Woman

[Rasputin]

* It is especially interesting that suddenly a website forging a replica of the logo of the Campaign and calling itself “One Billion Signatures” is launched. With a satiric approach, the goals of the Campaign are ridiculed in this site and the same allegations that activists often face in court, are provided in this website to readers. Laced with patriarchal interpretations, the website aims to discredit the activists involved in the Campaign, so that our demands, which no one seems to have a problem with, are not taken seriously. God forbid our demands, which are not problematic for you in the least, infect others. Of course, we realize that the launching of such a website at this juncture in time is coincidental and not planned in any shape or form! But I have to congratulate its founders, for their savvy in discrediting the members of the Campaign.

* Our telephones are controlled in such an obvious fashion so as to inflict in us a perpetual fear designed to force us to “voluntarily” end contact with other members of the Campaign.

* In the midst of all this, you keep summoning us to court, so that you can clearly convey the message that you have no problems with our demands, and of course, in the course of your friendly advice, you let slip information about how terrible women’s rights activists in competing groups really are. How these women envy us -- and perhaps you have similar words for the women in the “competing groups.” In total astonishment we witness how this fabricated competition of yours, spreads and intensifies with the help of rumors. Finally it seems that every single mistake by members of each group, aided by rumors, leads us into a new crisis, daily lending the notion of our competition a little more truth. Thanks to the vast rumor mills at your disposal, women’s NGOs, which by their nature adopt different strategies and approaches to their work on behalf of women, turn to despair in trying to decide exactly how to address these crises within the women’s movement or in trying to understand their sources.

Ethical Lessons
After five months and given the advice offered by some of you in the security forces to members of the Campaign, we have come to the conclusion that you don’t have a problem with the Campaign or with our demands” rather you have a problem with the expression of these demands in the metro, streets and alleys, buses, and places of employment. You have a problem with the expression of these demands through venues such as national and official media outlets like the TV or Radio, internet sites and newspapers as well as in our own websites,,at seminars or workshops, and at international forums and events to which we travel. You have a problem with the expression of our demands to international women’s rights activists. And, you have a problem when we discuss these demands among ourselves even if these discussions take place in the privacy of our homes. And, you have a problem with every single individual involved in the Campaign, who chooses to lend expression to these demands, meaning the young activists who are deceived, the parents who don’t reprimand their children for their activities on behalf of women and with the activists who deceive young girls into joining them in this effort. That’s All!!

Last Words
It seems that after having to deal with all these adventures and misfortunes over the past five months, we have truly come to understand and feel that you have no problems with our demands, but instead with the individual women and men who through peaceful and civic means work to realize these demands.

As such, we respectfully ask you to roll up your sleeves in an effort to grant Iranian women their rights, so that the men governing this land can document and forever claim this historical achievement as their own. I swear it’s a shame to waste all this energy on limiting and controlling the women’s movement and on trying to isolate us and relegate us to our homes. Oh, how I wish you would expend all this energy and your organizational savvy for the purpose of lobbying and advocacy with members of parliament and religious leaders, in an effort to develop and pass just legislation in favor of Iranian women and their rights. How I wish you would utilize the advanced technology and other tools of control at your disposal -- which has quite possibly been imported from the very “Western” countries, with which our contact is considered a criminal act -- to achieve equal rights for women. By the way, I wonder if educational workshops in foreign countries for the purpose of learning advanced strategies and technologies of control exist?

We have endured patiently all the obstacles of control you have placed along our path. This endurance takes place at a time when daily we feel the weakness of our civil society as it comes face to face with the all consuming power of government. But you see that we continue. Do you know why? Because we benefit from a love and passion that you refuse to understand or accept. We have no other choice but to create change and improve our lives. And we have nothing to lose but our lives themselves. In its current state, the lives of Iranian women remain demeaning and unbearable. Despite all the advanced efforts at control and the emergence of numerous obstacles our love and passion for change and improvement is so immense in fact, that it continues to flourish in our hearts.

While it is quite possible that our love and passion seems minuscule when compared to the countless number of security personnel charged with controlling and stopping us and the advanced tools at your disposal, I have no doubt that in the end this motherly and womanly love will pervail over the male-oriented system of control. .

Perhaps we will be imprisoned and become weary with the continuous summons to court. Perhaps we will not be able to continue along our path and educate our female counterparts about the existence of such discriminatory laws. But, what will you do with the countless women who come into contact with the court system -- in fact, these very courts are the best educational facilities for women, through which they quickly learn that in fact they have no rights. Yes, perhaps with your security planning and your modern technology, you may be able to isolate and paralyze the current generation of Iranian women’s rights activists, and stop the progression of our Campaign, but what will you do with the love that we plant in the hearts of our children? Perhaps with your advanced technology, you will be able to attack the hearts of our personal computers, but what will you do with our dreams?

[Rasputin]

Simin Rezaie, the only woman umpire at the Qatar Open Table tennis tournament, enjoyed her first trip outside conservative Iran and was hoping to bag more assignments as an official in the future.
However, Rezaie admitted she was very sceptical coming to Qatar because she was not sure about the response from the Qataris.
“I didn’t know much about Qatar. I do not speak their language and I had no idea whether they would be that open minded. But coming here I realised that they are warm and friendly people,” said the 30-year-old.
“And I see here that the women enjoy more freedom as well. That’s a good sign,” Rezaie, who also coaches youngsters, told the Gulf Times.
The Iranian said she was quite nervous when she was asked by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) to head to Qatar for the tournament.
“Of course, I was a bit tensed initially, but when the tournament started the tension disappeared,” she said.
Rezaie said she got quite a few surprised looks when she refused to shake hands with male players after a match.
“I didn’t enjoy the way the players reacted when I refused to shake hands with them. In our religion, it is not allowed and I would like to follow it. The annoyed look they sported was a bit disturbing and some even laughed at me. However, I am sure they will acknowledge that later,” said Rezaie, who is married to a businessman.
“I have never had any problems from my husband or my in-laws. They have always been supportive. When I told my husband about this assignment, it was a straight yes from his side. Thankfully, I am lucky in that case. You do need support from the family, more importantly if you are a woman,” added Rezaie, who played table tennis as a student.
She recollects that table tennis was restricted to the school level in the past.
“We didn’t go out of the country. The federation only started taking women outside recently. We just played in the junior and cadet level tournaments. There was nothing at all for grown up girls. However, slowly things are changing,” says Rezaie, who got her recognition as an ITTF umpire last year.
Rezaie was of the view that wearing the abaya does not restrict women players from performing at the top level. “I don’t think wearing a scarf or the abaya is an obstacle. We are brought up that way and are used to doing things wearing that. It is just a matter of getting an opportunity and the women in Iran now have them.
“You will soon see more and more women taking part in sports from Iran. It will take some time, but soon we will be there with the world’s best,” she opined.
Rezaie is confident that the experience she has gained from the tour will open new doors for her in future and do a world of good to her fellow women umpires back home.
“It is always nice to set an example and I think I have done a reasonably good job here. Normally only male umpires get such assignments and maybe after this more number of women will get chances.”

[Rasputin]

TEHRAN (AFP) -Iran's judiciary is to launch a fresh clampdown on women it deems are inappropriately dressed and "spreading prostitution," the state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.

"The ones who spread prostitution and intentionally seek to disturb social and moral security by inappropriate clothing and behaviour will be firmly confronted," Tehran's hardline prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi said.

"It has been noticed that some people with an outrageous appearance in public hurt religious feelings and beliefs," he said, adding the crackdown would start on March 6 and continue for a month.

Mortazavi said the crackdown would also target what he described as "street women who get into cars as passengers and rob or extort the drivers."

Every post-pubescent woman is required to cover her hair and body in public in Iran. Crackdowns are common in summer when many women defy the Islamic dress code by wearing short bright coats, flimsy headscarves and capri pants.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

In a bright busy day in the office, my cell phone rang constantly and after answering the phone, I got that it was a friend of mine excitingly telling me about the plans for the coming 8th March celebrations. “hey you know what the president is going to be there along with other high society officials, lets bring again those three crazy women whom we gave those tailoring machines for the project on women empowerment and we can show them as examples during the gathering that we helped women get self-reliant and empowered” if we succeed we will get the new project with more money.” I really want to do a world tour now!”



I felt my heart chocked once the monologue was over. Why these women who get the chance to help some other women, deteriorate the lives of many other vulnerable women? I really feel that there is a big blunder with the word’s comprehension; do we know what does empowerment mean for a widow with five dependants? Are we really serious when we empower women by giving them tailoring machines in the rapid globalization that even garments from USA are available locally at reasonable prices? Is the 8th March another day of betraying women with “never fulfilled promises”? Again a number of elites and famous faces will gather for a Chet-chat on the ongoing fashion for the new clothes in town and we will call it 8 March, Women’s day celebrations?






Let’s analyze the roots of this day! Is it the day to celebrate womanhood or the day to celebrate the human rights that are given and enjoyed by women generously? Are you sure?



I do believe that a lot of struggles took place for women emancipation many years back and those hit backs resulted in a lot of achievement for women’s rights. But it doesn’t mean that all those struggles transform into fiery speeches and empty promises by women themselves even.



Women activists need to be honest with their speeches in public and truly bring fundamental changes to the lives of those living with misery under ignorance about their self being. So far, a lot of people think that these activists with their speeches are the gate-keepers for women’s rights and have been the one’s that massacred women’s rights under the feet of their personal interests with different empowerment claims. If this situation continues I am sure women will also lose the chance of having ONE DAY in a Year of 365 DAYS.

[Rasputin]

It is the year 2007. Mankind has reached breakthroughs in science and technology. We have found cures to illnesses, ways to recreate human cells, figured out what life form there exists on planet Mars, defeated dictatorial regimes and have produced robots that look more human than humans do. With all this positive and constructive brainpower raging through the planet, mankind would surely have reason to be proud about its own specie. There is one day every year that I don't share this sense of pride. That is on International Women's Day on the 8th of March.

With all this positive brainpower and human intelligence, we still haven't reached the most basic assumptions about life. Because one part of the human specie, the female part, has to remind the rest of the world, every year on the 8th of March, that a large part of them are not benefiting from all this positive brainpower.

Why is it that human beings who have developed the culture and understanding of natural science and quantum physics, can't be expected to enhance the same level of culture and understanding when it comes to the respect of both sexes equally?

Isn't it bizarre that we are celebrating the fact that the first female tourist has traveled into space and at the same time have to shout out about the outrage of young girls who are being sentenced to death because of having sexual contact outside of wedlock?

The single fact that we celebrate the 8th of March as International Women's Day is an outrage on its own. The day that the "celebration" of this day will be redundant, is the day that we humans would all be equal. Until that day many fights will have to be fought, many obstacles must be bulldozered over and many laws have to be altered. But foremost, mentality of mankind must reach an adult age. Will we live to see that day?

[Rasputin]

Iran women in jail hunger strike

A group of Iranian women activists are continuing a hunger strike in prison, after eight of their number were freed.
Thirty-three women were arrested on Sunday after staging a demonstration outside a courthouse in Tehran.

They were showing solidarity with five women on trial for organising an anti-discrimination protest in 2006.

Women activists say the crackdown is intended to prevent any kind of protests as Iran marks International Women's Day on 8 March.

The five arrested last June have been charged with endangering national security, propaganda against the state and taking part in an illegal gathering.

'$50,000 bail'

The women began the hunger strike in protest at the continued detention of at least seven of their younger colleagues, their families said.

Human-rights activists and family members confirmed up to eight women were subsequently released from jail.

But they also confirmed that those remaining in jail were continuing the hunger strike to press for their own release.

The eight were told they were being transferred to another cell and had no idea they were about to be freed, the activists said.

Some of the jailed women have been able to telephone their families.

The husband of one told the BBC his wife had been asked for more than $50,000 as bail, and when she said they could not afford it she was told her case would be sent to the judiciary.

The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says different women's groups have announced plans to protest outside parliament and Tehran University on 8 March.

One group even said it wanted to protest against the law that says Iranian women must wear Islamic dress.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

33 Activist Women Arrested in Tehran

Amnesty International yesterday demanded the swift and unconditional release of 33 prominent Iranian female activists arrested last weekend and jailed in Tehran's notorious high-security Evin prison. The women were arrested after peacefully protesting the trial of five other activists and grass-roots organizers against discrimination in the legal system.

On the eve of the U.S. State Department's release of its annual human rights report and only days ahead of celebrations marking International Women's Day, Iran's best-known female activists were arrested early Sunday after they gathered with placards outside Tehran's Revolutionary Court.

The five women whose trial they were protesting had held a public rally last June 12 to call for equal rights for women under Iran's penal laws, family code and blood money practices. At the time, club-wielding security officers rounded up 70 people.

Under Iran's penal code, girls as young as 9 can be executed by hanging or stoning for adultery or what are referred to as morality crimes, while for boys the age limit is 15. If an Iranian girl dies in an accident, her family receives only half the compensation paid to the families of young male victims, according to traditional practices.

"Rather than arresting peaceful demonstrators, the Iranian authorities should be taking seriously women's demands for equality before the law and addressing discrimination against women wherever it exists in the Iranian legal system," said Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary general, in a statement distributed by the group's Washington office.

"Practically the entire top layer of the women's movement in Iran, except for Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, who happens to be in Italy, is in jail," said Hadi Ghaemi of Human Rights Watch in New York.

Under Iran's constitution, protesters have the right of assembly provided they are not carrying arms or defaming Islam. Yet Nusheen Ahmadi Khorasani, Shahla Entesari, Parvin Ardalan, Sussan Tammasebi and Fariba Davoodi Mohajer went on trial Sunday on charges of acting against national security by participating in an illegal gathering. All but Davoodi Mohajer, who is visiting her daughter in Washington, appeared in court with their attorneys Sunday morning. When they emerged from the chambers to observe the commotion surrounding the arrests of the other women outside, the four defendants were rearrested, Ghaemi said in a telephone conversation from New York.

In calling for gender equality, the protesters outside the court used a play on words similar to a slogan used by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to rally public support for nuclear energy. Rights activists have launched a campaign to collect a million Iranian signatures for a petition to end legalized discrimination against women.

"In Iran's prison system, there are eight women sentenced to death by stoning, while only two men have that sentence applied against sexual crimes or extramarital relations," Ghaemi said. If only one woman has witnessed a serious crime, the suspect goes free because her testimony is worth only half that of a man in court, he said.

Although Iran, a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, has promised not to execute anyone under 18, in August 2004 it publicly hanged 16-year-old Atefeh Sahaleh Rajabi in a public square in the city of Neka for "crimes against chastity."

With 159 people executed by the state in 2004 , allegedly in accordance with Islamic law, Iran was second only to China in the number of death sentences it carried out that year. Amnesty has expressed concern that Ahmadinejad's focus on a return to pure revolutionary values is making such executions more common.

[Rasputin]

معرفی مختصری از فعالان بازداشت شده

http://www.hrw.org/photos/2007/iran03/index.html

[Rasputin]

Tehran's heroic women

Why is much of the left and the liberal media ignoring the struggle for democracy and women's rights in Iran?

Tomorrrow - March 8 - is International Women's Day and the women of Iran are growing bolder and more defiant than ever. Last Sunday, a group of courageous women's rights activists staged a vigil outside the Engelab Court in Tehran. They held banners demanding: "We have the right to hold peaceful protests".

These gentle, unthreatening women - armed only with words, ideals and paper placards - were violently attacked by the police, on the orders of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime. One woman had her head battered against the side of a police bus, shattering her teeth.

Another demonstrator, Nahid Mirhaj, accused the police chief of "using obscene words and describing us as 'misfits'."

The BBC correspondent in Tehran, Frances Harrison, says police and plainclothes security men arrested at least 32 women, including nearly all the leaders of Iran's women's movement. They were shoved into curtained buses and driven away. Unbowed, they are now on hunger strike in Evin prison, which is notorious for torture and deaths in custody. Their families and friends have begun a vigil outside the jail.

Human Rights Watch says that some of the arrested women have since been released, but confirms that 26 are still in detention.

Sunday's demonstration was the latest in a series. It was called in solidarity with five women activists who are on trial after they staged a peaceful rally last June against Islamic laws that discriminate against women - in particular the sexist laws on polygamy and child custody. The five activists in the dock are Nusheen Ahmadi Khorasani, Parvin Ardalan, Sussan Tahmasebi, Shahla Entesari and Fariba Davoodi Mohajer.

For holding a peaceful protest, they are charged with endangering national security, propaganda against the state, and taking part in an illegal gathering. Another four women's rights campaigners are awaiting trial on similar charges arising from the same protest last June.

Parveen Adalan, one of the women currently on trial, said her lawyer had not been shown any of the evidence against her, even though she has been interrogated five times by the police and intelligence agencies. "They didn't give them our documents to read, so we don't know what's happening," she told the BBC.

Human Rights Watch has condemned the five women's trial, arguing that they had been exercising their lawful right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

The Organisation for Women's Liberation in Iran is appealing for international solidarity: "We call upon all freedom-loving people to protest against the arrest of these women activists and to call for their immediate and unconditional release."

Last year's International Women's Day rally in Tehran was battered and dispersed by the regime. Over 1,000 women had gathered in Park Daneshjoo to demand equal citizenship. They were violently set upon by baton-wielding militia (the basiji), police, soldiers and special anti-riot squads from the Revolutionary Guards.

The liberal western media - including The Guardian - has mostly failed to report these women's protests and their bloody suppression. The left, too, ignores the heroic struggle of the women of Iran. Misogyny and police brutality are not okay in Britain, but apparently acceptable in Tehran. Why the double standards?

To mark International Women's Day in London, a public meeting entitled 'Women's Rights, the Veil, and Islamic and Religious Laws' will be held at the University of London Union on Thursday March 8, from 6-10pm.

The event is co-sponsored by the International Campaign in Defence of Women's Right in Iran-UK, the National Secular Society and the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association. The speakers are:

Sonja Eggerickx, president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union;
Ann Harrison, researcher, Middle East and North Africa department of Amnesty International's International Secretariat;
Maryam Namazie, director of the Worker-communist Party of Iran's international relations committee;
Taslima Nasrin, Bangladeshi writer, feminist, human rights activist and secular humanist.

[Rasputin]

Iranian women activists released

All but three of the 33 Iranian women activists arrested earlier in the week in Tehran have been freed.

They have been warned not to take part in any protests to mark International Women's Day on Thursday.

The 33 were arrested on Sunday after demonstrating against sexual discrimination outside a courthouse.

They were showing solidarity with women on trial over an anti-discrimination protest in 2006. Humans rights advocates had condemned the arrests.

The New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch said they were part of increasing persecution and prosecution of activists in Iran who are calling for the repeal of laws that discriminate against women.

Negative publicity

Two of the activists and their lawyer are still in jail but the rest of the women arrested on Sunday were freed in the middle of the night.

The families of two other activists were visited at night by the authorities and asked to sign pledges that the women would not demonstrate on International Women's Day.

One of those released from jail said she was too scared to join any protests now but the women's group still say they plan to gather in front of the parliament.

The decision to arrest so many prominent women in one go for peacefully holding up placards outside a court has won the Iranian government much negative publicity internationally.

Women activists say they have been subject to increasing intimidation since they launched a campaign to collect 1m signatures on a petition to change discriminatory laws like polygamy and child custody, which normally goes to the father in Iran.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

From February 16th through March 11th, New Hall College, in collaboration with Cambridge City Council at the University of Cambridge, is hosting an exhibition of film and photography by Iranian women. The Film Guilaneh, which depicts the lives of Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war, was shown to an audience of 60, an equal mix of Iranians and Brits. Following the film, the director, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, and a few Iranian students attended a private gathering where we continued to discuss the film. The heavy weight of the current U.S. agenda against Iran was on our minds, and the collective anger we felt culminated into a tension which weighed on the air in the auditorium.

Having been born in Iran and raised in the West, I always knew that the Iran-Iraq war was central to the formation of my political identity. The war prompted me to consistently attempt to protect my Iran from the intellectual intruders who surrounded me in academia, and this in turn strengthened my ability to relate to, and view as comrades, theostracized members of American society. In elementary school, I told my third grade class that their country supplied the bombs that killedmy people. In high school, I announced that American democracy is a sham for its systematic exclusion and incarceration of African-Americans, and as a college student, I proudly wore my We are all Palestinians shirt to classes taught by Zionist academics.

During my discussion with other Iranian women following the film, I realized the generation born into war share a similarly complex political identity. We exude a rage only embodied by those who have been on the receiving end of ammunition dispersion, and at the same time, a confidence enmeshed with humility.

One of the ramifications of the war was that it created a generation of politically active students who view intellectuals as the frontline protectors of Iranian sovereignty and having actually sensed the destructions of warfare, attempt to carve out a history of peace. We drew from our childhood memories to engender both domestic progress, and global solidarity against international aggression of all kinds. This generation, now in their early 30s, is the most active segment of Iranian society today, serving as artists, writers, scientists, activists, and most importantly, conscious citizens who, in the name of justice, defend their national boundaries no matter where they stand globally.

A student studying in London asked me if I had watched the documentary in which victims of Iraqi chemical attacks speak. I stated that I had not, and with tears gathering in her eyes, she told me, “you should.” She told me how alert sirens that had been used to announce attacks during the war still ring in her mind: “this was the worst part for me,” she said. Indeed, memories carry the ability to suffocate, or can serve as a force to approach old problems in new ways.

Another student who is currently studying in the UK stated that if Iran were to be attacked, she would take up arms. She told me that she went to an anti-war rally in the UK in which a British woman told her casually to get involved in the peace movement, for a war on Iran is imminent. The student was indignant about the woman’s passive rhetoric, as if war were simply an abstraction instead of being marked by the realities of orphaned children, separation, torture, and last good byes.

We stand up against the American empire each time we act collectively against Western foreign policy, and intellectual Iranian women are leading this struggle internationally. This can take the form of writing, art, lectures, blogs, and other venues for political expression. This resistance is in the face of attempts on behalf of many Western “activists” and organizations, which include illiterate Iranian émigrés posing as exiled intellectuals, to use the women of Iran as tools for an invasion.

And I am proud to stand in solidarity with young Iranian women who are working over-time to silence the warmongers masquerading as concerned Iranian nationals in search of “democracy.” It is important to bear in mind there are no systems more patriarchal than imperialistic wars, which as is commonly known, impact the lives of women in the most debilitating of ways. I recently watched a video showing the rape of an Iraqi man in an interrogation room, this is what democracy from the barrel of the gun looks like.

At the end of the film, a woman asked Bani-Etemad what she thought of the potential war against Iran. With chilling austerity, Mrs. Bani-Etemad stated that “the people of Iran do not make up a nation that succumbs to occupation; if our nation is under attack, we will all be there to defend it.”

The program ended with intransigent applause.

[Rasputin]

در حالی که بستگان شادی صدر و محبوبه عباسقلی زاده، از صدور قرار وثیقه دویست میلیون تومانی برای آزادی آنها خبر داده اند، گروهی از فعالان اجتماعی-سیاسی در ایران با انتشار بیانیه ای خواستار آزادی هر چه سریعتر این دو فعال جنبش زنان ایران در آستانه سال نو خورشیدی شده اند.
امضا کنندگان بیانیه از آنچه 'عدم پاسخگویی نيروهای انتظامی و امنيتی نسبت به اقدامامت خشونت آمیز خود' خوانده اند، اعتراض کرده و نوشته اند که این دو زندانی در برخی موارد از "حق تلفن و ملاقات با خانواده و ديدار با وكيل محروم بوده اند."

خانم ها صدر و عباسقلی زاده حدود روز چهارم مارس (سیزدهم اسفند ماه) همراه با سی و یک نفر دیگر از فعالان حقوق زنان ایران در جریان تجمعی مقابل دادگاه انقلاب تهران بازداشت شدند و با وجود آزادی بقیه دستگیر شدگان، این دو نفر همچنان در زندان اوین به سر می برند.

ظاهرا از جمله اتهامات وارده به این دو نفر ارتباط مالی با کشورهای خارجی است؛ اتهامی که در سالهای اخیر از سوی مسئولان قضائی ایران به اشخاص و گروه های مختلفی از فعالان سیاسی، اجتماعی و فرهنگی این کشور وارد شده است.

بنا به گزارش ها، روز پنجشنبه (پانزدهم مارس) ماموران قضائی به دفتر دو سازمان غیر دولتی که زیرنظر خانم ها صدر و عباسقلی زاده اداره می شده مراجعه کرده و پس از بازرسی این دو مکان را پلمب کردند.

خبرگزاری کار ایران، ایلنا، به نقل از شهرام مسیبی، از بستگان خانم عباسقلی زاده و حسابدار یکی از این دو سازمان غیر دولتی، نوشته که این ان جی او (NGO) ها "در وزارت اطلاعات و وزارت كشور ثبت شده ... و هیچ فعالیت غیرقانونی نداشته اند."

'اعتراض نمایندگان پارلمان سوئد'

بازداشت دسته جمعی شماری از فعالان جنبش زنان ایران در آستانه هشتم مارس، که به عنوان روز جهانی زن نامگذاری شده است، واکنش های فراوانی را در رسانه ها و از سوی گروه های مدافع حقوق بشر در دنیا برانگیخت.

این گروه ها از جمهوری اسلامی به خاطر آنچه 'تبعیض علیه زنان' و 'برخورد با فعالیت قانونی و مدنی زنان' نامیدند، انتقاد کرده و گفتند که فشار دولت ایران بر جنبش زنان و فعالیت های مرتبط با حقوق زنان رو به افزایش است.

در آخرین واکنش به ادامه بازداشت شادی صدر و محبوبه عباسقلی زاده، روز پنجشنبه پانزدهم مارس گروهی از نمایندگان پارلمان سوئد با صدور بیانیه ای خواستار آزادی هر چه سریعتر این دو نفر شده اند و یک عضو کمیسیون روابط خارجی پارلمان سوئد نیز در نامه ای به سفیر ایران این خواسته را تکرار کرده است.

در تجمع روز چهارم مارس مقابل دادگاه انقلاب تهران، بیش از سی نفر از فعالان جنبش زنان ایران دستگیر شده بودند که بیشتر آنها در روزهای پس از بازداشت در چند مرحله آزاد شدند.