Omid Memarian
o.memarian@roozonline.com

In an exclusive interview with Rooz, while criticizing inappropriate charges brought ‎against activists by the judiciary, Shirin Ebadi stated, “unfortunately, when social and ‎political activists are frowned upon by the government for their civil and constructive ‎criticism, they are charged with various political accusations.”
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Commenting on the cases of Rounak Safazadeh and Hana Abdi, two members of the One ‎Million Signatures campaign who have been accused of collaborating with Pezhak [an ‎armed Kurdish separatist group], Ebadi said, “Their real charge and their true crime is ‎that they demand equal rights and believe that God has created equal beings with equal ‎rights. Because certain officials find it difficult to tolerate this viewpoint, they have ‎framed new charges for these young women, accusing them of disrupting public order ‎and conspiring to overthrow the regime. I have asked judiciary’s officials several times, ‎if a woman does not want her husband to have the right to marry a second woman, does ‎that mean that she is conspiring with the United States? If a young girl says, I want the ‎same rights as my brother, is she committing treason against her nation?” ‎

Ebadi also said that she fears women’s rights activists Jelveh Javaheri and Maryam ‎Hosseinkhah will remain in prison because of their extraordinary high bail amounts: ‎‎“from a legal standpoint, the bail amount must be set in accordance with the type of ‎crime, motivation behind committing the crime, the personality of the criminal and the ‎context surrounding the case. The judge sets a bail amount with respect to all of these ‎factors. It is very painful to see a bail amount of 1,000 million rials for a young female ‎journalist whose only crime is that she wrote several articles criticizing discriminatory ‎laws. Her family has so far been unable to prepare this amount.” ‎

She added that her client is not willing to meet such a high bail amount: “Maryam has ‎sent a message asking her friends not to prepare her bail, because it is very unjust and she ‎protests it. She is willing to stay in prison in protest. Furthermore, the action of the ‎judge is against the law. Essentially, Javaheri and Hosseinkhah are willing to stay in ‎prison to protest an illegal action by the judge.” ‎

Commenting on the activities of Maryam Hosseinkhah and Jelveh Javaheri, Ebadi said, ‎‎“both these women are writers and their crime is that they have protested discriminatory ‎laws by gathering signatures. The special judge in the Revolutionary Court has set a ‎‎1,000 million rial bail for Hosseinkhah and a 500 million rial bail for Javaheri, even ‎though these two girls live modestly and do not have even 10 million rials in savings. ‎They are prisoners in the general women’s ward because they are unable to prepare their ‎bail. Fortunately, they observe their duties even in prison. They assisted some of the ‎women who were still in detention because of confusion among judiciary’s officials by ‎finding volunteer lawyers for them, and one of these women has already been released. ‎The world has to salute the will of Iranian women who strive to improve the lives of their ‎fellow women in Iran even when serving time in prison for saying the truth.” ‎

The winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize added at the end that those who set ‎inappropriate bail amounts are themselves guilty of violating the law: “the bail amount ‎must be appropriate. This has not been observed with respect of any of the ‎aforementioned individuals, which is itself a violation and I hope that the judiciary’s ‎oversight committee one day would investigate all violations that take place in cases ‎involving political prisoners. All such actions are against the law. Anyone who commits ‎such actions has acted against the law and must be rebuked by the oversight committee.” ‎