Giti Pourfazel, one of the signatories of the statement of 14 female activists, was arrested.
Giti Pourfazel, a lawyer and member of the Central Council of the National Front of Iran, has been arrested. She is one of the signatories of a statement by 14 female activists calling for Khamenei's resignation. So far, six of the signatories of the statement have been arrested.
The National Front of Iran announced in a statement on Saturday evening, August 24, the arrest of Giti Pourfazel, a lawyer and member of its Central Council. According to the National Front's statement, Ms. Pourfazel's family has no information about the arresting authority or where she is being held.
Ms. Pourfazel is one of the signatories of the statement of 14 female activists that was published about three weeks ago (August 5, 2019). The authors of this statement call for a transition from the Islamic Republic and the resignation of Ayatollah Khamenei. This lawyer is the sixth signatory of this statement to be arrested one after another in the last three weeks. The women, Narges Mansouri, Farangis Mazloum, Fatemeh Sepehri, Shahla Jahanbin, and Shahla Entesari, were arrested in recent days in Tehran, Mashhad, and Rasht.
The statement by 14 female activists stated: “Four decades of absolute juristic rule have led to the inhumane elimination of half of the country’s population, “with all their capacities and abilities,” in terms of equal citizenship rights and human dignity.”
The authors of this statement say: "Many of our basic and human rights as Iranian women were denied, and our gender and female identity were placed under the guardianship of absolute authority, male gender, and patriarchal culture, and anyone who protested against this gender discrimination was subjected to insults and humiliation, beatings, imprisonment, and even in some cases, torture and execution!"
These 14 women activists have “demanded a secular democratic government that preserves the territorial integrity of Iran.” A government “that can guarantee the rights of women in society.” They emphasized: “We, 14 civil activists and women’s rights activists, are determined to continue our struggle as the vanguards of the homeland’s freedom by saying “no to the Islamic Republic” in a civil and non-violent manner until our full demands are achieved.”
Ms. Pourfazel was the lawyer for Sattar Beheshti's family in the case of the blogger's torture and murder in police custody.
Source: DW
