Free Iranian Women’s Rights Defender
Ronak Safarzadeh, a member of the Kurdish minority in Iran, is serving a six-year prison sentence. She was arrested in October 2007 shortly after a meeting in which she had distributed Campaign for Equality leaflets and collected signatures demanding equality for women in Iran.
In April 2009, she was acquitted of the charge of “enmity against God” (which can carry the death penalty) in connection with her alleged involvement in a bombing in Sanandaj which took place after her arrest.
However, she was convicted of membership of the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK - an armed Kurdish opposition group) and to one year in prison for "propaganda against the state".
Her lawyer has appealed on her behalf. He has said that “the activities of my client were limited to activities within the Azar Mehr Women’s NGO, and so her activities in PJAK were carried out toward this end as well. My client aimed to research 'the reasons for women’s participation in PJAK under difficult conditions.”
Amnesty International has seen no evidence that Ronak Safarzadeh has personally used or advocated violence and believes that she is a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for her work for women’s rights and the rights of Iran's Kurdish minority.
In April 2009, she was acquitted of the charge of “enmity against God” (which can carry the death penalty) in connection with her alleged involvement in a bombing in Sanandaj which took place after her arrest.
However, she was convicted of membership of the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK - an armed Kurdish opposition group) and to one year in prison for "propaganda against the state".
Her lawyer has appealed on her behalf. He has said that “the activities of my client were limited to activities within the Azar Mehr Women’s NGO, and so her activities in PJAK were carried out toward this end as well. My client aimed to research 'the reasons for women’s participation in PJAK under difficult conditions.”
Amnesty International has seen no evidence that Ronak Safarzadeh has personally used or advocated violence and believes that she is a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for her work for women’s rights and the rights of Iran's Kurdish minority.