Women's Crossroads

In the last hundred years, just 11 women worldwide have been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. Five of those have occurred since 1991, when the pace of women honorees quickened: Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991, Rigoberta Menchu in 1992, Jody Williams in 1997, Shirin Ebadi in 2003, and Wangari Maathai in 2004. That’s a pretty impressive record of women working for peace.

It’s interesting to note that of the five recent honorees, only Jody Williams of the U.S. has been able to work for human rights without falling prey to brutal retaliation from oppressive regimes. Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma has been under house arrest for years and years; Rigoberta Menchu was forced into exile and hiding for a long time in her home country of Guatemala; Wangari Maathai was long jailed and harassed for her environmental work with women in Kenya; and Shirin Ebadi was also arrested and imprisoned for her outspoken defense of women’s human rights in Iran.

As she recalls in her autobiography, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope, “from the day I was stripped of my judgeship to the years doing battle in the revolutionary courts of Tehran, I had repeated one refrain: an interpretation of Islam that is in harmony with equality and democracy is an authentic expression of faith. It is not religion that binds women, but the selective dictates of those who wish them cloistered….I have been under attach for most of my adult life for this approach,” Ebadi concedes, but she remains defiant, insistent on using her training and talents as an attorney to defend human rights, especially for women.

Most Nobel prizewinners enjoy a degree of personal security, thanks to the prestige and worldwide recognition the award brings. But the government of Iran, perhaps unsurprisingly, is thumbing its nose at world opinion, banning Shirin Ebadi’s Center for the Defense of Human Rights. The Center provides free legal representation to prisoners of conscience, supports their families, and reports on human rights violations occurring in Iranian detention facilities.

Ebadi, who has spent months in Iranian prisons herself for her activist work, remains defiant. In a recent statement to the international community, Ebadi wrote that she and her staff “do not intend to shut down the center and we shall continue our activities. However, there is a high possibility that they will arrest us. The government's action in this regard is illegal.”

In response to Ebadi’s statement, there is a call circulating on the web demanding that the Iranian government allow Ebadi and her Center to continue working without hindrance or harassment; I’ll append the sample letter below.

Just imagine the face of His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, Head of the Judiciary, as thousands of letters begin to pour into his office from around the world! Let’s do it!!

You can send a letter online, or work from the sample letter below:

His Excellency
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Head of the Judiciary
Ministry of Justice
Park-Shahr, Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran

Your Excellency,

I am deeply concerned about your Interior Ministry's recent decision to ban the work of the Kanoon Modaefan Hogooge Bashar, led by Nobel Peace Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi. I understand that the members of this organization have been threatened with arrest, should they continue their invaluable human rights work.

I am alarmed by this decision of the Ministry, four years after failing to respond to the Center for the Defense of Human Right's request for registration. Under Article 12 of the Political Parties Law of 1981, the Political Parties Commission is required to respond to such requests within three months of receiving them. In the absence of any response, the Ministry of the Interior is legally obliged to issue a license to the Center.

The refusal of the Ministry to issue this license suggests that this illegal ban, like the arbitrary detention of Nasser Zarafshan and Abdolfattah Soltani, is an attempt to prevent human rights defenders from reporting and protesting violations of human rights violations in Iran.

Kanoone Modaefan Hogooge Bashar is one of the most important human rights organizations in Iran, and its work is critical to ensure the protection of the basic rights of the Iranian people.

Any arrests of individuals who are trying to inform the public about human rights or human rights abuses are direct violations of the 1998 UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, under which all persons have the right ''freely to publish, impart or disseminate to others views, information and knowledge on all human rights and fundamental freedoms.''

Other international and regional instruments that are binding on the government of Iran, like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, similarly prohibit the persecution of peaceful critics of the Iranian government.

I demand, therefore, an immediate withdrawal of the ban on the Center for the Defense of Human Rights, and the release of Abdolfattah Soltani and all other human rights defenders. I will continue to monitor this and other similar cases closely. I appreciate your attention to this most serious matter.

cc.

Ambassador Mohammad Javad Zarif
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the U.N.
622 Third Ave. New York, NY 10017