[fund] persecution of opposition

La défenseuse des droits humains Mlle Mahboubeh Karami a été arrêtée le 2 mars 2010. Mahboubeh Karami est membre de la "Campagne pour un Million de Signatures », un mouvement qui vise à mettre fin aux lois discriminatoires contre les femmes en Iran. Front Line avait déjà lancé un appel concernant l'arrestation et la détention de Mahboubeh Karami le 2 avril 2009.

Shadi Sadr, a renowned Iranian human rights lawyer, women’s rights activist and member of Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) – International Solidarity Network Council, has been awarded the International Women of Courage Award 2010. Ms. Sadr was also the recipient of the Lech Walesa and the Dutch "Human Rights Tulip" awards in 2009.

Sadr dedicates her Award to imprisoned women’s rights activist Shiva Nazar Ahari

Your Excellency Mrs. Clinton, Respected Members of the Jury, Ladies and Gentlemen, (cont...)

بحث مجلس حقوق الإنسان بالأمم المتحدة أمس استخدام الحكومة المصرية لقانون الطوارئ لتبرير الاعتقال التعسفي والمحاكمات الاستثنائية، وذلك في إطار التقرير المقدم من جانب مارتن شينين المقرر الخاص للأمم المتحدة، المعني بتعزيز وحماية حقوق الإنسان والحريات الأساسية في سياق مكافحة الإرهاب، إلى الدورة الثالثة عشر لمجلس حقوق الإنسان والمنعقدة حالياً في جنيف. يعد هذا التقرير بمثابة أول تقرير يصدر عن هيئة رئيسية لحقوق الإنسان بالأمم المتحدة يتناول فقط حالة حقوق الإنسان في مصر. وقد حضر الجلسة ممثلين عن المبادرة المصرية للحقوق الشخصية ومركز القاهرة لدراسات حقوق الإنسان بصفة مراقبين، كما قاموا بتقديم مداخلات شفوية أثناء الجلسة أشادوا فيها بالتقرير، وطالبوا الحكومة بشرعة تنفيذ ما ورد به من توصيات. 

Egypt’s use of the Emergency Law to justify arbitrary detention and the use of exceptional courts was examined before the UN Human Rights Council today in a ground-breaking report presented by Martin Scheinin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism. The report is the first issued by the main human rights body of the United Nations that deals exclusively with the human rights situation in Egypt. Representatives from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies attended the session in Geneva as observers and delivered oral interventions in which they supported the report’s recommendations and urged the government to implement them immediately. 

The Iranian Judiciary should immediately release six women arrested in January and early February 2010, apparently in connection with their peaceful activities on behalf of the Mourning Mothers, Human Rights Watch said today. Mourning Mothers is a civil society group established in June 2009 by mothers whose children lost their lives in state-sanctioned violence following Iran's disputed June 12 election. In recent months many Iranians have expressed support for the group.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has warned that the international community’s inaction is 'a green light for hanging protesters'. An Iranian protestor, prosecuted in a post-Ashura trials on charges of Moharebeh, or “enmity against God”, is in danger of imminent execution, the Campaign has said in a recent press release. The Judiciary issued its verdict based on a fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi. Women Living Under Muslim Laws joins other transnational civil society groups and organizations in calling for an immediate halt to the executions. Please register your protest by calling the office of the Grand Ayatollah.

L’accès de mon domicile étant, à présent, interdit à toute personne en dehors de ma proche famille ; je suis dans l’obligation n’ayant aucun moyen de recours face à cette décision arbitraire, d’entamer samedi matin une grève de la faim illimitée. Depuis le mois d’Avril 2009, mon domicile est l’objet d’une surveillance policière arbitraire et ostensible. A la suite d’incidents répétés, et après avoir déposé plainte en vain auprès du procureur de la République , j’ai pris acte – de facto - de  l’abus de pouvoir qui m’a été imposé par cette intolérable atteinte à une de mes libertés fondamentales et à ma vie familiale et privée doublée de l’interdiction de recevoir chez moi six animateurs associatifs et / ou politiques : Mmes Sihem Ben Sedrine , Radhia Nasraoui et Azza ben Brick, l’épouse de Taoufik Ben Brick, ainsi que Mrs Omar Mestiri, Raouf Ayadi , Slim Boukhdhir, Zyed Doulatli et Ali Laaridh.

Based on the reports by Human Rights and Democracy Activists in Iran, many supporters of the Mourning Mothers are under medieval and excruciating solitary confinement conditions at ward 209 of Evin prison. Attacks by the Ministry of Intelligence against supporters of the Mourning Mothers began on Sunday February 7, 2010 at 10:30 pm and peaked on February 9th. It is reported that during these attacks at least seven mothers were arrested and taken to solitary confinement in ward 209 of Evin prison. Five Ministry of Intelligence agents participated in the extremely violent and barbaric attacks.

“War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.” - George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty-Four). Thus begins the Rajapakse era, with the arrest of Gen. Sarath Fonseka. I did not and do not consider Sarath Fonseka to be a hero, any more than I consider Mahinda Rajapakse and Gotabhaya Rajapakse to be heroes. Still I believe Fonseka’s arrest should be a matter of gravest and most intimate concern to all those who value democratic freedoms, because it symbolises the conclusive triumph of a new political commonsense which equates Mahinda Rajapakse (and his brothers) with the country and thus damns any opponent of Rajapakse rule as an enemy of the nation. A democracy which equates opposition to the powers that be with treachery to the nation is no longer a democracy but an autocracy.

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