Long background and letterwriting campaign here. http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/defenders/hrd_iran/alert081606_ebadi.htm
HRF's take on human rights and Iran... http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/defenders/hrd_iran/hrd_iran.htm "Since early 2000, human rights defenders and advocates of political reform have faced sustained repression in Iran. Some have been forced into exile, others imprisoned and all of them blocked in their activities by the closure of independent newspapers and magazines and threats against nascent independent nongovernmental organizations and internet activists.
Concern over Iran's development of nuclear weapons capability has generated increasing dialogue on a range of issues between the European Union and Iran. Human rights issues are not being given a prominent place in these exchanges at present while the persecution of reformists and human rights defenders in Iran continues. Iranian activists are alarmed that the West may be willing to grant economic concessions to an increasingly authoritarian and repressive Iranian leadership in exchange for guarantees on proliferation issues. Such a development could entrench repressive government in Iran for many years to come and extinguish the battered and demoralized reform movement.
The West's dialogue with Iran, which is being driven by the nuclear issue, is an opportunity to elevate human rights concerns, starting with the situation of imprisoned human rights defenders."
Not mentioning the U.S. role in overthrowing Mossadegh and backing the Shah strikes me as wrong here. Email action alert below... aaron
> Iran’s Interior Ministry has banned the country’s
leading human
> rights
> group, the Center for the Defense of Human Rights,
headed by 2003
Nobel
Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. This is an attempt to
silence the
Center's criticisms of the state’s arbitrary
detentions and murders.
>
> In a statement to the international community,
Ebadi wrote: "of
> course
> me and other members of the center do not intend to
shut down the
center
and we shall continue our activities. However, there
is a high
possibility that they will arrest us. The government's
action in this
regard is illegal."
>
> The Center provides free legal representation to
prisoners of
> conscience, supports their families, and reports on
human rights
violations occurring in detention facilities.
Therefore, closing down
the Center will have serious repercussions for all
human rights
> defenders in Iran.
>
> Please join us in demanding that the Iranian
government allow
Iran’s
> most prominent human rights organization to continue
working without
hindrance in compliance with its own Constitution, the
UN Declaration
on
Human Rights Defenders, and international treaties to
which Iran is a
state party such as the International Covenant on
Civil and Political
Rights.
>
>
> Visit the web address below to tell your friends
about this
> important case. www.humanrightsfirst.org
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