Shirin Ebadi's Human Rights Centre shut by police

[He3]

Nobel prize winning Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi has had her plan to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights upended by the Tehran authorities.

Iranian authorities on Sunday closed the office of the country's main human rights organization, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.

Dozens of plain-clothes detectives along with local police officers entered the office of the Center for Defenders of Human Rights in Tehran and shut it down hours before a ceremony was to take place commemorating the 60th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights.

...
Since its founding, the organization has taken on 5,000 pro bono cases defending politically active women, journalists and students, Nargess Mohammadi, a spokesperson for the center said.

On Sunday, guests were still arriving for the ceremony when Ebadi and her colleagues were escorted out of the building by police officers. They had refused to leave their offices for more than an hour.

"This was supposed to be one of the few happy events for activists in Iran," said Asieh Amini, a journalist who focuses on human rights issues and who was planning to attend the celebration as one of approximately 300 invited guests. Amini said guests who did attend were filmed by plain-clothes officers.



washingtonpost.com

[conservative green]

Bit like Ireland, so.

[He3]

Yes and No.

We didn't hit the international media on this topic this month, just on pork, beef and bankers.

[He3]

Andrew49's thread on this has been closed, maybe because of duplication.

The pressure on Ebadi seems to be intensifying, and the Nobel Women's Initiative - an assembly of women Nobel prizewinners from several countries, which was launched in Galway in 2007 - reports that her daughter has recently been the focus of death threats.

Ebadi fulfils a vital role and deserves all the support she can get.

Nobel Women's Initiative - Defend Shirin Ebadi

[Catalpa]

Well we've already seen a Blogsite closed down here in Ireland this week in order to silence oposition to Immigration,

so I think we will all have to be more vigilent against political censorship whether it be at home or abroad from now on....

[gnash1970]

Well we've already seen a Blogsite closed down here in Ireland this week in order to silence oposition to Immigration,

so I think we will all have to be more vigilent against political censorship whether it be at home or abroad from now on....

Have we? Link?

[He3]

Shirin Ebadi was at the European Parliament last week.

Human rights campaigners in Iran have one clear demand of that country's government: that it should comply with the many international undertakings it has voluntarily signed up to, MEPs were told on Wednesday by Iranian human rights activist and former Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.
"Our aim is not to overthrow the government", said Mrs Ebadi, speaking of her Centre for the Defence of Human Rights, which was closed down by police in December. Moreover, "We oppose any military attack on Iran and we also oppose economic sanctions". Compliance with Iran's international commitments would be enough as it would mean an end to human rights violations.

Mrs Ebadi, who was addressing a joint meeting of the EP's Delegation for Relations with Iran and the Subcommittee on Human Rights, then listed the many different kinds of human rights problems in her country. Religious discrimination entailed different punishments for crimes depending on whether the accused were Muslims or not. Gender discrimination meant that a woman counted for half a man in the eyes of the law. People accused of political crimes would not have a fair trial and freedom of expression was highly restricted.

Stoning, flogging, crucifixion and child executions

In particular, she said "punishments forbidden under international conventions" were still used in Iran, such as "stoning, cutting off of hands, flogging and crucifixion". Moreover, the execution rate in Iran is very high, with 38 people having been executed since the beginning of January 2009. And the age of criminal responsibility is 9 for a girl and 15 for a boy, with the result that "last year Iran had the highest rate of child executions in the world".

"We only want Iran to fulfil its international commitments", says Shirin Ebadi

[stewiegriffin]

Maybe she is 'censored' because she makes up stories about crucifiction .Afterall if today , in the west ,somebody insinuated that Jewish people threw babies down wells (as medievil anti semites did) , they would surely be denied the oxygen of publicity . I mention jews merely because the made up crucifiction story originated in the Jerusalem post afaik and I find that a bit ironic given the libels about Jews throughout history.

[Thac0man]

A sad day and increasingly worrying development for womens rights.

[Asi-Irish]

A sad day and increasingly worrying development for womens rights.

I am sure you're devastated, since I know how precious human rights are to you; as long as the humans in question are on the 'right' side.

Since my mind is too simplistic, I find it hard to understand how someone can be both in favour of human rights and in favour of wars of aggression.

Also, your stance on torture is somewhat at odds with your stance on human rights, though I suppose you're choosing only to apply these standards to Iran.