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August 15, 2005 VOLUME 15
E-ZAN VOICE OF WOMEN AGAINST FUNDAMENTALISM IN IRAN
To our readers,
Last year on August 15th,
the fundamentalist rulers of Iran publicly hanged a 16
year old girl, Atefeh Sahaleh Rajabi,
in the city of Neka. While Atefeh’s
memory is fresh in our mind, a few days ago we learned about the case of Fakhteh, who is sentenced to public hanging by Tehran’s Supreme Court. As the
international community expresses its outrage over violations against women and
young girls in Iran, we must remember Tehran’s fundamentalist regime will not
stop at Iran’s boarders. News from Iraq indicates the strong presence of the
Iranian regime and its agents in various cities particularly Baghdad and Basra. Ahmadinejad,
Iran’s new president, who took office on August 4th, has
vowed to set an example of Khomeini’s revolutionary values in the region
whereby women and girls are subjected to most heinous crimes in the name of
religion.
Yet, women of Iran have risen to ensure Islamic
Fundamentalism will not spread regionally. Women of Iran have called for an end of Tehran’s regime and their call must be
supported by the peace seeking and freedom loving people of the world. The
bravery seen in Atefeh’s defiance of the mullah’s
judge in the city of Neka last year, the underground network
of women (particularly mothers of the political prisoners) working to organize
nationwide protests, and the recent public protests of women are all signs of
rejection of this regime in its entirety. The message coming from Iranian women
is very clear and that is: It is Time for Change. WFAFI has received
many messages from Iranian women, stating “please do not just talk about the
crimes against women and institutionalized violence against women. Please make
sure the world community hears our demand for change and what we consider as
meaningful change.” This growing momentum will lead to a fundamental change in
Iran. However, let us not forget that the change that is needed in Iran is a
not foreign military solution. It is not a continuation of appeasing
illegitimate and anti-women regime in Tehran. Rather, it is an indigenous call
for change with one simple demand: Boycott the regime in Tehran and it will collapse in its
entirety. Iranian women urge Washington and its EU allies to close the door on Tehran’s regime while offering the
democracy and equality movement in Iran their unprejudiced support. People
of Iran deserve to have a democratic
government and that day is not far.
E-Zan Featured Headlines
Iran Focus – July 20, 2005
Iran will no longer be permitted
to host international wrestling events because of its refusal to allow women to
take part in bouts as well.
The head of Iran’s Wrestling Federation
announced that FILA, the main international body in charge of wrestling
competitions, had banned the Islamic Republic from hosting games for all
international and Asian championships. The ban was put in place since Iran refused to host women’s
competition in the framework of wrestling tournaments. Iran’s theocratic leaders
have restricted women’s sports to a few fields deemed permissible under the
country’s strict religious rules.
Globe and Mail – July 26, 2005
The family of slain
Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi
suffered a setback in a Tehran appeals court yesterday
when the presiding judge rejected their lawyers' move to reopen the case. Led
by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human-rights activist Shirin
Ebadi, the lawyers for Ms. Kazemi's
family had argued that the 54-year-old Montreal resident was murdered
while in custody and that details of her brutal death
were covered up. But the appellate court, presided over by a magistrate only
identified as "Judge Alizadeh," rejected
the allegation, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported yesterday. Judge Alizadeh said a lower court had already ruled Ms. Kazemi's death unintentional.” This dismissal illustrates
once again that the Iranian justice system has neither the capacity nor the
will to confront the perpetrators of the brutal murder of Zahra Kazemi," said Marie-Christine Lilkoff,
a spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Canada.” Iran has lost a concrete
opportunity to show that it treats these problems with appropriate
seriousness." No foreign journalists or diplomats were allowed inside the
courtroom despite earlier assurances from Iranian officials that the
proceedings would be open to the public. Talking to reporters after the
hearing, which lasted nearly five hours; Ms. Ebadi
raised the prospect of taking the case to an international court.” If justice
is not served in Iran, I will appeal to international
courts and human-rights organizations," she told Reuters. With the appeals
court's rejection of the case, Ms. Ebadi has only two
recourses left under the Iranian judicial system, Ali Reza Nourizadeh,
an exiled Iranian journalist and dissident, said in an interview from Britain. She could attempt to
bring the case to the country's supreme court or
request the intervention of the head of the Iranian judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Sharoudi, a conservative cleric. Either way, it is unlikely
she would be successful, he said. "They have enough headaches, they aren't
going to let this case continue," he predicted. Ms. Kazemi
died on July 10, 2003. She was arrested on
June 23 as she was taking photos of protesters outside Evin
prison in northern Tehran.
Iran Focus – July 26, 2005
A 30-year-old woman set herself on
fire outside a justice department office in southern Iran on Monday evening, eye-witnesses
reported. The unidentified woman was on temporary parole from prison in the
southern city of Marvdasht and had gone to the justice
department to request an extension of her prison leave. When her application
was rejected, she attempted to commit suicide by setting herself on fire. She
is reportedly in critical condition. A Marvdasht
resident reached by telephone said it was rumored in town that the woman had
been brutally treated by prison guards. Prison conditions in Iran have become the focus of
international concern after the publication of a report by an internal
investigative body of Iran’s judiciary. The report discovered
serious cases of torture, solitary confinement, long-term detention without
trial, and other abuses.
MERI – July 29, 2005
The following are
excerpts from a speech by Iranian President-Elect Mahmoud
Ahmadi-Nejad, which aired July
25, 2005 on Iranian Channel 1. In it, he praises martyrdom operations and
states that Islam will conquer the world.
Ahmadi-Nejad: "We want art that is on the
offensive. Art on the offensive exalts and defends the noble principles, and
attacks principles that are corrupt, vulgar, ungodly, and inhuman. "Art
reaches perfection when it portrays the best life and best death. After all,
art tells you how to live. That is the essence of art. Is there art that is
more beautiful, more divine, and more eternal than the art of martyrdom? A
nation with martyrdom knows no captivity. Those who wish to undermine this
principle undermine the foundations of our independence and national security.
They undermine the foundation of our eternity. "The message of the [Islamic]
Revolution is global, and is not restricted to a specific place or time. It is
a human message, and it will move forward. "Have no doubt... Allah
willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the
world."
Iran Focus – July 31, 2005
Iran has deployed squads of women-only
vice police in a new crackdown on “un-Islamic” dress. Eight women were arrested
in the northern province of Gilan
as part of a new clamp-down on “social corruption”, the semi-official Jomhouri Islami reported on
Sunday. “The women were arrested for disrespecting Islamic virtues and for
having repulsive and immoral attire”, the hard-line daily added. The daily
added that women police officers in patrols belonging to the Directorate to
Fight Social Corruption were roaming the streets to find women violating the
stringent dress code and ‘to fight public displays of corruption and
mal-veiling”.
Iran Focus – August 2, 2005
State Security Forces
crashed in on a mixed-sex party in the oil-rich city of Ahwaz, southern Iran, and arrested 15 young
men and women, a semi-official daily reported. The detainees have all been
handed to the judicial authorities and will face conviction and sentences that
would include flogging, the hard-line paper Kayhan
wrote on Monday.
Iran Focus – August 4, 2005
A prominent women’s
rights activist in Iranian Kurdistan was arrested during a gathering organized
in protest against the murder of a young Kurd by Iran’s State Security
Forces, a Persian-language website reported. The website Rooz
reported that Roya Toloui,
the editor of Rassan, a monthly based in the Kudish city of Sanandaj, was
arrested after being summoned by the intelligence unit of the SSF on several
occasions in the past few months on charges of “disturbing the peace” and
“acting against national security”. She had also been accused of “inciting
ethnic division”. Toloui’s monthly Rassan had so far published three issues all of which
mainly discussed the plight of female Kurds in Iran. Born in 1966, Toloui holds a postgraduate degree in practical science
and, with her husband, owns a medical laboratory in Sanandaj.
She is a founding member of the Association of Kurdish Women in Favour of Peace in Kurdistan. She has a daughter and a son.
On several occasions, the authorities had warned Toloui
not to carry out interviews with foreign radio stations. Iran’s restive Kurdish
population has been the victims of systematic oppression by the Iran’s clerical
leadership since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iran Focus – August 7, 2005
Women will not be
included in the cabinet of Iran’s new hard-line President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, a leading ultra-conservative figure said on Sunday. Hamid-Reza Taraghi, a central committee member of the Motalefeh Party, told a state-run news agency, “The circumstances
for women to be ministers in the cabinet do not exist, but probably they can
become deputies”. Motalefeh is short for Jamiat’haye Motalefeh Islami, or Unified Islamic Associations. It came into
existence in the 1960s as a clandestine radical Islamic fundamentalist group
supporting Ayatollah Khomeini. Its members assassinated the Shah’s Prime
Minister Ali Mansour and several other political
figures. Its leaders, who hailed from Tehran’s Bazaar, became multi-billionaire
entrepreneurs after the Islamic Revolution. They strongly oppose foreign
investment and integration of Iran in the global economy. “Until now, we have
had several cases of trial and error, but our country is in a state where one
cannot tolerate experimenting with new administrations”, Taraghi
said. “When people come and accept the responsibility to act, they must be able
to turn their decisions into practice using their past experiences without
creating chaos in the country’s administration or harming their relevant
departments with their inexperience”, the hard-line official added. Taraghi went on to say that inexperienced individuals given
leading posts in government ministries would hold back that department’s work
by at least six months leading to an inability to make appropriate decisions.
The Motalefeh Party central committee member added
that Ahmadinejad would not negotiate with ethnic minorities for their members
to join his cabinet. In July, Habibollah Asgar-Owladi, a leading ally of Iran’s Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that Ahmadinejad’s forthcoming cabinet would be
made up entirely of Islamic “fundamentalists”. “There will be no outsiders”, he
said.
Agance France Presse
– August 8, 2005
Tehran court has barred
a young woman from working after her estranged husband complained she was only
allowed to be a housewife, local media reported. According to AFP, the female
half of the unnamed couple left her husband and started working two years ago
because he "deceived me and treated me badly", she told the court.
But her husband charged that "she started working without my permission
and I want her to be barred from having a job," the court heard.
"Although their marriage certificate defines the wife's profession as
'housewife', she left her husband two years ago and worked in a private company
without his permission," the court ruled. When there is no clause in the
marriage certificate allowing the wife to work outside, the husband can bar
her, the verdict said. Iranian women face a number of legal restrictions in
Iran's male-dominated society. They receive half the inheritance and blood
money given to men, and they are also not allowed to be court judges. If
married, a woman needs her husband's permission to travel abroad or work
outside home.
Iran Focus – August 11, 2005
Iran’s clergy-dominated
Supreme Court upheld a death by hanging sentence for a young woman accused of
killing a man as a teenager, a state-owned daily reported on Thursday. The
young woman, only identified by her first name Fakhteh,
will be hanged in the coming days, according to a judiciary spokesman. Fakhteh was accused of murdering a man in December 2001 and
then fleeing the scene, according to the daily Sharq.
The young woman professed her innocence throughout the proceedings and appealed
the original verdict that was handed down by Judge Mohammad-Sultan Hemmatyar. Elsewhere, an Iranian man accused of fatally
shooting a member of Iran’s paramilitary State Security Forces was hanged in
the Iranian capital in the early hours of Wednesday, the state-owned daily Iran
reported on Thursday.
Iran’s official media have reported that at least 18 people have been executed
and a further seven have been sentenced to death in the country since the
election of the new hard-line President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.
E-Zan Featured Reports
Special Feature: Iranian
women speak out against Iran's Constitution. See the petition below.
--------------------------------------------
Our Protest Against
Violations of Women's Rights in the Iranian Constitution
After years of protesting
against discriminations between women and men in different spheres (such as
unequal legal rights), we, women are still deprived of our fundamental rights.
Among us, we may locate the roots of the violations of our rights differently:
In the laws, in sexist interpretations, in customs and traditions, or in
hierarchical and dominant structures in Iran and throughout the world. However,
without a doubt, one of the standing obstacles to changing women's current
status and a major factor in reaching a dead-end in our efforts are the ruling
laws and their foundation, the Constitution.
Principle 20 of the Constitution states:
"All citizens of the country, whether men or women, equally enjoy the
protection of the law and enjoy all human, political, economic, social, and
cultural rights, in conformity with Islamic criteria." It is important to
note that in this principle "all citizens, whether men or women," are
considered equal not in terms of their "rights" but in terms of the "protection"
that the law provides, based on Islamic criteria. Those who are endowed with
the power to interpret maintain that they pursue a "balance" of
differing rights and not "equal rights" between women and men. And
this can be seen throughout the Constitution.
Principle 21 views women strictly as mothers or
women without household heads. And the right they reserve under this definition
of womanhood (motherhood) is the granting of child custody to deserving women
in the absence of the "Sharia-ordained
guardian" (men of the family).
The Constitution views women in no role other
than mother, and as such, presupposes male leaders at the highest levels of
political and social management. To run as a Presidential candidate, the
qualification of being a political "rejal"
is stipulated, which has been interpreted by higher authorities as being a male
person.
Another problem with the existing Constitution as
it relates to women (especially from the perspective of those who view violations
of women's rights as a problem of sexist interpretations) is that all of its
provisions are conditioned by dominant interpretations of Islamic principles.
It has been the case that those who hold power are able to offer dominant
interpretations and women, who are amongst the weakest social strata, can never
offer alternative interpretations of any weight and influence. Needless to say,
the depth and breadth of any interpretation is contingent upon the powers,
opportunities, and institutions available to various groups in society. It is
obvious that groups which hold exclusive military and security power, control
culture and information and countless other resources, including the media, can
impose their own interpretations on society.
The Constitution has reached a dead-end as it
concerns women because the laws are not self-derived but rather, are open to
official interpretation and dependent upon power-holders within the political
structure and powerful official religious institutions. Women, who are
considered the weakest link in society's power chain, cannot affect the
necessary changes in the laws because the will of the citizenry (especially
third-class citizens like women) is overshadowed by un-elected institutions,
which hold interpretative power, as provided in the Constitution.
Even if the interpretation of official laws and
individual and group rights were in the hands of elected institutions (as is
the case in democratic countries), women, as a group with less access to power,
would have great difficulty offering their own interpretations of women's
rights to elected officials, let alone to un-elected appointed bodies. The more
the relationship between un-elected state institutions and the citizenry is
pyramid-structured and vertical, the more women and their rights are sidelined.
And the more women will face an uphill battle to change conditions and laws to
their favor in comparison to men.
The women's movement in Iran
has endeavored to use all available civil avenues and opportunities to gain
their rights as citizens and human beings. However, the current historically
sensitive period and the potential for reactionary movements and/or political
extremism requires the women's movement to face the reality that under the
current state of affairs, seeking civil justice from the Constitution and
protesting the breach of women's rights of citizenship can be an effective step
towards achieving democracy and peace and self-determination of the citizenry.
Although though the women's movement
encompasses a wide and diverse spectrum of social, cultural, and political
activists, at the current juncture, they suffer a common injury: belittlement
of the citizen. The least of which was witnessed with the elimination of women
candidates for the presidency. More gravely, the Constitution's belittlement of
women as active social participants has blocked their ability to secure their
rights. We are forced to seek justice and show our civil opposition at the
current sensitive juncture by fulfilling our social and gendered
responsibility. Undoubtedly, we need each other's assistance to make our voices
clearer and our protests more effective.
For list of signatories, please see: http://www.wfafi.org/petition.htm for a full list of laws against women in
Iran, please see: http://www.wfafi.org/laws.pdf
Identifying warning signs of
fundamentalisms;
How gender equality advocates can
spot the rise of fundamentalism before it enters the political mainstream
By Kathambi
Kinoti, AWID
July 2005
In August 2004 a 16
year-old Iranian girl was executed after being found guilty of committing
adultery. At her trial she is said to have expressed outrage at the misogyny
and injustice in her country. It is reported that this so angered the judge who
sentenced her to death that he personally put the noose around her neck,
accusing her of un-Islamic behavior. Iran and parts of Nigeria are just some of
the places where there has been a return to a conservative, narrower
interpretation of the rights of women and what their place in society should
be. In Kenya, cultural fundamentalism has seen the reintroduction of female
genital mutilation in communities that had abolished the practice almost a
century ago, when European missionaries introduced Christianity into those
communities.
At the end of the Second
World War, when the United Nations was formed and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights passed, the countries of the world began moving towards some consensus
on certain key concepts underlying human existence and co-existence. For
instance, the inalienable human rights of every person were identified and
articulated in international instruments. Debate around the right to life led
to countries moving away from the death penalty as a punishment for crimes.
Legal controls over sexual behavior began to diminish. Democracy and gender
equality generally came to be seen as universal standards to which society
should aspire. In the recent past, however, there appears to have been a
re-assessment of these standards. The examples of a rethinking of international
human rights norms are numerous. Are gender equality advocates doing enough to
secure the advances they have already made?
The rise of religious
and cultural fundamentalisms poses a major threat to the gains made towards the
realization of women's human rights. These fundamentalisms usually reinforce
women's disadvantaged position in the society and there is a very real danger
of them entering the political mainstream. Often the erosion of women's rights
by fundamentalisms begins in a very insidious way. There is a need for
"early warning systems" that would allow the identification of
certain trends that are likely to develop into threats to women's rights. Early
identification will enable the countering of these threats. Kathleen McNeil
writing for Women's Human Rights Network gives some early indicators
of the possible rise of fundamentalist forces gaining political power:
- One indicator is the introduction of restrictions on
the appearance of women in public spaces such as happened in Nigeria's Zamfara state. This was soon followed by the
criminalization of sex outside marriage with the attendant penalties of
stoning and whipping for women found guilty of this offence.
- Another sign is the imposition of dress codes, which
may not be necessarily be for the purpose of "modesty" but may
be said to be for cultural or nationalistic pride. Hamas,
the Palestinian fundamentalist organization promoted the wearing of
headscarves for women as a nationalistic gesture.
- The promulgation of restrictive family laws concerning
capacity to marry, the marriage relationship, divorce and inheritance is another
frequent indicator that fundamentalism is taking root.
- Attempts to restrict women's reproductive health
choices and access to information are another sign to look out for as
these directly result in an erosion of women's rights. In the 1980s and 1990s
in the United States of America providers of family planning services were
increasingly subjected to harassment and violence. Later restrictive
policies were introduced, for instance eliminating many public school
sexual education programs.
- Gender equality advocates need to be vigilant in
countries that are emerging from war and reconstructing their governance
systems since there are often attempts to abandon former progressive laws.
Iraq used to have some of the most progressive family laws in the Arab
world. In 2003, however, a decree was issued by the Iraqi governing
council limiting the application of these progressive laws. In Somaliland,
which broke away from Somalia in 1991 and commenced its own reconstruction
after civil war, there was an attempt to introduce the death penalty for
sex outside marriage and in fact some women were reportedly executed by
stoning. This situation was however soon reversed and adultery is not a
criminal offence under the laws of Somaliland.
How is it, in the first
place, that fundamentalism is able to take root in the society? Are the links
between poverty and fundamentalisms being adequately explored? In many poor
countries people turn to religion out of desperation, looking for solutions to
their problems. Poor countries are a fertile ground for the planting of
extremist ideas, as poor people feel that the mainstream ideas are not serving
them well and are disenchanted with the current world order. It is not only
those who are looking for a spiritual escape from their problems who come into
contact with extremist policies. In return for financial reward, young people
from Africa and Asia are recruited into terrorist organizations that espouse
religious fundamentalist ideas. Cultural fundamentalism also takes place in the
context of poverty. Given that the poorest of the poor are women, there is the
danger that women will become the foot soldiers of the forces of
fundamentalism.
This article first
appeared on AWID Resource Net, Friday File, January 28, 2005. For more information
on AWID and the Resource Net list please visit www.awid.org.
Tokenism or real
participation?
Media Monitors Network, Haleh Esfandiari
July 29, 2005
In the last few months, Iraqi
women have witnessed with dismay the erosion of Iraq's secular family law.
There is serious pressure to replace it with a law based on Islam and religious
law--a change that will impact negatively on all spheres of women's lives. If
this occurs, Iraqi women will replicate the experience of Iranian women who
lost most of their rights after the Islamic Revolution of 1978, when the family
law of 1967 was replaced by a law based on the sharia.
It has taken Iranian women 27 years to regain some of those rights. The
experience of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban, in Iran under the Islamic
Republic, and now in Iraq, is a reminder that while considerable progress has
been achieved in the area of women's rights in the Middle East and North
Africa, reverses are always possible. The reversion to religiously-based
personal law in the new Iraqi constitution could encourage Islamic forces
across the region to pressure governments to slow down measures to expand
women's rights. But the last few decades have witnessed a palpable
transformation in the role of women in Middle Eastern societies. Today, except
for Saudi Arabia, women have the right to vote and to be elected to parliament
or to local councils in all the countries in the region--from Afghanistan to Morocco.
Kuwaiti women, among the last to secure suffrage, were enfranchised in 2005,
and Afghani women will be voting in the parliamentary elections in September
2005. Participation of women in elected bodies across the region is roughly
around seven percent. The number of women parliamentarians varies from one in
Yemen to 13 in Iran, and 87 in the current Iraqi parliament. Today, in most
countries in the region, a handful of women also serve as ministers,
ambassadors, deputy ministers, and even judges. Women still constitute a low
nine percent of cabinet ministers in the region. Iraq has six women ministers,
Jordan three, Bahrain two, Kuwait one, and Iran none…
In Iran, women still cannot become judges, but they act as advisors to the
clerics presiding over family courts. The award of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize
to Iran's Shirin Ebadi, a
judge in pre-revolution Iran, for her work on behalf of women's rights and
human rights focused international attention on the achievements of women in
the region. Governments in the region, ready to open educational opportunities
to women at all levels and to allow women to work as long as they remain in
gender-specific jobs like teaching and health services, were surprised to
discover that educated women, like their uneducated predecessors, were no
longer satisfied to remain at home, be good homemakers and mothers, or to
confine themselves to "women's" work. It is primarily women
themselves who have pushed for wider access to education and employment, for
changes in the personal status laws, and for political participation and
general empowerment. Advances in women's role and rights are also due to
enlightened leaders who provided support, international conventions that
obligate governments to specific practices, and a multitude of conferences
focusing on improvement of the status of women around the world. The Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women is the most
important vehicle provided to women activists. Seventeen Arab countries have
ratified CEDAW, though usually with reservations, especially regarding
compatibility with the sharia. Education, employment,
and political participation have focused attention on personal status laws.
Some women activists argue that women can be fully integrated and enjoy equal
rights as citizens in Islamic societies even under existing personal and family
laws. Others believe that these laws must be changed, or reinterpreted, if
women are to be fully integrated into society and enjoy equal rights. This
debate continues in all Islamic countries in the Middle East. While advances
are undeniable, much work remains to be done. Despite the opening up of the job
market, for example, women in the region account for only 32 percent of the
labor force--a low figure even among developing countries. Besides, women in
the Middle East are no longer satisfied with what they regard as tokenism: an
ambassador or a deputy minister here, a handful of women parliamentarians
there. Women are seeking representation and participation based on merit and
qualification. Until that is achieved, a number of women activists have been
pushing for a quota system. They note that without it, we would not have 87
women in the Iraqi parliament and 35 women in the Moroccan parliament. The
quota system is not perfect, but women activists feel it can be an important
instrument for breaking down barriers and furthering women's political
participation and integration.
Unrest
continues in Iran’s Kurdish region
Iran Focus – Tehran
August 10, 2005
Tehran, Iran, Aug. 10 – Sixty Iranian
women activists made a public appeal on Thursday for the release of a Kurdish
feminist campaigner who has been held incommunicado for more than a week after
she protested against the Islamic government’s repressive measures in Kurdish
areas of Iran. “More than a week after the arrest of Dr. Roya
Toloui, who is a founding member of Kurdish Women for
Human Rights group, she has not been allowed to receive any visits from her two
children and her lawyer”, the women wrote in an open letter to Judiciary Chief
Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi.
The letter comes in the wake of continuing unrest and clashes in Iran’s Kurdish
region between the restive Kurds and government forces. The names of 17 Iranian
Kurds shot dead by the security forces since late July have been released. They
included three anti-government protesters shot dead in Oshnavieh
on July 26, two killed in Baneh on July 30, one shot
dead in Sardasht on August 2, and 11 killed in Saqqez on August 3. Hundreds of residents of the town of Javanroud clashed with security forces on Saturday. Young
people chanted anti-government slogans and condemned the brutal crackdown on
protesters in the town of Saqqez. Several government
buildings were attacked during the protests. Fresh demonstrations broke out on
Monday in the town of Kamyaran, where hundreds of
residents chanted anti-government slogans and clashed with the security forces.
Clashes continued well past midnight and young protesters attacked government
buildings, including state-owned banks. Dozens of protesters were arrested. On
the same day, protesters and government forces fought hit-and-run battles in
the districts of Ghafour and 25 Shahrivar
in the city of Sanandaj. A 13-year-old demonstrator
was shot and wounded during the clashes. The death under torture of a young
man, Shahou Amjadi, who had
been detained in a previous demonstration, inflamed the already tense situation
in the city. On Saturday, another Sanandaj resident, Zanyar Ashyan, was shot dead at
point blank by the paramilitary police. On the same day, plainclothes
intelligence agents arrested another activist, Jalal Bahmani, in his office in Sanandaj.
The government’s response to the ongoing unrest in Kurdistan has been to step
up the repression and make more arrests. In the early hours of Tuesday, two
Kurdish human rights activists, Saman Rasoulpour and Zeynab Bayazidi, were arrested by the security forces in the town
of Mahabad. More arrests were reported in Saqqez, Bukan, Dehgolan and Ghorveh.
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Volume
15, August 15, 2005
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