Civil Society, Gender, Headlines, Human Rights, Middle East & North Africa

RIGHTS-IRAN: Nobel Peace Winner Threatened With Arrest

Omid Memarian*

BERKELEY, California, Aug 28 2006 (IPS) - Nine Nobel Prize laureates have sent a letter to the Iranian government asking it to retract its threat to prosecute Iran’s most prominent independent human rights organisation founded by Dr. Shirin Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize.

On Aug. 2, Iran’s Ministry of Interior declared that Ebadi’s Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC) had failed to obtain a valid license and warned that the organisation would be prosecuted because its activities were “illegal.” The DHRC has been a devoted and powerful voice for human and minority rights in Iran since its inception in 2001.

Two weeks later, the Dalai Lama (1989), Jody Williams (1997), Bishop Carlos Belo (1996), Wangari Maathai (2004), Betty Williams (1976), Rigoberta Menchú Tum (1992), Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (1980), Máiread Corrigan Maguire (1976), Elie Wiesel (1986), all Nobel Prize winners, sent a letter to Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki expressing their concern over the Interior Ministry’s position.

“As we understand, the work of the DHRC, as a civil and peaceful association, is legal according to the Iranian Constitution,” the letter said. “We urge you to reconcile the discrepancy of the ‘permit’ that the Iranian government declares is necessary for the organization to function yet seems inconsistent with the Iranian constitution which states that non-governmental organizations that observe the law and do not disrupt public safety do not need a permit.”

Under the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, individuals and associations have the right “to promote and to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms,” and to “complain about the policies and actions of individual officials and governmental bodies with regard to violations of human rights.”

It further says that states “shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of [human rights defenders] against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary actions.”

Ebadi’s centre is a member of the International Federation for Human Rights and was awarded a prize by the Human Rights National Commission in France. In addition, Dr. Shirin Ebadi was recognised with a Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work to protect human rights.

As a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Iran is obligated to uphold a commitment to freedom of association. The DHRC has made every effort to be in compliance with Iranian law and applied for a permit in 2002, which Iran’s Ministry of Interior would not issue or explain why it refused.

Hadi Ghaemi, a Human Rights Watch researcher, told IPS that the Iranian government’s threat to arrest Shirin Ebadi and lawyers associated with her centre is a serious attack on fundamental rights in Iran. “The government is basically demonstrating its intolerance of independent advocates who are trying to promote and protect human rights under the law,” he said.

“It can also be viewed as an attempt to undermine the country’s legal system, because if the government disallows human rights lawyers from public advocacy and threatens them with prosecution, then the lawyers have no security in defending their clients in the courtroom,” he added.

A few days after the government’s announcement, Ebadi sent an email message to human rights activists and media correspondents, asking them to publicise the government’s threat and gather public support for her centre.

“The Government of Iran announced that this Center is illegal and provided we continue our activities, they shall arrest us,” she wrote. “Of course I and the other members of the center do not intend to shut down the center and we shall continue our activities. However, there is a high possibility that that they will arrest us.”

“The government’s action in this regard is illegal,” she wrote. “This Center has been established and working for more than four years now. I believe this decision of the government has been triggered by my memoir being published. In any case, I am happy that my memoir has been published, for the truth must be told.”

Mohammad Seyfzadeh, Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, Mohammad Sharif, and Abolfatah Soltani, all well-respected lawyers in Iran, are among the co-founders of the DHRC.

Over the years, Ebadi and her colleagues have taken on prominent cases like that of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who was murdered while in prison in 2003; killings of dissidents and writers in 1998; the student uprising in 1999; arrests of bloggers and journalists in 2004; and the imprisonment of Iran’s most prominent dissident, Akbar Ganji.

Ganji, who spent six years in jail and was released only recently, told IPS that it is unlikely that the Islamic government would actually arrest Dr. Ebadi.. However, he said that threatening human rights organisations into silence is part of the government’s goal to create a monolithic society.

“They are against any kind of critical voices. They perceive opposition voices as part of an attempt to create a Velvet Revolution (like that in Czechoslovakia in 1989, as well as Ukraine and Georgia). For this reason, the Islamic regime is trying to shut down non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as DHRC,” said Ganji, who was represented by Ebadi for the six years of his detention.

“Everybody involved in political and social activism is facing the risk of arrest and prosecution in Iran today. Dr. Ebadi and her colleagues should continue their activities. They do not need governmental license for their peaceful activities since it’s not against the constitution,” he said.

Ganji emphasised that activists around the world can support Ebadi and her colleagues by condemning the government’s action against human rights NGOs. Such condemnations would make it harder for the government to impede the work of social activists within Iran.

Hussein Bastani, an Iranian journalist and political activist, worked with Dr. Ebadi in 1993, when they were both members of the Association for Defending the Rights of the Child. He told IPS that Dr. Ebadi was mostly engaged in non-political cases, yet even so she was threatened from time to time by anonymous callers who considered her position on the discriminatory laws regarding women and children to be “anti-Islamic”.

“During the years I worked with Shirin Ebadi, I have two memories that never leave my mind. First, when it was proven that her name was on the ‘list of terror’. This was a list of Iranian intellectuals who were killed in 1998 by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence,” he said.

“Four were murdered before this list came to light. Second, when, during a telephone conversation in 2000, she told me she was summoned to court, and would probably be sent to prison the next day. I didn’t agree with her. I couldn’t imagine that someone like her would be arrested… but the day after; I heard the news of her imprisonment.”

The restrictive policies against human rights NGOs mean that journalists and political and social activists are now more vulnerable in the face of government charges. The premature death of Akbar Mohammadi, a student activist who died in Evin prison in July, and the recent threats against Dr. Ebadi’s centre are an ominous sign for those who fight for human rights in Iran today.

*Omid Memarian is an Iranian journalist and civil-society activist. He has won several awards, including Human Rights Watch’s highest honour in 2005, the Human Rights Defender Award.