On Monday, October 15, 2007, Human Rights First brought
together Iranian human rights advocates, international activists,
celebrities, and philanthropists for its 2007 Human Rights Award Dinner,
recognizing extraordinary work in the past year to end human rights violations
around the world. Dinner host Meredith Vieira of NBC's "Today" show and HRF
board member Sigourney Weaver were among the 1,000 people at the annual
gathering, held at New York's Chelsea Piers.
Iranian women's leader Fariba
Davoodi Mohajer, one of the founders of the One Million
Signatures Campaign for women's rights, received the 2007
Human Rights Award for dedicating her life to challenging laws that discriminate
against Iranian women, including the lack of legal recourse for victims of
violence.
ABOUT FARIBA DAVOODI
MOHAJER
Fariba Davoodi Mohajer is a
prominent journalist and a life-long feminist and human rights activist.
Ms. Davoodi Mohajer has been quite active in the women's
movement. She was specially active in one of the most important women's
rights organizations, "Women Cultural Center." Additionally, Ms. Davoodi
Mohajer, along with a number of other prominent women's rights activists,
participated in various international and local conferences dealing with the
Iranian women's rights movement and human rights issues. In these
conferences, Ms. Davoodi Mohajer bravely criticized the non-democratic
activities of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and addressed the on-going
violations of human rights by the ruling authorities.
Ms. Davoodi Mohajer has written
numerous articles and has delivered countless speeches regarding the rights of
women, democracy, and human rights in Iran and abroad. She has
participated in numerous protests, meetings and demonstrations in support of
gender equality, abolishment of executions by public stoning, and free
attendance of women in soccer stadium and sporting venues. In
2001, Ms. Davoodi Mohajer was arrested in her home in Tehran and
beaten in front of her children. She was imprisoned and interrogated
for 40 days – blindfolded, in solitary confinement, in an unknown
location. Her crime: writing newspaper articles and speaking at
universities bringing attention to the serial murders of writers in her country
and calling for political reform and women's rights in Iran. She was
tried and sentenced to 2 years suspended prison sentence. Since then, she has
written for a string of now-banned publications, led several of the most
prominent pro-reform groups, and become an organizer of the growing women's
movement in Iran.
In 2006, when hundreds of women took to the streets to
demanding their equality before the law, Fariba was once again arrested and
subsequently released on bail. She and the other women leaders were not
discouraged. They decided that since they were prohibited from
voicing their opinions as journalists, lawyers, judges, or politicians – and
could not gather in the streets – they would go door-to-door to educate women
about the laws that violated their basic rights. This effort, called
the One Million Signatures
Campaign, has drawn the attention of men and
women inside and outside Iran, and has become the most powerful pro-reform
movement in Iran today.
On April 18, 2007, in a closed trial at which
Ms. Davoodi Mohajer was not present, the Iranian court convicted her of
violating national security laws because of her role in the 2006
protests. She received a four year sentence. Now
living abroad, Ms. Davoodi Mohajer continues to work tirelessly to raise
awareness of the laws that treat women like second-class citizens in
Iran. She hopes to return to Iran in the coming months even though
she will face imprisonment.
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Link: http://www.savedelara.com/Fariba+Davoodi+Mohajer.html
... Payvand News - 10/29/07 ...
