Friday
Jan022009
Follow-up on Iran: Closure of Human Rights Center
Friday, January 2, 2009 at 10:03
The offices of lawyer and Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi were raided on Monday by Government officials who said they were from the tax office. Two computers, files, and folders on Ebadi's clients, most of them political activists, were seized.
In a curious reference implying that the raid has more to do with intelligence-gathering rather than prosecution of Ebadi, "an informed source in Tehran said the country's judiciary was not involved in the most recent raid". The official line, at least from the Iranian mission to the United Nations, was "that it was unaware of any campaign to silence Ebadi's work".
Yesterday "medical students" protested in front of Ebadi's home, accusing her of supporting Israel and spray-painting slogans on her building. The protests came two days after Ebadi and the Center for the Defenders of Human Rights, whose offices were closed last month by Iranian authorities, issued a statement condeming the Israeli attacks and calling for international action to stop the assault.
In a curious reference implying that the raid has more to do with intelligence-gathering rather than prosecution of Ebadi, "an informed source in Tehran said the country's judiciary was not involved in the most recent raid". The official line, at least from the Iranian mission to the United Nations, was "that it was unaware of any campaign to silence Ebadi's work".
Yesterday "medical students" protested in front of Ebadi's home, accusing her of supporting Israel and spray-painting slogans on her building. The protests came two days after Ebadi and the Center for the Defenders of Human Rights, whose offices were closed last month by Iranian authorities, issued a statement condeming the Israeli attacks and calling for international action to stop the assault.