IRAN
January 2001
a prominent human rights lawyer in Tehran
sentenced to four years prison by a Tehran Revolutionary Court *
Mehrangiz Kar
Photo J. Javid
* Update: January 8 2002
The final verdict for Shahla Lahiji and Mehrangiz Kar's cases was announced recently. They were both sentenced to six months in prison. However since they had already served two months, they can pay a fine of five million rials (625 dollars) for the remaining four months.
On January 13, a Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced to four years prison two of Iran's most prominent female activists, lawyer Mehrangiz Kar and publisher Shahla Lahiji, for participating in an April conference in Berlin entitled, ironically enough, "The Future of Reform in Iran."
A forceful critic of the low age of marriage consent for girls, Kar is seriously ill with breast cancer. Lahiji, the first Iranian woman publisher to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair, has fought government book censorship. Along with a third publisher, Shahla Sherkat, the two wrote a letter apologizing for any offense their participation may have caused.
The judge also sentenced Iran's most prominent student leader, Ali Afshari, already behind bars for a campus speech last month challenging Ayatullah Khamenei, to five years.
The two women, Mehrangiz Kar and Shahla Lahiji are both vocal supporters of women's and other human rights. Ali Afshari is a representative of the student organisation Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat (Office for Strengthening Unity). In April 2000, the Heinrich Böll Cultural Institute in Germany hosted a conference, "Iran after the Elections." A 17-strong delegation of reformist journalists, writers and intellectuals attended, but the deliberations were interrupted by a vociferous protest staged by a group of Iranian exiles who stormed the proceedings, shouting "death to the Islamic Republic." Two or three demonstrators went so far as to climb up on chairs, strip, and dance. Mehrangis Kar and her colleague Lahiji both attended the conference in Germany and, according to Kar's husband, they were both arrested on April 29 soon after their return.
They were summoned to appear before an Islamic Revolutionary tribunal at eight in the morning and, after an eight-hour interrogation behind closed doors, were ordered to go to jail. They had both been critical of the current political situation in their country at the conference; Lahiji, for instance, had noted that censorship in Iran was continuing unabated since the elections: "No matter that one cuts one centimeter and another two meters," she is reported as having said, "censorship is still censorship." However, nothing that either said or did can account for the serious charge that is reported to have been levelled against them, of "acting against the internal security of the state and disparaging the sacred order of the Islamic Republic."
Mehrangiz Kar and Shahla Lahiji were both arrested by the Revolutionary Court on 29 April. Ali Afshari was detained the following day in Tehran's notorious Evin prison.
While Lahiji was in prison, she was reported to have been denied her full quota of visits, or access to her lawyer. Her and Mehrangis Kar's arrest and that of other intellectuals provoked strong international criticism, as well as protests from the more reformist-minded elements of the Iranian Government. Attorney Shirin Ebadi would have represented Kar and Lahiji had she not resigned in protest for not being permitted to meet with her clients.
On June 18, 151 members of the 267-strong parliament queried the grounds on which they had been arrested and expressed official concern for their treatment while in jail.
A couple of days later, both Lahiji and her colleague Mehrangis Kar had been freed on bail - albeit and enormous one of 5000 million rials (about US$60,000 at the official rate), after Shirin Ebadi resigned as their lawyer, stating in an interview on 5 June that she was not permitted to be with the women when they were questioned and not permitted to meet with them. Among the others arrested in Iran for participating in a conference in Berlin, Germany student leader Ali Afshari was released on $62,500 bail on Sunday, June 25, 2000.
But then, most unpredictably, on Wednesday, June 28, Ms. Ebadi herself was arrested and imprisoned.
On May 3, 2000 Amnesty USA launched a world campaign for Mehrangiz Kar , lawyer, Shahla Lahiji , publisher and Ali Afshari, student representative .
Mehrangiz Kar, a well-known human rights lawyer in Iran, is the author with Shahla Lahiji of a book titled "Role of Women in prehistoric Iran,". She attended various conferences, one in Washington DC, organized by the Middle East Institute on October 2.1999. She gave a speech on the legal obstacles facing women in Iran. (available at : http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/1999/October/Kar/index.html) and one in Berlin in last April. According to AI-USA : "The three people "are apparently detained because they took part in an academic and cultural conference in Berlin in April, where political and social reform in Iran were publicly debated. The Berlin conference was marked by occasionally strong protests by Iranian political groups in exile. Elements within the Iranian judiciary apparently consider attendance at the conference to have been "harmful to national security". Many of those who attended have since faced arbitrary detention and interrogation." (Source : Amnesty International (USA)Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN, Digital Freedom Network and The Women's Learning Partnership)
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
"Akbar Ganji, who spoke at the conference, was detained last week (see EXTRA 43/00, MDE 13/07/00, 25 April). Three journalists, Hamid Reza Jalaipour, of the editorial team of Asr-e Azadegan (Era of the Free), Ezzatollah Sahabi, publisher of Iran-e Farda (Tomorrow's Iran) and Alireza Alavitabar, editor of Sobh-e Emrouz (Morning of Today) were detained, interrogated and later released on bail. Jamileh Kadivar, a member of the Iranian parliament, the Majles, has also been summoned and is reportedly scheduled to appear before the Revolutionary Court today. She is the sister of the cleric Mohsen Kadivar, a prisoner of conscience, and the wife of the Minister of Culture, Ataollah Mohajerani. The writer Mahmud Dolatabadi has also been summoned by the Revolutionary Court. Amnesty International is monitoring these developments closely."
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send telegrams/telexes/faxes/express/airmail letters in English, French or your own language:
APPEALS TO:
1)Leader of the Islamic Republic
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei
The Presidency
Palestine Avenue
Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Telegrams: Ayatollah Khamenei, Tehran, Iran
Salutation: Your Excellency
2)President
His Excellency Hojjatoleslam val Moslemin Sayed Mohammad Khatami
The Presidency
Palestine Avenue
Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Telegrams: President Khatami, Tehran, Iran
Salutation: Your Excellency
3)Head of Judiciary
His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahrudi
Ministry of Justice
Park-e Shahr
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Telegrams: Head of Judiciary, Tehran, Iran
Salutation: Your Excellency
COPIES TO:
Minister of Foreign Affairs
His Excellency Kamal Kharrazi
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Abdolmajid Keshk-e Mesri Avenue
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Mr Mohammad Hassan Zia'i-Far
Secretary, Islamic Human Rights Commission
PO Box 13165-137, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Faxes: + 98 21 204 0541
and to diplomatic representatives of Iran accredited to your country
It would also be helpful to forward a copy of your correspondence to
Mrs Mary Robinson
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights
CH 1211, Geneva 10, Switzerland
Tel: (41) 22-917-9000
Email:webadmin.hchr@unog.ch
