Court upholds 4-year jail ruling for women’s rights activist
Published: Monday, August 25, 2008
00:08GMT—8:08PM/EST
IRAN – JAIL – SENTENCE – WOMEN – ACTIVIST
Washington, 24 August (IranVNC)—An appeals court today upheld a ruling sentencing to four years in prison a women’s rights activist in the predominantly Kurdish city of Mahabad in Iran’s West Azarbayjan Province.
Zeinab Bayazidi, 26, was convicted on charges of actively supporting the “One Million Signatures Campaign”, calling for equal rights for women, according to the Feminist School website.
She has also been charged with “acting against the security of the country” by using the Kurdish name “Zeilan” – used also by some dissident Kurdish movements – for her women’s clothing store in Mahabad. She has refused to change the name of her store.
Zeinab’s lawyer, Mehdi Hojjati, said: “Zeilan is a popular Kurdish name, registered at the Civil Status Registration Bureau. It also happens to be the name of a woman activist who was executed eight years ago in Turkey for her support of dissident Kurds of Turkey.”
The Iranian authorities say that the militant Kurdish group Party of Free Life of Kurdistan [PJAK], which has been blacklisted by the Iranian government as a terrorist organization, has been using the name “Zeilan” for one of its publications, and that it could be a code for the followers of that group.
PJAK has been accused of involvement in a series of armed operations in the northwestern borders of Iran.
Sources: Feminist School website, Iranian Women’s Association
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(Original article written in Persian.)