IRAN: Human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr reportedly arrested

Prominent lawyer, women's rights activist and journalist Shadi Sadr was arrested by plainclothes policemen on her way to Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's much-anticipated Friday sermon, according to several reformist websites.

The activist group blog Mothers of Laleh reported that Sadr was walking with several other female activists when she was approached by individuals in civilian dress who refused to show a warrant before forcing her into a waiting car.

Conflicting reports say she called her husband to ask for a computer password or a cellphone personal identification number, but her whereabouts are still unknown.

Sadr, who also edits the Farsi news website womeniniran.com, was arrested and held for two weeks in 2007. She has clashed with authorities numerous times over her outspoken stance on women's rights and capital punishment.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut

Photo: Lawyer Shadi Sadr was reportedly arrested on her way to Friday prayers.

EGYPT: Poet accused of insulting Mubarak awaits final verdict

A poet recently sentenced to three years in jail and fined 100,000 Egyptian pounds for insulting President Hosni Mubarak is awaiting his ultimate fate.

Mounir Saied Hanna was arrested in May after authorities charged that 15 of his poems cast the president in a less than flattering light. On June 27 he was sentenced to prison and fined. However, the court's decision was appealed on the basis that he did not have a lawyer during the investigation phase. A new verdict is expected by Saturday.

Under Egyptian law, any citizen who publicly insults the president can be imprisoned for between 24 hours and three years. Hanna's lawyer was stunned that his client received the maximum penalty. "The court's ruling is illegitimate and very harsh. It is clear evidence of the regime's position toward freedom of speech," said Hamdi El Assiouty, who is also a legal counselor for the Arabian Network for Human Rights.

"Hanna's poems were about his and other people's everyday lives, but they were put out of context by the attorney general," El Assiouty said.

IRAN: Mother of slain protester Sohrab Arabi 'won't remain silent'

Hundreds of mourners attended the funeral in Tehran on Monday of 19-year-old Sohrab Arabi, whose body was returned to his family after a month of frantic searching by family and friends who feared the worst after the teenager disappeared during a protest on June 15.

“I won’t remain silent," said Arabi's mother, Parvin Fahimi, according to the reformist news website Norooznews.org, the online reincarnation of a newspaper by the same name that was closed by authorities in 2002.

"The authorities were playing with me all this time," she added. "My son had been killed, but they refused to tell me.”

Public outrage over the teenager's death is being fueled by video (below) depicting Fahimi outside Evin Prison, clutching a picture of her son and pleading for information about his whereabouts.

According to a coroner's report dated June 19, Arabi died of a gunshot wound to the chest, but family members expressed skepticism to reporters. They believe that he might have been shot, taken to a hospital and abused before he died. And several human rights groups have demanded an independent investigation.

SUDAN: Female journalist faces 40 lashes for choice of clothes

A prominent Sudanese female journalist faces 40 lashes for the crime of dressing in a way that contradicts the country's social and religious values.

Lobna Ahmed al Hussein, whose daily column Men Talk often criticizes the Sudanese regime and Islamic fundamentalists for their oppression of women, was charged with violating a 1991 law that forbids women to dress in a manner that causes "public discomfort." She was wearing a loose hijab, top and pants and allegedly wasn't covered in the traditional way of Sudanese women.

The journalist reacted to the charge by sending the media, as well as her supporters, thousands of printed invitations to attend her upcoming trial. Al Hussein said that if convicted she will send similar invitations to her public whipping.

IRAN: Ten days of anguish, abuse inside Tehran's prison archipelago

All 33-year-old Ali-Reza wanted to do was stop pro-government Basiji militiamen from beating up a man lying on the ground. Instead the engineer said he wound up in the clutches of the capital's security archipelago, where he was himself beaten for days.

The east Tehran resident's story is among the tales of abuse and detention surfacing from Iran's weeks-long crackdown against dissidents and protestors in the wake of the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a vote marred by allegations of massive vote-rigging. 

Ali-Reza said he was near Tehran's Fatemi Square on June 13, a day of riots and unrest just after the election, when he spotted the plainclothes Basiji fighters beating a man "in a very bad way," he said.

"Do not beat him!" he protested to the Basijis.

But instead of laying off, the militiamen came after him. "They started to follow me," he said. "I ran and changed my direction, but in a dead-end street they caught me."

He said they began pummeling him. "The started to beat and beat and beat me, with their batons, feet and cables."

IRAN: Amateur footage of another protest

A video has surfaced on YouTube purporting to show another demonstration today in Tehran. The clip appears to show a crowd marching down a street while chanting. The authenticity could not be independently verified, but it has been much discussed on Twitter, which is being used by Iranians to spread word of their demonstrations. It was also picked up by the New York Times’ The Lede blog.          

                                 

At least 13 people were reported killed in the clashes Saturday between security forces and demonstrators protesting the outcome of the disputed presidential election. The capital, Tehran, remains tense today, but there were no immediate reports of further clashes. There were reports of sporadic gunshots in some neighborhoods Sunday evening.

 

— Amber Smith in Los Angeles

 

 

EGYPT: Women to form 11% of the next parliament

It looks like there may be more women in the stuffy chambers of the Egyptian parliament. A new election law is set to include an additional 56 seats, all of which will be allocated to female candidates, according to Gamal Mubarak, the son of President Hosni Mubarak and a key figure in the ruling National Democratic Party.

In its convention this week, the NDP's policies committee agreed on a proposal to increase the number of seats in the People's Assembly to 510 from 454 during the next elections. Mubarak confirmed that the new elections law amendments should guarantee that at least 11% of the new parliament members will be women.

The president's son added that the new proposal, which he described as a "positive discrimination" for  women's rights in Egypt, would be adopted for a limited period, which might be up to two terms. The proposal will be forwarded to the parliament for a full vote.

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EGYPT: Self-exiled human rights activist still needs to be cautious

Even though his prison sentence has been overturned in court, human rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim still has to worry about several pending accusations, including treason.

An Egyptian appeals court Monday overturned Ibrahim's conviction of defaming Egypt and his two-year prison sentence. Speaking to the privately owned Al Mehwar satellite channel from his self-exile in the United States, Ibrahim said: “I am so happy about that, I feel optimistic and I hope this decision will open a new page.”

Ibrahim, a sociology professor and currently a visiting fellow at Harvard University, has been living in self-exile for almost two years. “I am thinking seriously to come back as soon as the semester at Harvard ends. This will be within days but provided that the lawyers tell me" I can.

IRAN: Jailed activist, on hunger strike, is in critical condition

After nearly 10 years, the last known prisoner from Iran's bloody 1999 student uprising, Behrooz Javid-Tehrani (pictured), is in critical condition in the so-called "doghouse" section of the Gohar Dasht prison, according to the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

The organization issued a press release Saturday demanding Javid-Tehrani's release and accusing Iranian authorities of failing to provide adequate medical care during the prisoner's hunger strike, now in its third week.

Javid-Tehrani, 29, has not had access to a lawyer and has had limited contact with his family since his 2005 arrest, the group said, adding that a medical examination in 2006 suggested he had been physically abused in prison.

In addition to being beaten and shackled in solitary confinement, Javid-Tehrani has lost 50% of his vision due to severe head injuries, friends and family told Human Rights Watch.