Join in protecting human rights

Please join feminists and human rights activist worldwide in urging the Iranian government to keep women’s rights advocate and Iran’s Nobel Laureate Dr. Ebadi and her former secretary, Jinous Sobhani, safe.

Sobhani was arrested last month and has been denied the right to speak with her attorney or members of her family. She is currently being held in solitary confinement.

It is critical that we stand behind Dr. Ebadi and Sobhani at this time to protect their important work as human and women’s rights defenders!

Dr. Ebadi’s human rights organization was forcibly closed by the Iranian authorities in December when they raided her personal office and seized her writings, confidential legal files, and two computers amid claims of so-called tax evasion. An angry mob later in the month surrounded Dr. Ebadi’s home and personal office chanting death threats against her and vandalizing her building. And now her former secretary has been arrested.

Write to urge Iran’s swift reversal of these actions against Dr. Ebadi and permit the reopening of her human rights organization.

In August 2006, we and human rights organizations throughout the world asked you and other people of conscience to write the Iranian government, which at that time was threatening to arrest Dr. Ebadi and close the center. The Iranian authorities responded and the center remained open. We are asking you to help again.

Dr. Ebadi’s fearless defense of human rights is so vital to the Iranian people it should not and must not be silenced.

For Equality,

Eleanor Smeal
President