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.”
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.”
