DAR AL ISLAM - IRAN: FLOGGING FOR IRANIAN FEMINISTS

Iran: Feminists face flogging

Tehran, 26 July (AKI) - The trials of 31 feminists arrested on 3 March for having organised a sit-in in front of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran have resumed in the capital. The womens' rights activists are this time being tried individually and accused collectively of "seditious meeting" and "plotting against state security".

The first ten have been given jail terms of between six months and five years, of whom three are also to be flogged.

Most of the women received suspended sentences.

Only one woman, Behareh Hedayat, remains in jail but not for her activities in defence of womens' rights, rather for her role in the executive of the students association of the Amir Kabir Polytechnic.

While being sentenced to jail for demanding sexual equality and equal rights in the Islamic Republic may be considered "normal" public flogging, a punishment to date reserved for political crimes, is not.

The last three feminists judged by the Revolutionary Court, Delaram Ali, Alieh Eghdam e Maryam Zia, as well as jail terms, were punished with 10,20 and 10 lashes of the whip respectively. "This is an unprecedented and worrying development" commented Yousef Molaii, Maryam Zia's lawyer.

Iranian Nobel peace laureate, lawyer Shirin Ebadi, has appealed to the United Nations. In a letter to the UN Human Rights Commission she defined the public flogging of women demanding equal rights and protesting against polygamy as not only a violation of Human Rights but also an act of incivility .



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