Parisa Kakaei spent 47 days at Evin Prison for her work for the Committee of Human Rights Reporters, and has now fled the country. Her family home continues to be searched by the authorities.
Name: Parisa Kakaei
Career: Member of the Iranian Committee of Human Rights Reporters; human rights and women’s rights activist; member of the One Million Signatures Campaign for the repeal of discriminatory laws against women.
Charges: Propaganda against the regime and conspiracy against national security.
Parisa Kakaei was summoned to the Inquest Office of the Intelligence Ministry on January 1, 2010, where she was arrested. She was sent to Evin Prison, where she was incarcerated for 47 days and later released on bail.
“My bail was my parents’ paycheck stubs,” she told the website Shahrzad News. “I think they released me for two reasons; one was that we couldn’t afford more money—even our house is rented. The second reason could be because they wanted to find [human rights activist] Saeed Habibi through me and arrest him.”
Kakaei’s case was sent to Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Pir Abbasi, who is known as a “hanging judge” because he has handed down so many death sentences, particularly against dissident activists. In April 2011, the European Union put Pir-Abbasi under sanctions for violating human rights. His court was dissolved in January 2014, and he was re-appointed to a general court.
On October 18, 2010 Kakaei was sentenced to six years in prison, a decision that was later upheld by the appeals court.
Kakaei’s work with the Committee of Human Rights Reporters began in autumn 2008. The group, which originally went by the name the Student Committee for Reporting on Human Rights, began its activities in early 2006, and became a target for authorities after the disputed presidential election of 2009. “Threats and pressures were always present,” Kakaei told Shahrzad News, “but they took a serious turn after the election, when [human rights activist and a founding member of the committee] Shiva Nazar Ahari was arrested” in June 2009.
According to Kakaei, when Ahari was detained at Evin Prison, the interrogator called Kakaei and threatened that if she did not take the group’s website offline, she would be also face arrest. The committee voted on the matter, with the majority of members voting to keep the site running. Kakaei and three other members were summoned to the Intelligence Ministry and told they were going to prison. “I believed that I had no reason to escape and that I needed to defend myself,” she says. “But later I came to understand that the other side is not one for logical conversations. They send you to prison and interrogate you and nobody is there to hear your voice or answer your rational questions.”
Kakaei and a second committee member gave themselves up; others went into hiding. She was released after 47 days “but this was not the end of the story," she said. "They continued to interrogate me over the phone. The first charge filed against me was for being a mohareb, an “enemy of god”, which is punishable by death." She says authorities believe the Committee of Human Rights Reporters is affiliated with the People's Mojahedin Mujadedin of Iran, considered to be a terrorist organization by Islamic Republic authorities. She was also charged with propaganda against the regime. She says her lawyer told her that no indictment had been issued so he was unable to review her case.
Kakaei fled the country, but her family continues to be harrassed by authorities, sending them interrogation notices and searching their home. They were also forced to settle Kakaei's bail money.
This is part of IranWire’s series Crime: Journalism, a portfolio on the legal and political persecution of Iranian journalists and bloggers, published in both Persian and English.
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