[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

[Rasker]

06/09/2005 Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch
Free Roya Tolouie

Following the murder of a young Kurdish citizen in the city of Mahabad on 9th July, 2005, there have been large-scale anti-governmental demonstrations over the past six weeks in different cities and towns of Iranian Kurdistan. The security forces have responded to these peaceful protest marches by opening fire on both demonstrators and ordinary people on the street. Dozens of civilians have been killed and injured, and according to official reports more than five hundred people have been arrested. The efforts of the families of these prisoners to get their loved ones freed have so far been unsuccessful. Recently it has been reported that a couple of hundred prisoners have been transferred to the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. Two independent Kurdish magazines have been banned.



Dr. Roya Tolouie

Among those arrested are a number of human rights activists, including Ms. Roya Tolouie, an activist in the women’s movement, and a member of the Association for the Defence of Women in Kurdistan. Roya Tolouie is a doctor in laboratory science, a writer and the editor of a monthly magazine, Rasan. She was arrested on August 1 along with several others, following a peaceful sit-in to demand the release of prisoners following the recent events in Mahabad, the trial of those who ordered and those who opened fire on peaceful demonstrations in the cities of Kurdistan, and respect for the human and national rights of the Kurdish people. Her husband visited her in prison on 18th August (when she was transferred to the general detention centre, where many other prisoners are held), but her children have not been allowed to do so.

We are deeply concerned for the safety and well-being of these and other Kurdish political prisoners in Iran. Specifically we wish to draw attention to the situation of Roya Tolouie and her colleagues in the different human rights organisations, including Edjlal Ghavami, Said Saedi, Madeh Ahmadi and Azad Zamani, arrested on the same occasion. We condemn unreservedly the behaviour of the Iranian judicial authorities in relation to political prisoners.

We demand that the United Nations and the International Red Crescent should be given access to the notorious prisons of the Islamic Republic to ascertain the health of all political prisoners there. We also call for the release of Roya Tolouie along with other human rights activists imprisoned on political grounds.


Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch,
London 30th August 2005
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[Rasker]

Concern over fate of journalists detained in Kurdish part of Iran
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=14628



Reporters Without Borders today demanded the immediate release of four journalists who were arrested in the Kurdish part of Iran in late July and early August - Madh Amadi, Ejlal Ghavami, Roya Tolou and Said Saedi - and called on the authorities to explain their arrests. Only one of them, Ghavami, has so far been tried.

“It is unacceptable that these journalists are being held with non-political prisoners, who are sometimes used by the authorities to harass or attack the political prisoners,” the press freedom organisation said, voicing particular concern about the state of health of Amadi and Ghavami, who are on hunger strike.

A freelance journalist who works with several local media, Amadi was arrested on 28 July in the Sarvabad border area after visiting the Kurdish part of neighbouring Irak. Now held in the main prison of the city of Marivan, he is still awaiting trial. He began a hunger strike on 1 September in protest against his detention, which he considers illegal.

The reason for his arrest is not known, but it could be linked to his investigation of a massacre of residents in the village of Garna (in the Kurdish part of Iran) in the 1980s. Many documents about the massacre which he had collected were seized at the time of his arrest.

The three other journalists were arrested because of their coverage of recent disturbances in Iran’s Kurdish-dominated northwestern region.

Ghavami, who works for the weekly Payam-e mardom-e Kurdestan, was arrested on 2 August and was tried by the court of the city Sanandaj on 29 August on charges of “inciting the populations to revolt” and “acting against national security.” He was then transferred to the non-political prisoners wing of the prison. He began his hunger strike on 31 August. In a letter he managed to get out to his family, he said, “my life is in danger.”

Tolo, the editor of the newspaper Resan, was formally placed in custody on 9 August pending trial. The authorities refused to release her on bail, and she has also been put in a cell with non-political prisoners.

The third journalist being held without trial, Saedi, is a freelancer who occasionally works for the weekly Asou.

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The Sun Is Rising In The West!Soon It Will Shine on All of Iran!