Your letters and emails are NEEDED! Help save a life!
That title sounds like this is another one of those damn chain letters/charity spam-mails that periodically clog up your inbox, doesn’t it? The kind they expose as either fake or years out of date on the Urban Legends site.
Unfortunately, it isn’t. This is a real life case of a woman who has been sentenced to die for the crime of defending herself against a rapist, and may well be executed by her government if we-yes, that’s we as in you and me--don’t speak out in her defense.
Here’s what happened:
In Iran in March 2005, 17-year-old Nazanin and her niece were walking in a park with their boyfriends, when three men came up and started assaulting them. The boyfriends ran off. (Yes, you read that right; the boys ran off, leaving their girlfriends in the hands of rapists.) While struggling, Nazanin pulled her pocketknife and stabbed one man in the hand. The sheer surprise that a woman would fight back was apparently enough to make these men pause for a moment, while Nazanin and her niece broke and ran… but then they came after the girls and caught them again. But Nazanin was still armed, and this time she desperately stabbed for the chest of one of her attackers.
The man eventually died of that chest wound… and Nazanin was tried and convicted of his murder, and sentenced to death by hanging.
Yes, what we would consider self-defense, the Iranians call murder. Why? Because in the current Iranian culture, rape is always, in every case, the woman’s fault. A woman who is raped there dare not cry out for justice, because she will be tried and convicted of having extramarital sex; the standard sentence for that is 100 lashes, which will often leave crippling wounds. Rape is simply not a crime for men over there… but a woman defending herself against rape sure is.
If you think that is flat-out WRONG, speak up and speak out! As is the case in all death sentences, Nazanin’s case is being reviewed by the Supreme Court of Iran this week. If they uphold the decision of the lower court, Nazanin will be hanged…and her body will likely be left hanging in public for days, as a warning to other women. The judicial system of Iran is not known for mercy; in 2005 alone they hanged 18 legal minors, four of them young girls. However, the court has occasionally been known to stay their hand rather than actually execute a convicted criminal, IF enough international pressure is brought to bear.
So, it’s time to write letters and send emails. You can write them directly to Iranian officials, and you can write them to your local officials and the newspapers-in fact, I strongly urge you to do both. The more pressure that is brought on these people from the more angles, the better. Here are some addresses to write and email to:
Contact information for the Iranian government
Leader of Islamic Republic
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
The Office of the Supreme Leader, Soahada Street
Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: + 98 251 7 774 2228
(mark "FAO The Office ofHis Excellency,
Ayatollah al Udhma Khamenei")
Email: info@leader.ir
or istiftaa@wilayah.org
President
His Excellency Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad
The Presidency, Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
E-mail via website: http://www.president.ir/email
Head of Judiciary
His Excellence Ayatollah Mahmood Hashemi Shahroudi
Ministry of Justice, Park-e Sahr
Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: irjpr@iranjudiciary .org
(Mark "Please forward to His Excellency Ayatollah Shahroudi)
Speaker of Parliament
Gholamali Hadded Adel
Majles-e Shoura-ye Eslami
Imam Khomeini A venue,
Theran, Islamic republic of Iran
Fax: +9821 66461746
And here’s the available information for the Iranian Consulate in Washington, DC:
Iranian Interests Section
Mr. Fariborz Jahansoozan ( Principal Of Office )
2209 Wisconsin Avenue NW,
Washington DC 20007
Phone: (202) 965-4990, or (202) 965-4991, or (202) 965-4993
Fax: (202) 337-7984
Office Hours: 7:30 am - 3:30 pm Monday through Friday except on Wednesdays and holidays
home page : www.daftar.org
email : yaaliali@aol.com
And for my Canadian readers,
Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Ottawa, Canada
Ambassador: Seyed Mouhammad Ali Moosavi
245 Metcalfe St.
Ottawa, Ontario
K2P 2K2 Canada
Phone: (613) 235-4726 or 233-4726
Fax: (613) 233-5712
Web Site: http://www.salamiran.org/
Office Hours: Monday to Friday 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Here's a website with points of contact for the Secretary General of the United Nations, in order to get the UN to bring pressure on Iran:
http://www.ohchr.org/english/contact/index.htm
Here's another website, supplied by an orgnaization that's flat-out against the death penalty in all countries, that even provides a form email on that page that just needs your information at the end before sending.
http://www.handsoffcain.org/azioniurgenti/frmSender.php?idazione=8302152
Rather than list the addresses, phone numbers and emails for every last state governor and senator, here are the websites where you can find out who they are and how to contact them via phone, fax and email:
http://www.firstgov.gov/Contact/Governors.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
And y’all can surely find the email addresses for your larger local papers; address the emails to the editors for the International News sections. The more we spread the word, the better!
And for that matter, every last scrap of this post is free for cut-n-pasting into your own blog or LJ, for spreading the word that way as well.
When writing, be sure to mark your emails to all these busy folks as “Urgent.” In fact, for the governors and senators and newspaper editors, this is one time when you can actually get away with headlining it as “A Matter of Life and Death”.
When you write, particularly when you write to the Iranian and international officials and ambassadors, it’s important that your letter be written in a polite and respectful manner. Using insulting and abusive language will only harm Nazanin’s case!
Here are some suggestions for what to put in your letters and emails to those Iranian officials:
Present yourself and give a short summary for why you are writing.
Ask for details of Nazanin's trial and the reasoning for using the death penalty.
Urge the Iranian authorities to commute the death sentence given to Nazanin immediately.
Stress that according to Nazanin's testimony, the murder was unintentional and committed in self-defense to save her niece and herself.
Remind the authorities that Iran is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that "sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age".
Call on the Iranian authorities to implement the recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, which called on Iran in January 2005 to "immediately suspend the execution of all death penalties imposed on persons for having committed a crime before the age of 18, and to abolish the death penalty as a sentence imposed on persons for having committed crimes before the age of 18, as required by article 37 of the Convention".
Please remember, you will have to sign with your name and address for your letter to be taken seriously! I know some of us shy from doing that and prefer to hid in anonymity, but your shyness will not help to save Nazanin’s life!
BTW, here are the sources for nearly all the above information:
http://save.nazanin.googlepages.com/home
http://www.payvand.com/news/06/apr/1228.html
Unfortunately, it isn’t. This is a real life case of a woman who has been sentenced to die for the crime of defending herself against a rapist, and may well be executed by her government if we-yes, that’s we as in you and me--don’t speak out in her defense.
Here’s what happened:
In Iran in March 2005, 17-year-old Nazanin and her niece were walking in a park with their boyfriends, when three men came up and started assaulting them. The boyfriends ran off. (Yes, you read that right; the boys ran off, leaving their girlfriends in the hands of rapists.) While struggling, Nazanin pulled her pocketknife and stabbed one man in the hand. The sheer surprise that a woman would fight back was apparently enough to make these men pause for a moment, while Nazanin and her niece broke and ran… but then they came after the girls and caught them again. But Nazanin was still armed, and this time she desperately stabbed for the chest of one of her attackers.
The man eventually died of that chest wound… and Nazanin was tried and convicted of his murder, and sentenced to death by hanging.
Yes, what we would consider self-defense, the Iranians call murder. Why? Because in the current Iranian culture, rape is always, in every case, the woman’s fault. A woman who is raped there dare not cry out for justice, because she will be tried and convicted of having extramarital sex; the standard sentence for that is 100 lashes, which will often leave crippling wounds. Rape is simply not a crime for men over there… but a woman defending herself against rape sure is.
If you think that is flat-out WRONG, speak up and speak out! As is the case in all death sentences, Nazanin’s case is being reviewed by the Supreme Court of Iran this week. If they uphold the decision of the lower court, Nazanin will be hanged…and her body will likely be left hanging in public for days, as a warning to other women. The judicial system of Iran is not known for mercy; in 2005 alone they hanged 18 legal minors, four of them young girls. However, the court has occasionally been known to stay their hand rather than actually execute a convicted criminal, IF enough international pressure is brought to bear.
So, it’s time to write letters and send emails. You can write them directly to Iranian officials, and you can write them to your local officials and the newspapers-in fact, I strongly urge you to do both. The more pressure that is brought on these people from the more angles, the better. Here are some addresses to write and email to:
Contact information for the Iranian government
Leader of Islamic Republic
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
The Office of the Supreme Leader, Soahada Street
Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: + 98 251 7 774 2228
(mark "FAO The Office ofHis Excellency,
Ayatollah al Udhma Khamenei")
Email: info@leader.ir
or istiftaa@wilayah.org
President
His Excellency Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad
The Presidency, Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
E-mail via website: http://www.president.ir/email
Head of Judiciary
His Excellence Ayatollah Mahmood Hashemi Shahroudi
Ministry of Justice, Park-e Sahr
Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: irjpr@iranjudiciary .org
(Mark "Please forward to His Excellency Ayatollah Shahroudi)
Speaker of Parliament
Gholamali Hadded Adel
Majles-e Shoura-ye Eslami
Imam Khomeini A venue,
Theran, Islamic republic of Iran
Fax: +9821 66461746
And here’s the available information for the Iranian Consulate in Washington, DC:
Iranian Interests Section
Mr. Fariborz Jahansoozan ( Principal Of Office )
2209 Wisconsin Avenue NW,
Washington DC 20007
Phone: (202) 965-4990, or (202) 965-4991, or (202) 965-4993
Fax: (202) 337-7984
Office Hours: 7:30 am - 3:30 pm Monday through Friday except on Wednesdays and holidays
home page : www.daftar.org
email : yaaliali@aol.com
And for my Canadian readers,
Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Ottawa, Canada
Ambassador: Seyed Mouhammad Ali Moosavi
245 Metcalfe St.
Ottawa, Ontario
K2P 2K2 Canada
Phone: (613) 235-4726 or 233-4726
Fax: (613) 233-5712
Web Site: http://www.salamiran.org/
Office Hours: Monday to Friday 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Here's a website with points of contact for the Secretary General of the United Nations, in order to get the UN to bring pressure on Iran:
http://www.ohchr.org/english/contact/index.htm
Here's another website, supplied by an orgnaization that's flat-out against the death penalty in all countries, that even provides a form email on that page that just needs your information at the end before sending.
http://www.handsoffcain.org/azioniurgenti/frmSender.php?idazione=8302152
Rather than list the addresses, phone numbers and emails for every last state governor and senator, here are the websites where you can find out who they are and how to contact them via phone, fax and email:
http://www.firstgov.gov/Contact/Governors.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
And y’all can surely find the email addresses for your larger local papers; address the emails to the editors for the International News sections. The more we spread the word, the better!
And for that matter, every last scrap of this post is free for cut-n-pasting into your own blog or LJ, for spreading the word that way as well.
When writing, be sure to mark your emails to all these busy folks as “Urgent.” In fact, for the governors and senators and newspaper editors, this is one time when you can actually get away with headlining it as “A Matter of Life and Death”.
When you write, particularly when you write to the Iranian and international officials and ambassadors, it’s important that your letter be written in a polite and respectful manner. Using insulting and abusive language will only harm Nazanin’s case!
Here are some suggestions for what to put in your letters and emails to those Iranian officials:
Present yourself and give a short summary for why you are writing.
Ask for details of Nazanin's trial and the reasoning for using the death penalty.
Urge the Iranian authorities to commute the death sentence given to Nazanin immediately.
Stress that according to Nazanin's testimony, the murder was unintentional and committed in self-defense to save her niece and herself.
Remind the authorities that Iran is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that "sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age".
Call on the Iranian authorities to implement the recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, which called on Iran in January 2005 to "immediately suspend the execution of all death penalties imposed on persons for having committed a crime before the age of 18, and to abolish the death penalty as a sentence imposed on persons for having committed crimes before the age of 18, as required by article 37 of the Convention".
Please remember, you will have to sign with your name and address for your letter to be taken seriously! I know some of us shy from doing that and prefer to hid in anonymity, but your shyness will not help to save Nazanin’s life!
BTW, here are the sources for nearly all the above information:
http://save.nazanin.googlepages.com/home
http://www.payvand.com/news/06/apr/1228.html