Jailed Women's Rights Activist Needs Your Help

Dr. Roya Toloui, a champion of the rights of Iran's Kurdish minority and of women was detained from her home in Sanandaj on August 2. She is reported to be facing charges of "disturbing the peace" and "acting against national security." Human Rights First is calling for her immediate and unconditional release from detention.
Toloui's detention is consistent with a pattern of harassment and persecution that she and other human rights activists in Iran's Kurdish region have suffered in recent months in reprisal for their legitimate, peaceful activities in support of basic rights and freedoms.

There has been mounting unrest in Iran's Kurdish region since the presidential elections in late June, which saw the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a candidate closely identified with Iran's ruling clerical establishment. President Ahmadinejad is viewed as hostile to Kurdish aspirations for greater equality and respect for their distinct cultural and religious traditions. Roya Toloui is an outspoken critic of the policies of the Islamic Republic and its negative impact on the rights of women and religious and ethnic minorities. She and other human rights activists in Kordestan and West Azerbaijan provinces have been vocal in protesting a wave of repression unleashed on the region in recent weeks that has resulted in more than twenty deaths and hundreds of arrests of protesters. Regional magazines that reported on the unrest have been closed by the authorities, but information about continuing disturbances in the region continues to reach the outside world.

At this time of tension in Iran the role of independent human rights monitors is vital. Don't let the Iranian government commit human rights violations behind a cloak of secrecy. Please join Human Rights First in calling for the immediate release of Dr. Toloui and her colleagues.

Human Rights First

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Everything and anything is concealable and conceivable in Iran!

A recent poll on Iranian Times shows 56% of voters want Iran to produce nuclear fuel. As I wrote on October 12,2003, the key point in this debate is that we are dealing with an irresponsible government in Iran. The international community and the Iranian people have every right to be concerned about nuclear ambitions of the regime. This includes not only military use of nuclear technology but also peaceful use such as power production. Personally I don't want to be living anywhere near nuclear power plants should it ever become operational because I seriously doubt that safety concerns keep mullahs and their contractors awake at night! And God help us if these people ever get their hands on nuclear trigger. In the event of air strikes, I don't think Mullahs can do much other than making some noise and throwing more people in jail to consolidate their rule.

Sheema Kalbasi
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In A dying man's cry for freedom in Iran...
Max Boot writes: "Ganji deserves to become as famous as Nelson Mandela, Andrei Sakharov, Vaclav Havel, Aung San Suu Kyi and other dissidents who put their lives on the line against injustice. Yet, while Ganji's mistreatment has been protested by the U.S. and by every major international human rights organization, the only U.S. newspaper regularly covering his ordeal is the tiny New York Sun. According to LexisNexis, there have been more than 1,000 media mentions in the last month of Natalee Holloway, the teenager who disappeared in Aruba, and fewer than 400 of Ganji."