5
march 2007
Iranian women rights activists arrested
According
to the AFP, Iranian security forces on Sunday arrested around 30 women's rights
activists rallying outside a Tehran court where a group of their fellow
campaigners were on trial over a demonstration last year.
"My
clients and other women who had gathered in front of the court were arrested,"
Nasrin Sotoodeh, the lawyer for the accused, was quoted as saying by the ISNA
news agency.
According
to unofficial reports, around 30 people were detained, including some of the
most prominent women's rights activists in Iran.
The
protestors had gathered in front of the revolutionary court in solidarity with
five women on trial over their roles in a demonstration which was broken up by
police in June last year.
Nushin
Ahmadi Khorasani, Parvin Ardalan, Shahla Entesari, Susan Tahmasebi and Fariba
Davudi Mohajer were standing trial for organising an "unauthorised" rally
to ask for equal rights for women.
It
was not clear which of the accused were among those arrested.
Sotoodeh
later told AFP that the arrested activists had been transferred to the
notorious Evin prison in northern Tehran.
"The
families of those (arrested) who do not have a problem have been told to bring
in property documents to bail them out," the lawyer said. "But this
does not apply to those who do have a problem."
Sotoodeh
said that the authorities have still not officially said how many people were
arrested and or released their names.
Seventy
people, most of them women, were arrested at the protest last June when they
called for improved rights and changes to laws discriminating against women.
Under
Iranian law, married women have to go through a lengthy process to be granted a
divorce, and the testimony of two women is equal to that of one man.
Rights
groups claimed that some demonstrators at that protest were beaten by the
police.
Those
arrested in June were all subsequently released, although one detained
protester, reformist ex-MP Ali-Akbar Musavi Khoini, was held in prison until
October.