IRAN: Supporter of“Mourning Mothers”, Ms. Mansoureh Behkish sentenced to imprisonment on appeal

Paris-Geneva,July 11, 2012. The Observatory for the Protection of Human RightsDefenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights(FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), was informed of theappeals ruling issued against of human rights defender Ms. Mansoureh Behkish.

On July 5, 2012, Ms. Mansoureh Behkish, asupporter of the “Mothers of Park Laleh” (the “Mourning Mothers” of Iran)[1], also known for fighting against the death penalty, received the textof the Appeals Court’s ruling regarding her appeal against the first instancesentence.

Ms. Behkish had been sentenced on December 25, 2011 to four years andsix months of imprisonment by Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolution Court: fouryears on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security throughthe establishment of the Mourning Mothers” and six months on charges of “spreadingpropaganda against the system”.

The appeals court has now combined the two parts of her sentence. As aresult, her 6-month imprisonment term has been included in the four-yearimprisonment sentence. The appeals court has also suspended three years and sixmonths of the sentence for a period of 5 years, which means she will have toserve those 3.5 years in addition to any new sentence, if convicted on similarcharges over the next 5 years.

Consequently, Ms. Behkish is now facing a six-month custodialimprisonment sentence and is at risk of being arrested any time.

The Observatory recalls that on June 12, 2011, Ms. Mansoureh Behkishwas arrested by a group of security agents in a street of Tehran. She wasreleased on bail on July 9, 2011. Ms. Behkish has been subjected tointerrogations and arbitrary detentions in the past as a result of her humanrights activities. She had previously been arrested on August 29, 2008,December 5, 2009 and then on January 9, 2010 together with more than 30 women supportersof the “Mothers of Park Laleh”. On March 17, 2010, she was prevented fromtravelling to Italy to visit her children and her passport was confiscated. Shewas then banned from travelling abroad. Ms. Behkish lost six members of herfamily during the executions and prison massacres that took place in the 1980sand has consistently come under great pressure not to visit their graves orotherwise commemorate them.

The Observatory believes that the sentence againstMs. Ms. Mansoureh Behkish merely aims at intimidating her and impeding her from carrying out her human rights activities. More generally, it also aims at intimidating all human rights defenders in Iran.

The Observatory therefore urges the Iranian authorities toimmediately and unconditionally put an end to the judicial harassment of anddrop all the charges against Ms. Ms. Mansoureh Behkish and release all humanrights defenders arbitrarily detained, and more generally to conform to theUnited Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the Universal Declarationof Human Rights and international human rights instruments ratified by Iran.

Forfurther information, please contact:

· FIDH: Arthur Manet : +33 1 43 55 25 18

· OMCT: Isabelle Scherer : + 41 22 809 49 39

[1] The “Mourning Mothers” (“Madaran-eAzardar”) are women whose family members were killed, executed, detained ordisappeared in the context of political violence since 1981. They call for theacknowledgement of secret political executions in the past three decades anddisclosure of burial places of the victims. In the aftermath of thepost-election violence in June 2009, they organised silent public protests eachSaturday evening in Tehran's Laleh Park, calling for the release of allpolitical prisoners and abolition of the death penalty.