Haleh Sahabi – Arseh Sevom

June 1, 2011

Mourning the Death of Ezatollah Sahabi and His Daughter

Women's rights campaigner Haleh Sahabi, died of a heart attack this morning after a scuffle with plainclothes forces during the funeral for her father. Sahabi had been released on furlough in order to attend the funeral. She had been imprisoned since 2009.May 31, 2011 marked the death at 81 of Ezatollah Sahabi, a scholar, democracy activist, and former parliamentarian. Sahabi spent time in prison for his ideas both under the Shah and under the Islamic Regime. He was leader of the opposition party, the Nationalist-Religious Coalition (www.mellimazhabi.org/). The party had its roots in the political ideals of Prime Minister Mossadeq who was ousted by a coup in 1953.

February 9, 2011

Wave of Repression in Iran

IRAN: Series of sentences, acts of judicial harassment and arbitrary detentions of human rights defendersParis-Geneva, February 8, 2011. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), deplores yet another massive wave of repression against human rights defenders and expresses its deepest concern over the arbitrary arrests, sentencing and judicial harassment faced by lawyers, journalists and other human rights activists in Iran.The Observatory denounces the intensive judicial harassment and arbitrary detention of dozens of human rights defenders in Iran, which merely aims at sanctioning the legitimate exercise of their work, amid a general crackdown against the Iranian civil society.