News

Iranian human rights activist, Mansoureh Behkish , was arrested on 12 June 2011. She is a member of the ‘Mourning Mothers’ group , which campaigns against human rights violation ssuch as unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearances . She is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

Mansoureh Behkish, 54, was arrested by men believed to belong to the Ministry of Intelligence when they recognised her in a street in Tehran, at 8pm on 12 June 2011. She is now held in Section 209 of Evin Prison. She was able to make a short phone call to her mother two or three days after her arrest and again on 20 June, but could not talk about the conditions of her detention. Mansoureh Behkish suffers from a neurodegenerative disease called diffuse myelinoclastic sclerosis, or sometimes referred to as "Schilder's disease".

The 'Mourning Mothers' group mainly comprises women whose children have been killed, disappeared or detained in post-election violence in Iran since June 2009, but it quickly grew to include relatives of other victims of human rights violations and their supporters. Mansoureh Behkish has lost several members of her family who were executed in the 1980s; since then she has been an activist and has been detained several times before.