Protest Travel Ban on Iranian Women's Rights Activist

Journalist and activist Parvin Ardalan should have been in Stockholm on March 6, 2008. She was to receive the Olaf Palme Prize in recognition of her leading role in the One Million Signatures campaign for women's equality in Iran. However, on March 3, airport security officials removed her from a flight about to take off from Tehran's international airport, seized her passport, and served her with a summons to appear in court.

Ardalan's arbitrary travel ban is just the latest in a sustained campaign of repression directed against women's rights activists in Iran, and especially against supporters of the One Million Signatures Campaign.

Please join us in calling on the Iranian government to:

end the unlawful harassment of non-violent activists in Iran, including by returning Parvin Ardalan's passport and respecting her right to travel;
end censorship of websites and publications that promote human rights and women's rights;
release those imprisoned for their support of the campaign;
drop charges and close criminal investigations into the legitimate activities of such activists.

For more information on the One Million Signatures Campaign, click here.

Subject:

Your Excellency:

I am writing to express my concern about the decision to arbitrarily prevent travel by Parvin Ardalan, a leading women's rights activist and a founder of the One Million Signatures Campaign for Equal Rights. Ms. Ardalan was removed from an airplane at Tehran's international airport as she was about to leave for Stockholm, where she was to receive the 2007 Olaf Palme Prize for her work promoting women's rights in Iran.

(Edit Letter Below)

Ms. Ardalan's travel ban is a continuation of a policy of sustained repression directed against the supporters of the One Million Signatures Campaign.  Campaign supporters have been prosecuted and convicted of "endangering national security" for gathering signatures.  Peaceful rallies and meetings have been broken up, and websites and publications supportive of the campaign have been closed down in violation of Iran's obligations in international human rights law to uphold basic freedoms of expression, assembly and association.

Iran is a State Party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  Article 12 (2) of the Covenant provides that: "Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own."

Accordingly, I respectfully urge you to restore Parvin Ardalan's passport to her and to permit her to travel freely.  I also urge that all charges against supporters of the One Million Signatures Campaign for their peaceful activism in support of women's rights should be dropped.  All of those currently detained for their support of the campaign, including Ronak Safarzadeh and Hana Abdi, held without charge or trial in Sanandaj in Kordestan province, should also be released immediately.

Finally, I call on you to cease the harassment directed against women's rights activists in Iran and to respect their rights to basic freedoms of expression, association and assembly.

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]

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Head of Judiciary H.E. Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

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