IRAN: Journalist and Woman Activist, Maryam Hosseinkhah, Arrested

November 18, 2007 - (Payvand's Iran News) Maryam Hossienkhah, Journalist, member of the Women's Cultural Center, and an active member of the One Million Signatures Campaign was arrested earlier today. A few days after the site of the Women's Cultural Center, a leading women's NGO, was shut down on order of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and the Judiciary, Maryam Hosseinkhah, an editor of the site of this organization as well as one of the editors of the site of the One Million Signatures Campaign, Change for Equality, was summoned to the security branch of the Revolutionary Courts on Saturday 17th of November.

She was interrogated for over 2 hours on Saturday and was told that she is charged with disruption of public opinion, propaganda against the state, and publication of lies through the publication of untrue news items on the site of the Women's Cultural Center and the One Million Signatures Campaign. Maryam Hosseinkhah was also ordered to return to the Revolutionary Courts for more interrogation today, Sunday November 18, 2007 at 9:00am. After arriving at Court today, an order of arrest of issued for Ms. Hosseinkhah, and to our disbelief she was arrested and transferred to Evin Prison at 2:00pm.

The arrest of Maryam Hosseinkhah marks the continuation of increased harassment of women's rights activists, especially members of the Campaign, by the Security forces. To date, over 40 individuals have been arrested in relation to their peaceful activities in support of the Campaign. Currently two other members of the Campaign besides Maryam remain in prison. Ronak Safarzadeh and Hana Abdi were both arrested in Kurdistan after collection of signatures. They remain in prison and have had not had access to their families or lawyers.

From: http://www.payvand.com/news/07/nov/1154.html