Nora Shourd and Iran Mothers of Prisoners of Conscience

On the night of her daughter’s arrest Ahari’s mother describes the emotional torture of a mother who was also dealing with family health issues when she was told of the arrest of her child. “Her father and I were in very bad shape that night,” says Kariman describing the arrest of her daughter.  “Her father had open heart surgery and was ordered to remain in a stable mental state.  I was undergoing chemotherapy.  They took our child from the day of her arrest on 14 June, 2009,” she continued.

“We were unable to have any news on her for 25 days,” added Shahrzad Kariman.  “We went everywhere we could think of, the Revolutionary Courts and the Prosecutor’s Office.  Many people had been detained and wherever I went there was a flood of people, just like myself, who didn’t know where their children were.”

“I went to Evin prison every week,” continued Shiva’s mother. “But each time they told me that Shiva was not allowed to have any visitors.  She called me (from Evin Prison) 25 days after her arrest saying: ‘I’m well, Mom.  Don’t worry about me.  I am in solitary confinement in Ward 209.’”

On June 12, 2010, Shiva celebrated her birthday behind bars. “She is celebrating her 26th birthday in Evin Prison today – a name synonymous with the system of injustice that prevails in Iran. Colleagues and I will be remembering Shiva on her special day with a cake and birthday wishes,” said Ann Harrison, East Gulf researcher for Amnesty International. Shiva’s mother is still waiting for her release.

The Mothers of Tiananmen

After over 20 years of surveillance, phone tapping and filtered mail, 73 year old, retired university professor, Ms. Ding Zilin has not backed down in her attempts to find the truth in the events that lead to her son’s death. The Chinese mother of the 1989 slain high school student, Jiang Jielian, who was the first to die at the Beijing Tiananmen Square protests massacre, still hopes to find peace.

In the 1990s, after facing the grief and ongoing trauma from the loss of her son, Ding Zilin got together with one other mother who had also lost an adult child in the massacre at Tiananmen Square. The Tiananmen Mothers began then to grow to 150 mothers, and their families, banding together to provide support to each other as they urge Chinese officials to provide information in the unsolved investigations of their children’s arrest, death and/or disappearance.

According to The Tiananmen Mothers, sixty-four people, most of them young students, were killed during the Tiananmen protests in 1989. Others disappeared without a trace. Others were arrested and are still under penal custody. To date, the government of the PRC – People’s Republic of China in Beijing has not provided any transparent investigation into the allegations. In opposition to the request of the Mothers of Tiananmen, cases have been left unsolved with large and looming questions left unanswered.

In 2003, Ding Zilin was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her heroism and bravery. In 2005, she was arrested by PRC security forces and summarily released, along with two other Tiananmen Mothers, Ms. Huang Jinping and Ms. Zhang Xianling, as the government warned them not to attempt to commemorate the 15^th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre.

“Our group of ailing mothers know that time is running short,” said Ding Zilin in a very recent June 4, 2010 newsletter released by the Tiananmen Mothers. “But even on the edge of death we continue to move forward.”

“We believe that China today is at a critical point in time,” added Zilin recently during a plea to open public access in China to open and public freedom of information via the internet. “Is it (PRC – People’s Republic of China) striding forward or stepping back?,” asked Ding in her newsletter. “The decision must be, in accord with international practice in following the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, that (the PRC) not hesitate to defend its citizens’ freedom of speech… Freedom of speech is found in open media and access to information,” she stated with conviction.

Does Truth Matter?

“Families of disappeared persons (in Iran) seeking information from the authorities have been shown albums of photographs of the dead reportedly containing hundreds of photographs,” said a September 2009 Campaign Report on Human Rights by the International Campaign for Human Rights Iran.  “Some have reported seeing “hundreds” of corpses in makeshift morgues,” continues the report. “Many bodies were reportedly buried in anonymous graves in Behesht Zahra cemetery overnight.” Does truth matter to the leadership in the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran?

“Truth matters. Responsibility matters,” said Time Magazine in a November, 2006, news campaign highlighting, 60  Years of Asian Heroes when Beijing hero, Ding Zilin, was placed on the cover of Time. Her face was placed on the cover series with the likes of 1991 Nobel Peace Laureate, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known to the world as Mahatma Ghandi.

Truth is something Sara Shourd’s mother, Nora, wants to share with the world. “When Sarah, Shane and Josh were arrested it was not friendly,” continued Nora in her interview with Elahe Amani. “The border guards gestured for them to come over,” she continued, “fired shots and then came across and arrested them. Not friendly at all, (those) men with guns.”

Mothers and family members are often the only public voice of advocacy a political prisoner has left when legal representation is cut off and communication with prisoners is limited. The voice of a family member often takes the place of a prisoner who needs to report health conditions, or share unknown facts in their case.

On a recent campaign by the Mourning Mothers of Iran, a “truth-seeking commission” was suggested to be made up of “Iranian citizens and human-rights activists” to bring public transparency to investigations in the IRI cases of torture, death and cover-up of three Iranian students who were arrested and sent to their deaths in the notorious Kahrizak Detention Center in Tehran.

This is not the first time claims of crimes against humanity have surfaced connected to events at Kahrizak. Amid many rumors of torture and death at Kahrizak Detention Center, Ramin Pourandarjani, a 26 year old Iranian physician working once a week at Kahrizak Detention Center to complete his military service, was discovered dead, under “mysterious circumstances,” by his father after being called to Tehran police headquarters, November 10, 2009.

“Dr. Pourandarjani had been interviewed by a special parliamentary committee charged with investigating allegations of abuses during the post-election unrest. Before his death he reportedly received threats to prevent him from revealing the abuses he had witnessed at Kahrizak,” said a joint November 25, 2009, letter to the IRI Office of the Tehran Prosecutor, by Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights and International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. “He (Dr. Pourandarjani) had also reportedly been forced to certify that one detainee had died of meningitis,” continued the letter.

Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on torture & other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment mentioned the ethical responsibility of doctors and health workers in a formal statement to the United Nations in 2006. “I take this opportunity to call upon medical doctors and other health professionals to fulfill their legal and ethical obligations towards torture survivors, including the obligation to document and report instances of torture and political violence,” he said.

“I have to say that I am really concerned about the situation (in Iran),” said Special Rapporteur Nowak, in a March 11, 2010 statement to Radio Free Europe. Nowak is also in favor of the closure of the U.S. detention camp in Guantanamo. In July 2010, IRI Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the Kahrizak detention center to be permanently closed down.

A Mother’s Bravery on Human Rights

When the Mourning Mothers of Iran (Mothers of Laleh) went to protest the deaths of their adult children in public at Laleh Park in Tehran on a Saturday afternoon, January 10, 2010, they were arrested immediately and taken to Vozara Detention Center. In all, thirty-three mothers were placed in detention. Reports of harsh handling by the police was confirmed when nine of the Mothers were taken to two separate hospitals. Later, the Mothers were released, but the message by IRI security authorities was clear. Speaking out, marching and/or grieving in public and/or holding pictures of a loved one in public with a lit candle could create dangerous repercussions for the Mothers.

“No culture permits such violence to be unleashed against mothers,” said Hadi Ghaemi, director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

When Parvin (Ameneh Khatoon) Fahimi’s 19 year old son, Sohrab Arabi, went missing during the Iranian post-election street protests in June 2009, Parvin began an earnest search to find him. She didn’t know her search would last for 25 grueling days. The search ended, when Fahimi identified the body of her dead son in Tehran’s Prophet Hospital morgue. He had been shot dead before the many days of unanswered anguished questions.

After her son’s death, Parvin Fahimi, sent her voice out into the public with cries of injustice and calls for investigations. “I won’t remain silent,” said Arabi’s mother, Parvin.

“The Iranian government is determined to silence all dissenting voices,” said Claudio Cordone, Interim Secretary General for Amnesty International. Even though Parvin Fahimi was cautioned by Tehran police not to “memorialize” her son in public, she has recently released an important public statement, “I would forgive the murderers of my son on the unconditional release of political prisoners.”

Nora Shourd is still waiting to find out more about the charges in her daughter’s incarceration. “Two male interrogators control every minute, everyday of Sarah’s life,” explains Nora Shourd in her interview with Elahe Amani for WNN. “Sarah is anxious about the unknowns. Even with this, she dances alone in her cell. Sometimes, other women prisoners will walk by Sarah’s cell and try to talk to her. They whisper, ‘Sarah we love you, we love your mother, stay strong.’ I am sure this puts them in danger,” Nora continued.

“I lost Sohrab for the crime of freedom, love, and peace (in Iran),” said Fahimi. “Let remain and live the rest of the children of this land.”

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In this recent interview with Amnesty International, Cindy Hickey – mother of U.S. hiker, Shane Bauer and Nora Shourd – mother of U.S. hiker, Sarah Shourd share updates on conditions in the detainment of their adult children. Since May 2010, the mothers have received no communications from Iranian officials or from Evin prison where their children have been incarcerated. Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer have been kept in one prison cell together since December 2009. Sarah Shourd has been kept in solitary confinement for over one year since her arrest July 31, 2009. This 2:01 min video is a July 30, 2010, AmnestyUSA YouTube release.

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For more information on this topic go to:

 

• Change for Equality website

 

• “From Protest to Prison – Iran One Year After the Election,” – Amnesty International, June 2010

 

• “Using Law Against Enforced Disappearances – Practical Guide for Relatives of Disappeared Persons and NGOs,” – Linking Solidarity, Aim for Human Rights, The Netherlands, 2009

 

• Tiananmen Mothers website (use Google translate)

 

• “You Can Detain Anyone for Anything,” Human Rights Watch, January 2008

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Staff journalist for Women News Network – WNN, Elahe Amani, is director of Technology for Student Affairs at California State University. She is also a 2007 Lillian Robles Award winner for her outstanding community service, social education efforts and feminist activism and is co-chair of Women Intercultural Network (WIN).

Human rights journalist and rights advocate, Lys Anzia, is Editor-at-Large for Women News Network – WNN.

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Additional sources for this article include Human Rights Watch, Tiananmen Mothers, International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Amnesty International, 2010 Burma Freedom Calendar, Human Rights and Democracy Library – United Nations, Assistance Association of Political Prisoners – Burma, EDIEC – Enforced Disappearances Information Exchange Center, FRONTLINE Tehran Bureau, Radio Free Europe, UN Office Of The High Commissioner For Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Change for Equality, Salzburg Global Seminar, Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and The International Committee of the Red Cross.

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©2010 Women News Network – WNN

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