Letter written by a number of Iranian women activists and their supporters to Ban Ki-moon

Honourable Ban Ki-moon

United Nations General Secretary

Cc: Honourable Madam Navanethem Pillay

United Nations High Commissionaire for Human Rights

Members of the United Nations Human Rights Council

1 March 2011

Appeal to free Ms Zahra Rahnavard, Ms Fatemeh Karubi and Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karubi from prison

Excellency

On the eve of the centenary of the International Women’s Day, the Islamic Republic

of Iran has held under house arrest and imprisoned, without warranty, charge and trial,

two women, who have been influential personalities within its own apparatus all

through the 32 years of its rule. Ms Zahra Rahnavard, writer, university professor and

a political figure, along with her husband Mr Mir-Hossein Mousavi, former Iran’s

prime minister and presidential candidate and Ms Fatemeh Karubi, former MP, along

with her husband, Mr Mehdi Karubi, former president of parliament and presidential

candidate.

The families of these two couples have now joined the rank of the grieving families

disrupted by suppression, inquisition, execution and imprisonment; a by product of 32

years of a regime which took over a revolution which was due to bring about freedom

and social justice to Iran.

On April 2010 Iran was automatically endorsed to sit at the CSW as the number of

interested candidates matched the number of available seats. Although Iran is not the

only member state of the UN Commission on the Status of Women which has a

record of violation of human rights and women’s rights, current deterioration in the

situation is alarmingly progressing.

Iran is increasingly turning into a state, where no one is spared when they speak out

against bad governance and the abuse of trust and power. Raiding and ransacking

homes in the middle of night, arbitrary arrests of women, lawyers, journalists, workers,

students, human rights defenders and ordinary people; forced confessions under

physical and psychological torture and depravation, summary trials without the

presence of lawyers, or lawyers without knowledge of the clients’ files, long-term

prison sentences, death warrants and executions are on the rise. Psychological effects

of raiding homes and taking women away in the middle of night, keeping women in

solitary confinement without seeing their children has created disrupted families.

Mourning Mothers Groups face abuse, beatings and arbitrary arrest and detention on

visiting the graves of their loved ones or when seeking justice for their murdered

children. Families who gather at prison gates to know the whereabouts of their

children are beaten and detained.

Excellency

The rejuvenation of the Iranian pro-democracy movement on 14 February 2011,

inspired by developments in the Middle East and North Africa and in support of the

people who have risen against dictators, alarmed and frightened the Islamic Republic

to the point that it resorted to poisonous tear gas with deadly consequences to disperse

the peaceful protestors. In Tehran, two university students were killed by bullets shots

from unknown marksmen. In the city of Shiraz another student was killed by being

thrown from a bridge in the subsequent peaceful demonstration. The number of those

detained on the day is yet to be known. Both Zahra Rahanvard and Fatemeh Karubi along with Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karubi, who are prominent figures in the pro-democracy Green Movement of Iran were put under complete house arrest on 14 February and later transferred into an unknown detention centre amid extraordinary security operations.

Excellency,

While Iran sits at the CSW, women of Iran are increasingly diminished of their civil

and human rights. Their demands for equality and the abolition of discriminatory

laws through peaceful collection of signatures had been responded by further

discrimination through passing bills to further facilitate polygamy and temporary

marriages. As a member state, Iran has rejected to sigh the UN Convention on

Discrimination Against Women (UNCDAW).

Women’s equality is recognized only in detention, imprisonment, suppression, rape,

executions and stoning to death.

Excellency

Iranian women fought for their rights since 1905 before the birth of the International

Women’s Day. On the eve of the centenary of the International Women’s Day we

urge you to press for the release of all prisoners of conscience regardles of their gender and ideology from detention and prison including Ms Zahra Rahnavard and Ms Fatemeh Karubi and their husbands Mr Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi.

Respectfully

Women: Azadeh Davachi, Asieh Amini, Azadeh Kian, Asef Bayat, Aida Quajar,

Aida Sa’adat, Ayandeh Azad, Akram Mohamedi, Akram Khairkhah, Bahareh

Afghahi, Bahareh MirzaHossein, Boniota Papastathi, Elahe Amani, Parastou Forouhar, Dorna Bandari, Parisa Amadian, Parvin Ardalan, Soraya Falah, Hamideh Nezami. Khadijeh Moghadam, Sara Zare, Saghi Ghahremani, Sepideh Yusefzadeh, Sahar Mofakham, Samaneh Mousavi, Sudeh Rad, Sholeh Shams, Shahla Bahardoust,

Farzaneh Sabetan, Fery Fard, Zoha Agha mehdi, Sofia Sadighpour, Shirin Famili, Leli

Pourzand, Mojgan Servati, Shiva Nojoo, Nazenin Djavaheri, Golbarg Bashi, Simin Sharifi, Rezvan Moghadam, Rouhi Shafii, Roja Bandari, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Janet Afari, Effat Mahbaz, Esha Momeni, Fatemeh Farhangkhah, Farida Farhi, Freshteh Farahani,  Maryam Beheshti, Maryam Ahari, Mahboubeh Abasgholizadeh, Mehrangiz

Kar, Mahasti Afshar, Massi Alinejad, Maryam Molavi, Massumeh Zia, Mansoureh

Shojaie, Mitra Shojaie, Mina Zand Sygle, Mahdeih Salehpour, Mahshid Rasti, Mina

Ansari,  Basiri, Nayere Tohidi, Vahideh Mahmoodi, Leila Moinee, Mehri Jafari.

Men:Omid Darkuhi, Amir Rashidi, Amir Salehpour, Hassan Nayeb Hashem,

Hossein Alizadeh, Sohrab Behdad, Reza Fani Yazdi, Ali Afshari, Aliakbar Mahdi, Ali

Baniazizi, Kazem Alamdari,  Mansour Farhang, Javad Djavaheri, Majid Mohammadi, Mohammed Shirzad, Mehdi Mahdavi Azad, Mehrdad Darvishpour, Nader Hashemi, Hasan Yusofi Eshkevari, Ramin Jahanbegloo, Reza Goharzad, Said Paivandi, Goudarz Eghtedari, Mansour Moaddel