http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/2010918161829135229.html
An Iranian court has sentenced a prominent human rights activist to six years in prison on various anti-government charges, a semi-official Iranian news agency has reported.
ILNA news agency said on Saturday that Shiva Nazar Ahari was convicted of gathering and plotting to commit crimes against the Iranian state, propaganda against the establishment and waging war against God, a crime punishable by death under the Islamic Republic's Sharia law.
Nazar Ahari, the 26-year-old founder of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters in Tehran, was arrested in December on her way to the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the spiritual adviser of the Green movement which opposed the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, last June.
In addition to the jail term, she has to pay a $400 fine or face 74 lashes, Mohammad Sharif, her lawyer said.
Sharif vowed to appeal the verdict, saying there was "no legal basis for this charge".
She was also arrested shortly after the disputed June 2009 presidential vote and released only after spending three months in Tehran's Evin prison, where dozens of activists and journalists are still being held.
Human rights groups have dismissed the claims against her as “trumped-up charges'' stemming from her participation in the 2009 protest rallies.
The opposition says the election was rigged, but authorities denied that and blamed foreign powers for stirring agitation.
I've got $20 toward her fine, if enough of us are willing to donate...?
AntwortenLöschenAt Evin prison, Shiva Nazar Ahari is not just a name. It is a sea.
AntwortenLöschenA sea of hope. Hope that lights up the eyes of every new prisoner
. You can find the name “Shiva Nazar Ahari” in every interrogation
room in Ward 209, written in a neat and legible hand on the acoustic walls
. It’s not simply a name –it’s a sign. A sign that communicates
, “Don’t be afraid! Resist!” It is only during the agitation of a heavy
, exhausting interrogation that you are able to grasp what it means
to be Shiva Nazar Ahari. In my land, the story of “Being Shiva Ahar Nazari”
is the painful narrative of all human rights activists in Iran
. Those who selflessly inveast their resources and their lives
–bearing many crosses along the way– for the goal of establishing
the full observance of human rights and human rights law in the Islamic Republic.
By Gosar
she is one helluva brave woman
I thought you might like this one.
AntwortenLöschenActually, what I find most illuminating about this story is that she was only imprisoned. The article says her perceived crime is punishable by death - and some sections of Western thinking would have us believe that a woman in her position would be lashed and stoned. Imprisonment seems out of sync with the extremist charicature some like to paint of Iran.