Shirin Karimi

Following the publication of a letter signed by thousands of social activists in protest to ‎the arrest of Maryam Hosseinkhah, the woman activist belonging to the One Million ‎Signature Campaign for Ending Gender Discrimination, Jelveh Javaheri, another member ‎of the same group was arrested this Friday and sent to the notorious Evin prison in ‎Tehran. She was also a writer on the Change for Equality website.‎

According to the Change for Equality website, Jelveh went to the Revolutionary Court in ‎Tehran on Saturday as her summons required. After being interrogated by the special ‎security bureau she was charged with disturbing public peace, propaganda against the ‎state, and the publication of false information on the Change for Equality website, and ‎then sent to Evin prison. ‎

Jelveh’s arrest is puzzling because she had been earlier detained along with 32 other ‎women activists for participating in a peaceful demonstration in front of the revolutionary ‎court last year (March 4, 2007) for which they were to be tried on December 18, 2007. ‎Javaheri is an MS student in sociology and an activist in the women’s movement who has ‎written and translated articles on women’s issues and who has been an advocate of ‎gender equality.‎

Her arrest came on the even of a letter that was published and signed by about a thousand ‎civil activists which condemns the arrest of one of their colleagues, Maryam Hosseinkhah ‎who has been behind bars for over a fortnight now and whose family is unable to meet ‎her high bail set by the court. In the open letter the signatories express their solidarity ‎with Maryam Hosseinkhah and their protests of the gender discriminatory laws prevalent ‎in Iran. They also declare that all news websites that sympathize with their cause “belong ‎to” them. The participants of the letter also declare their dedication to inform and ‎enlighten other women of their plight and of their rights if they have experienced ‎discrimination. “We too have undertaken the same steps that Maryam Hosseinkhah has in ‎her endeavors against the discriminatory laws,” the letter states, adding that “if she ‎‎[Maryam Hosseinkhah] is to be in prison, then all of us too have committed the same acts ‎as her and must therefore be sent to prison as well.” Finally, they make a commitment to ‎further expose and fight any gender discrimination they shall observe and come across in ‎the future.‎