Burns was wearing an American flag pin on her lapel.

Burns was the first woman to speak before the Congressional delegates in 1914 when the Anthony amendment finally made it out of committee and into the House. Burns and other suffragists had been told by the chairman of the House Committee on Suffrage that the House would not pass a suffrage amendment before 1920. To their surprise, it was announced in late 1917 that the House would make a decision on January 10, 1918. She died on December 22, 1966 in Brooklyn, New York.

Iran: Revision court held for Atena Faraghdani

Atena Farghadani

The appeals court of civil activist Atena Farghadani, currently detained in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, was held on Sunday, December 29.

Her lawyer, Mohammad Moghimi, has said he met with his client on December 15 in Evin Prison in order to prepare her defense. Farghadani, imprisoned since January 10, was sentenced to 12 years and 9 months behind bars in a court chaired by judge Salavati.

Her charges include “insulting members of parliament through drawings,” “assembly and collusion with anti-revolution figures” and “insulting the leader of the Islamic republic”.

Farghadani said earlier this year after being held in a Revolutionary Guards prison for two months that her critical drawings were the main subject of the interrogations. She is currently being held in the women’s ward of Evin Prison.

Forced marriage of under 15-year-old girls on rise in Iran ruled by pervert mullahs

Underage marriages have become commonplace in Iran

Forced marriages of girls 15 years old or even younger have become commonplace in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan Province, south-eastern Iran, according to a report published on the website of the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ).

Studies show that underage marriages take place in single parent families or families where the parents are illiterate, drug addicts or psychologically disturbed as well as in families that are struggling with a low income.

In Baluchistan, many girls below the age of 15 are forced into marriage, the report said.

Maki Mandela: Global support exists for Mrs. Rajavi’s movement

Maki Mandela

Phumla Makaziwe Mandela, a women’s rights advocate and daughter of the late South African leader Nelson Mandela, has urged the people of Iran to continue their fight to achieve freedom and democracy.

Dr. Maki Mandela made the remarks at a major conference in Paris on human rights in Iran on October 10 on the occasion of the World Day Against the Death Penalty.

Addressing the people of Iran, Dr. Mandela said: "All I say to you is do not lose hope, stay with hope and resilience, and hope in a greater power, and you will succeed eventually in your fight against evil."

"No death penalty can prevent a good idea whose time has come."