Berlin in Brief

Last April, Mehrangiz Kar, a lawyer, writer, and women’s rights advocate, and Shahla Lahiji, director of Roshangaran, a prominent publishing house of women's books, were charged with "acting against the internal security of the state and disparaging the sacred order of the Islamic Republic". They had participated in a conference at the Heinrich Boell foundation in Berlin, along with fifteen other activists and intellectuals, who all faced criminal charges.

Mehrangiz Kar and Shahla Lahiji have spent two months in prison, including one month in solitary confinement. They were the only defendants to undergo a closed-door trial, confirming suspicions of harsher standards being applied to secular women activists. They have both accepted the charges in court, and have asked for clemency. Lahiji is now awaiting sentencing, while Kar is to face additional charges in a regular court.

Reportedly, dissident cleric and journalist Hassan Yusefi Eshkevari could be facing the death sentence from a special clerical court, and still must face the Revolutionary Court. Celebrity journalist Akbar Ganji announced during his trial that he had been tortured in prison, and has been on hunger strike ever since (i.e. since the 9^th of November). Khalil Rostamkhani, although a mere translator during the organisers’ visit to Tehran, has also been arrested, and has yet to be released. Besides these three individuals, all the defendants are out on bail.

The conference in Berlin had been interrupted by political activists based outside Iran (cf. "I wonder if Cubans in Miami are like this", Newsclips, May edition). The intervention was easy fodder for conservative elements in the Iranian government, who edited a very misleading, 25 minute account for state TV. The film has since been effectively used to "prove" the defendants’ complicity with the demonstrators.

In the aftermath of the incident, a number of other dissident intellectuals have been subject to persecution, such as writer and attorney Shirin Ebadi, who has been convicted on questionable charges related to an earlier incident (cf. article in this issue).