Appeal to free Karoubi Mousavi and their wives

CHRR, On the eve of the centenary of the International Women’s Day, the Islamic Republic of Iran has held under house arrest and imprisoned, without warranty, charge and trial, two women, who have been influential personalities within its own apparatus all through the 32 years of its rule.

Ms Zahra Rahnavard, writer, university professor and a political figure, along with her husband Mr Mir-Hossein Mousavi, former Iran’s prime minister and presidential candidate and Ms Fatemeh Karubi, former MP, along with her husband, Mr Mehdi Karubi, former president of parliament and presidential candidate.

The families of these two couples have now joined the rank of the grieving families disrupted by suppression, inquisition, execution and imprisonment; a by product of 32 years of a regime which took over a revolution which was due to bring about freedom and social justice to Iran.

On April 2010 Iran was automatically endorsed to sit at the CSW as the number of interested candidates matched the number of available seats. Although Iran is not the only member state of the UN Commission on the Status of Women which has a record of violation of human rights and women’s rights, current deterioration in the situation is alarmingly progressing.

Iran is increasingly turning into a state, where no one is spared when they speak out against bad governance and the abuse of trust and power. Raiding and ransacking homes in the middle of night, arbitrary arrests of women, lawyers, journalists, workers, students, human rights defenders and ordinary people; forced confessions under physical and psychological torture and depravation, summary trials without the presence of lawyers, or lawyers without knowledge of the clients’ files, long-term prison sentences, death warrants and executions are on the rise. Psychological effects of raiding homes and taking women away in the middle of night, keeping women in solitary confinement without seeing their children has created disrupted families.

Mourning Mothers Groups face abuse, beatings and arbitrary arrest and detention on visiting the graves of their loved ones or when seeking justice for their murdered children. Families who gather at prison gates to know the whereabouts of their children are beaten and detained.

Excellency

The rejuvenation of the Iranian pro-democracy movement on 14 February 2011, inspired by developments in the Middle East and North Africa and in support of the people who have risen against dictators, alarmed and frightened the Islamic Republic to the point that it resorted to poisonous tear gas with deadly consequences to disperse - the peaceful protestors. In Tehran, two university students were killed by bullets shots from unknown marksmen. In the city of Shiraz another student was killed by being thrown from a bridge in the subsequent peaceful demonstration. The number of those detained on the day is yet to be known. Both Zahra Rahanvard and Fatemeh Karubi along with Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karubi, who are prominent figures in the pro-democracy Green Movement of Iran were put under complete house arrest on 14 February and later transferred into an unknown detention centre amid extraordinary security operations.

Excellency,

While Iran sits at the CSW, women of Iran are increasingly diminished of their civil and human rights. Their demands for equality and the abolition of discriminatory laws through peaceful collection of signatures had been responded by further discrimination through passing bills to further facilitate polygamy and temporary marriages. As a member state, Iran has rejected to sigh the UN Convention on Discrimination Against Women (UNCDAW). Women’s equality is recognized only in detention, imprisonment, suppression, rape, executions and stoning to death.

Excellency

Iranian women fought for their rights since 1905 before the birth of the International Women’s Day. On the eve of the centenary of the International Women’s Day we urge you to press for the release of all prisoners of conscience regardles of their gender and ideology from detention and prison including Ms Zahra Rahnavard and Ms Fatemeh Karubi and their husbands Mr Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi.

Respectfully

Women: Azadeh Davachi, Asieh Amini, Azadeh Kian, Asef Bayat, Aida Quajar, Aida Sa’adat, Ayandeh Azad, Akram Mohamedi, Akram Khairkhah, Bahareh Afghahi, Bahareh MirzaHossein, Boniota Papastathi, Parastou Forouhar, Dorna Bandari, Parisa Amadian, Parvin Ardalan, Soraya Falah, Hamideh Nezami. Khadijeh Moghadam, Sara Zare, Saghi Ghahremani, Sepideh Yusefzadeh, Sahar Mofakham, Samaneh Mousavi, Sudeh Rad, Sholeh Shams, Shahla Bahardoust, Farzaneh Sabetan, Fery Fard, Zoha Agha mehdi, Sofia Sadighpour, Shirin Famili, Leli Pourzand, Mojgan Servati, Shiva Nojoo, Nazenin Djavaheri, Golbarg Bashi, Simin Sharifi, Rezvan Moghadam, Rouhi Shafii, Roja Bandari, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Janet Afari, Effat Mahbaz, Esha Momeni, Fatemeh Farhangkhah, Farida Farhi, Freshteh Farahani, Maryam Beheshti, Maryam Ahari, Mahboubeh Abasgholizadeh, Mehrangiz Kar, Mahasti Afshar, Massi Alinejad, Maryam Molavi, Massumeh Zia, Mansoureh Shojaie, Mitra Shojaie, Mina Zand Sygle, Mahdeih Salehpour, Mahshid Rasti, Mina Ansari, Basiri, Nayere Tohidi, Vahideh Mahmoodi, Leila Moinee, Mehri Jafari. Men:Omid Darkuhi, Amir Rashidi, Amir Salehpour, Hassan Nayeb Hashem, Hossein Alizadeh, Sohrab Behdad, Reza Fani Yazdi, Ali Afshari, Aliakbar Mahdi, Ali Baniazizi, Kazem Alamdari, Mansour Farhang, Javad Djavaheri, Majid Mohammadi, Mohammed Shirzad, Mehdi Mahdavi Azad, Mehrdad Darvishpour, Nader Hashemi, Hasan Yusofi Eshkevari, Ramin Jahanbegloo, Reza Goharzad, Said Paivandi, Goudarz Eghtedari, Mansour Moaddel, Mehrdad Mashayekhi