Iran Focus

London, May 09 - The international press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urged Iranian authorities earlier this week to end a recent spate of systematic attacks against women’s rights publications.
 
The statement by RSF comes on the back of the jailing of three women for six months and a two-year suspended sentence ordered earlier this month against the editor of feminist website "Change for Equality", Parvin Ardalan.
 
Ardalan’s sentence comes after she was accused last year of "illegal assembly and refusing to obey police orders with the intention of harming national security", a charge brought against her for her attendance at a demonstration in Tehran calling for equal rights between men and women. Ardalan’s case hit the headlines after she was awarded the Olaf Palme prize for her work in forwarding women’s rights, but was not permitted to leave the country to collect her award.
 
Nasrin Afzali, Nahid Jafari and Marzieh Mortazi, three feminist activists were in March sentenced to six-month jail terms as well as suspended sentences of six lashes each. The three were accused of "disturbing public order" for their part in a demonstration in support of feminist colleagues on trial for their activities.
 
RSF went on to add that a number of women’s rights websites had become inaccessible.
 
In October 2007, RSF ranked Iran in 166th place out of 169 countries on its annual world press freedom rankings.

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