Action: [fund] persecution of opposition

Mohammad Mostafaie, a human rights defender and lawyer of Sakineh Ashtiani, the woman whose sentence to death by stoning in Iran in June received worldwide public attention, has been arrested and detained by Turkish authorities. On 24 July 2010, his wife, Fereshteh Halimi and brother in law, Farhad Halimi, were arrested and are now detained at the infamous Evin Prison in Tehran. Prior to their arrest, Mostafaie was invited for interrogation and subsequently released by the police but was immediately ordered to be arrested again.

Update, 21/06/2010: According to the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR), Shiva has been transferred from solitary confinement to the women's section of Evin prison, which is a public prison. In an interview with the news agency, Reporters and Human Rights Activists of Iran on 12 June 2010, Shiva Nazar Ahari's lawyer, Mohammad Sharif, said: "After two different cases brought against Nazar Ahari were integrated, the [new date for the court] session has not yet been declared to us." Sharif announced that his client had been officially accused of 'Moharebeh' (enmity against God), and acts against national security through collective action and participation in the demonstrations. Such charges attract very severe sentences under Iran's Penal Code and Nazar Ahari and could face the death penalty. Please continue to write to the Iranian authorities calling for Iran to abide by its commitments under international laws and its own constitution. 

UPDATE: Shiva Nazar's trial, due to take place on 23 May, has been postponed without a future date being set. In March 2010, Women’s human rights defender and WLUML council member, Shadi Sadr, took the extraordinary step of dedicating her International Women of Courage Award to Shiva Nazar Ahari, a young human rights activist and a member of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR), currently imprisoned in Iran for ‘acts against national security’. Sadr refrained from attending the award ceremony in the U.S. in the hope that her absence would draw the international community’s attention to Nazar Ahari’s dire situation, urging the audience in a speech recorded for the event that “any measures available to you [be taken] to help to free Shiva along with other human rights activists and journalists in Iranian prisons”. According to Nazar Ahari’s mother, she will be brought to trial at Revolutionary Court No. 26 on Sunday 23 May. The offences she is being accused of carry severe penalties. Please see attached our sample letter . You can follow this link (and scroll down) to watch a series of films in Farsi on Shiva by Iranian WHRD, filmmaker and WLUML ally, Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh.

Please write to the Iranian authorities calling on them to halt executions of nine people arrested in relation to protests following the disputed presidential elections. The Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) international solidarity network urges the Islamic Republic of Iran to halt the executions of political prisoners sentenced to death. The prisoners’ trials did not meet international or even national legal standards set up by the laws of Islamic Republic. The accused faced ambiguous charges of Mahrab, meaning “enmity against God.” Moreover, after the officially confirmed deaths of at least two while in detention, the Iranian public and the international community are greatly alarmed about the extent of torture used against Iranian political prisoners in an attempt to coerce confessions.