Iran Nobel Laureate Refuses Summons from the Revolutionary Court

[onedomino]

The Iranian Islamofacist theocracy is poisonous to human rights. We should fund and supply the incipient Kurdish rebellion in northern Iran. We need to stop the mullahs before they get nukes.

Iran Nobel Laureate Refuses Court Summons
Sat Jan 15, 2005 08:00 AM ET

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7335399

By Amir Paivar
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi refused to appear in court on Saturday, saying the summons had failed to state the charge against her.

Iran's conservative judiciary has ordered Ebadi to appear before a branch of the feared Revolutionary Court, which deals with national security offences, or face arrest.

Ebadi, a lawyer who has riled religious hard-liners in the Islamic state by defending high-profile political dissidents, challenged the legality of the proceeding.

"Today I informed them in writing that I will not show up because this summons is illegal," she told Reuters.

"According to the law, the summoning letter must specify if I am accused or not and what for. This one does not."

Other activists and journalists have previously received letters summoning them to court with no stated reason. Ebadi's refusal to attend will test that practice.

Set up after the 1979 Islamic revolution, the Revolutionary Court has jailed many political dissidents in the past.

President Mohammad Khatami, whose reform efforts the judiciary has helped to foil, said Ebadi had little to fear.

"As head of state, I personally guarantee her safety and her freedom to continue her activities," he told reporters in Dakar.

"It is just an ordinary case and it is going to be settled pretty soon," he added, without giving details.

Ebadi, 57, the first Muslim woman and first Iranian to win the Nobel peace prize, received it in recognition of her work promoting the rights of women and children in Iran.

Before and after winning the award Ebadi has received death threats from religious hard-liners who view her as an agent of the West intent on undermining Iran's Islamic values. (Additional reporting by Diadie Ba in Dakar)

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[Annie]

Any chance that she will get out of there? Iran is not hospitable to women, Nobel winners or not.

 

[no1tovote4]

Any chance that she will get out of there? Iran is not hospitable to women, Nobel winners or not.

Doesn't she get $50,000 for winning a Nobel prize? I think that may just be enough to get people to look the other way while she escapes to the US or the UK.

Hope she doesn't go to France they would ban traditional and religious garb.

 

[onedomino]

Any chance that she will get out of there? Iran is not hospitable to women, Nobel winners or not.

I am sure the mullahs would be delighted if she left. Without her, Iranian dissidents would lose their most effective legal advocate.

The Iranian confrontation with America over nuke development is not far off. We can thank the Russians and the Pakistanis for the Persian nuke proliferation. The new Soviets probably find it all amusing. The mullahs pay them billions for nuke tecgnology and the US has to pay billions to get rid of it. Bush's "friendship" with Putin has certainly not helped with the Iranian nuke problem.
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