20 June 2011

According to the information received from several NGOs, the women’s rights activist Maryam Bahreman was arrested on 11 May 2011 in Shiraz. Security force officers from the Intelligence Ministry went to her house with a detention order. They reportedly arrested her on the charge of ‘action against national security’.
Maryam Bahreman is a social activist and a member of ‘One million signatures’.

She has been active in promoting women’s rights for several years. Her lawyer disclosed that she has been subjected to an interrogation relating to her human rights activities and in particular to her recent attendance at the 55th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women conference in New York in March of this year. The judicial procedure against her will start only after the interrogation has finished. She is at serious risk: torture or other ill-treatment of detainees in Iran is common, and is often used to force them to make ‘confessions', often televised, which can be used as evidence against them in court, in violation of the prohibition of torture and Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a state party.
1. Is the Commission aware of the Bahreman case? What steps does the Commission intend to adopt in response to these serious violations of freedom of expression and association?
2. What preventive measures will the Commission take to protect the health of Maryam Bahreman and all human rights activists in Iran also in the light of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders adopted on December 9, 1998 by the United Nations General Assembly?

E-006356/2011

Question for written answer
to the Commission
Rule 117
Pino Arlacchi (S&D), María Muñiz De Urquiza (S&D), Róża Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein (PPE), Gabriele Albertini (PPE), Fiorello Provera (EFD), Potito Salatto (PPE), Joanna Senyszyn (S&D), Britta Thomsen (S&D), Jaroslav Paška (EFD), Anne Delvaux (PPE), Norica Nicolai (ALDE), Charles Tannock (ECR), Marita Ulvskog (S&D), Marietta Giannakou (PPE), Giommaria Uggias (ALDE), Monica Luisa Macovei (PPE), Nicole Sinclaire (NI), Zuzana Roithová (PPE), Alexandra Thein (ALDE), Raül Romeva i Rueda (Verts/ALE), Baroness Sarah Ludford (ALDE), Boris Zala (S&D), Vincent Peillon (S&D), Sari Essayah (PPE), Mariya Nedelcheva (PPE), Frieda Brepoels (Verts/ALE), Franziska Keller (Verts/ALE), Harlem Désir (S&D), Ivo Vajgl (ALDE), Robert Rochefort (ALDE), Keith Taylor (Verts/ALE), Paul Murphy (GUE/NGL), Ulrike Lunacek (Verts/ALE)

Answer

[source:www.europarl.europa.eu]