WUNRN
IRAN - GHONCHEH GHAVAMI,
IRANIAN-BRITISH WOMAN JAILED IN IRAN FOR
PEACEFUL ADVOCACY AGAINST BAN ON
WOMEN WATCHING MEN'S SPORTS
Amnesty International says Ghoncheh Ghavami is 'a
prisoner of conscience' being held in
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Ghoncheh
Ghavami, a 25-year-old British-Iranian woman, was kept in solitary confinement
for more than 40 days after she was detained outside the Azadi stadium.
Photograph: Guardian
Saeed Kamali Dehghan – 16 September 2014
Earlier this summer, Ghoncheh
Ghavami stood outside
With Hassan Rouhani promising a more moderate
stance in Iran, she wanted to enter the
stadium alongside male fans, hoping that the Islamic republic's ban on women
attending big sporting events would finally be over.
As
Amnesty International says she is
being held in
"She is a prisoner of
conscience, arrested solely for taking part in a peaceful protest against the
ban on women attending volleyball world league matches in
According to Amnesty, Ghavami has said that while
she was kept in solitary confinement, "the interrogators put her under
psychological pressure, threatening to move her to Gharchak prison in the
Shiva Nazar Ahari, a leading rights activist, was among the women
protesting alongside Ghavami that day. She has written on her Facebook page
that their demand simply was to be allowed to enter the stadium.
"We wanted to go to the
stadium together. We wanted to go sit on those chairs to scream and cheer for
our national team," she wrote.
Ghavami's lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaee,
told the International
Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI), an independent US-based rights
group: "Unfortunately, I have not yet been allowed to visit with my
client, and because she is still in the interrogation stage and no indictment
has been issued, I don't know her exact charges.
"I hope, according to the
discussions I have had, that Ms Ghavami is released on bail over the next few
days. I am optimistic."
A friend of Ghavami told the
Guardian that her detention in Evin prison had recently been extended but it
was not clear how much longer she could be held under Iranian law without being
officially charged. Iranian judicial authorities repeatedly disregard their own
legal system, holding inmates without putting them on trial.
Local media has covered Ghavami's
detention, based on what has been reported outside
Bultan News, a website close to
Iranian hardliners, said in a report with a familiar accusatory tone that she
had been used by "the west's espionage services" to spread chaos in
Other Iranian women have also campaigned for
female fans to be allowed to watch matches in stadiums. In June 2011, an
Iranian photographer, Maryam Majd, was held by officials before boarding a flight from
In May, it also emerged that another
British-Iranian woman, Roya Saberinejad Nobakht, 47, from Stockport, was jailed for her
comments she wrote on Facebook and sentenced to 20 years.
These arrests are believed to
have been carried out by
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