Iran’s judiciary has retreated from its threat to arrest the human rights lawyer and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi. In a rare acknowledgement of mistake, a spokesman for the judiciary referred to the summons quite simply as an error. First, it had not stated a reason, second, the Revolutionary court, before which she was requested to appear would not be the right one. (20-JAN-05)
The facts in this article have been drawn from articles in New York Times on 16 and 19 January.
Kamal Karimirad, spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, said at its weekly news conference on Tuesday that the clerk who wrote the summons “was not experienced enough” and had failed to state the reason for the summons. The clerk had also mistakenly called Ms. Ebadi to the hard-line Revolutionary Court, the branch that deals with national security, ISNA, a news agency, further reported.
-The summons against me is illegal
Prior to this, as reported on www.humanrightshouse.org on 14 January, Mrs Ebadi had also herself described the summons as flawed and illegal. “According to the law, the summoning letter must specify if I am accused or not and what for,” she said on the weekend. “This summons does neither”. Following this development, on Monday, she boldly called on the Iranian judiciary authorities to abolish solitary confinement. To this, Mr Karimirad responded that Iran no longer has such cells.
