Female Tehran university student arrested and interrogated

Advaar News the news source from the office of Fostering Unity (Tahkim Vahdat)* reported: Zeynab Payghambarzadeh, female Tehran university student was arrested in the Tehran-Karadj metro line during her campaign to collect one million signatures to change women’s laws; she was kept in detention by agents of the ministry of intelligence and security (MOIS) for 4 days and charged with “taking action against national security”.

Tehran university officials in response to inquiries from MOIS, described her, not only as someone with a long and negative record but also as a Communist; this issue lead to the pressure applied to Zeynab during interrogation.

This member of the women’s commission of the office of Fostering Unity, in a post on her weblog described the methods of interrogation by the agents of MOIS and her detention. After 4 days of questioning her regarding her activities for the campaign for women’s rights as well as her political activities, the revolutionary court judge issued the order for her release.

The university disciplinary commission suspended Payghambarzadeh from 2 academic terms as a penalty for her involvement in the June 2006 Tehran university protests.

* The Office of Fostering Unity, known in Farsi as Tahkim Vahdat, is the largest student organization in Iran. It was formed to support the rule of Ruhollah Khomeini. Over the years Tahkim Vahdat became one of the most vocal critics of hardliners in Iran and during the Khatami presidency promoted a pro-reformist stance. Since the failure of the so-called reformists, a number of the members of this organization work to promote secularism, though many of its governing members are what is called "nationalist religionists", meaning that they believe in the separation of religion and state though they remain faithful to Islam as their religion.