Tag: HumanRights

Nobel Peace Prize awarded to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for ‘fight against oppression of women’

The campaigner, 51, was awarded the prize “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”.

Narges Mohammadi. Pic: Mohammadi family archive photos/Reuters

Jailed Iranian women’s rights activist Narges Mohammadi has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2023.

The 51-year-old campaigner was given the award “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”.

The award also recognised the hundreds of thousands of people who have demonstrated against Iranian discrimination and oppression of women.

Anoosheh Ashoori, who spent five years in Iran’s notorious Evin prison – the same prison where Ms Mohammadi is serving multiple sentences – told Sky News he is worried about her even more now she has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr Ashoori said he met “many other innocent people” there, adding that some “are still there, just going through that hell right now”.

He said he saw broken glass and blood on the floor of a medical centre during his time there and was told Ms Mohammadi had been pushed and thrown into a glass door by the prison’s director, adding: “He was quite famous for his brutalities.”

Asked if he thought the award might have a negative impact on her treatment and time in the jail, he said: “I am worried about it because I know how these beasts behave. It can have repercussions and I’m really worried about her safety.”

Responding to the news of the award, Ms Mohammadi vowed to be “more resilient, determined, hopeful and enthusiastic”.

“I will never stop striving for the realisation of democracy, freedom and equality,” she said in a statement to the New York Times.

“Standing alongside the brave mothers of Iran, I will continue to fight against the relentless discrimination, tyranny and gender-based oppression by the oppressive religious government until the liberation of women,” she added.

Her family said in a statement that while the honour could “never compensate” them for the time she had spent imprisoned, it was a “source of solace for our indescribable suffering”.

Who is Narges Mohammadi?

Ms Mohammadi is one of Iran’s leading human rights activists, and has also campaigned against the country’s death penalty.

She has been in prison almost continually over the last 13 years, having been jailed for 11 years in 2011 for “acting against the national security”.

That sentence was for her work with the Iranian human rights group, Defenders of Human Rights Center, of which she is vice-president.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/nobel-peace-prize-awarded-to-irans-narges-mohammadi-12978009

Iranian Girl in Coma After Being Assaulted, Pulled Out of Train by Cops For Not Wearing Hijab | WATCH

A purported video of the incident shows that the teen, with friends and apparently unveiled, being pushed into the metro by female police agents and then an immobile body pulled out. (Photo: X)

A 16-year-old Iranian girl is fighting for her life after alleged assault by police officers who dragged her out of Tehran Metro for violating the hijab law, rights groups said. The incident came a year after the death of Mahsa Amini that sparked global outrage.

The victim, Armita Garawand, hails from the city of Kermanshah in Kurdish-populated western Iran and is currently a resident of Tehran. She is now coma and is being treated at the hospital under heavy security.

The Kurdish-focused rights group Hengaw said the teenager, had been badly injured in a confrontation on the Tehran metro with female police officers.

However, Iranian authorities have refused these allegations and said the girl “fainted” due to low blood pressure and that there was no involvement of the security forces.

A purported video of the incident shows that the teen, with friends and apparently unveiled, being pushed into the metro by female police agents and then an immobile body pulled out.

Hengaw said that Garawand was left with severe injuries after being apprehended and physically attacked by agents of the so-called morality police at the Shohada metro station in Tehran on Sunday. It said she was being treated under tight security at Tehran’s Fajr hospital and “there are currently no visits allowed for the victim, not even from her family”.

IRAN AUTHORITIES ON HIGH ALERT
In the wake of the incident, Iranian authorities were on high alert for any upsurge of social tension. Last year, the death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress rules for women, sparked several months of protests that rattled Iran’s clerical leadership and only dwindled in the face of a crackdown that according to activists has seen thousands arrested and hundreds killed.

Masood Dorosti, managing director of the Tehran subway system, denied there was “any verbal or physical conflict” between the student and “passengers or metro executives”. “Some rumours about a confrontation with metro agents… are not true and CCTV footage refutes this claim,” Dorosti told state news agency IRNA.

Source: https://www.news18.com/world/iranian-girl-in-coma-after-being-assaulted-pulled-out-of-train-by-cops-for-not-wearing-hijab-watch-8603346.html

‘Pro-China propaganda’: NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha among two arrested in UAPA case

NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha. Wikimedia Commons

The Delhi Police on Tuesday arrested two persons including NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha in connection with a probe in the portal’s foreign funding, officials said.

This comes after the Delhi Police searched 30 locations connected with the online news portal and its journalists in a case filed under the anti-terror law UAPA following allegations that it received money for pro-China propaganda.

Officials said the proceedings are still underway.

They said 37 male suspects were questioned at the office of Delhi Police Special Cell, while nine female suspects were quizzed at their respective places of stay.

Digital devices, documents and other items have been seized for examination, they said.

So far, two accused — NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and Amit Chakravarty — have been arrested, Delhi Police spokesperson Suman Nalwa said.

There was no immediate information on how Chakravarty is connected with the portal and the case.

Source: https://www.deccanherald.com/india/newsclick-founder-prabir-purkayastha-among-two-arrested-in-uapa-case-2711037

‘Work, food, freedom’: Afghan women protest beauty parlour ban

Security forces break up Kabul protest by dozens of women against a ban on beauty salons.

Afghan women stage a protest for their rights at a beauty salon in the Shahr-e-Naw area of Kabul [AFP]
Security forces in Kabul have dispersed a demonstration by dozens of women protesting against a Taliban order to shut down beauty parlours, the latest curb to squeeze them out of public life.

Security forces used fire hoses, tasers and shot their guns into the air to break up the protest in the Afghan capital on Wednesday.

Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban government has barred girls and women from high schools and universities, banned them from parks, funfairs and gyms, and ordered them to cover up in public.

The order issued last month forces the closure of thousands of beauty parlours nationwide run by women – sometimes the only source of income for households – and outlaws one of the few remaining opportunities for them to socialise away from the home.

“Don’t take my bread and water,” read a sign carried by one of the protesters on Butcher Street, which boasts a concentration of the capital’s salons.

Public protests are rare in Afghanistan, and frequently dispersed by force, but about 50 women took part in Wednesday’s gathering and quickly attracted the attention of security personnel.

Protesters later shared videos and photos with journalists that showed authorities using a firehose to disperse them as shots could be heard in the background.

“Today, we arranged this protest to talk and negotiate,” said a salon worker, whose name has not been published for security reasons.

“But today, no one came to talk to us, to listen to us. They didn’t pay any attention to us and after a while, they dispersed us by aerial firing and water cannon.”

Afghan women stage a protest for their rights at a beauty salon in the Shahr-e-Naw area of Kabul on July 19, 2023 [AFP]
“We are here for justice,” said another protester who identified herself as Farzana. “We want work, food and freedom.”

Farzana later said the women were going to the UN mission in Afghanistan, urging protesters to stay together.

One protester told The Associated Press news agency the demonstration started at about 10am (05:30 GMT) in the Shar-e-Naw area of the capital. She did not want to give her name for fear of reprisals.

“The purpose of our demonstration was that they [the Taliban] should reconsider and reverse the decision to close beauty salons because this is about our lives,” she said.

The protest continued into the early afternoon, when the Taliban arrived to break up the crowd, she said. They used tasers on the demonstrators.

“They put two or three of our friends in the car and took them,” she said.

In late June the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice gave salons a month to close down, saying the grace period would allow them to use up stock.

It said it made the order because extravagant sums spent on makeovers caused hardships for poor families, and that some treatments at the salons were un-Islamic.

Too much makeup prevented women from proper ablutions for prayer, the ministry said, while eyelash extensions and hair weaving were also forbidden.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/19/work-food-freedom-afghan-women-protest-beauty-parlour-ban

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