Shirin Ebadi: I Will Not Leave Iran
Even After the Assault by Para-Military Men -
2009.01.05
Roozonline
Shahram Rafiizadeh
Following the assault on Iran’s Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi by 150 members of the ‎Basij paramilitary group affiliated with the Passdaran Islamic Revolution Guards Corps ‎‎(IRGC) last Wednesday, this human rights advocate announced that, “I am Iranian and ‎must live, work and die in Iran.”‎
The public relations unit of the Center for the Defense of Human Rights issues a ‎statement in this regard and announced that on Thursday, January 2nd 2009, a group of ‎‎150 individuals gathered in front of the house of Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi ‎and began chanting slogans against her, while some of them destroyed the plaque to her ‎law office.‎
The group, who claimed to be members of the student Basij accused Ebadi of remaining ‎silent to Israel’s attack in the Gaza strip, while the center had 2 days prior to the incident, ‎issues a statement condemning the violence in the Gaza strip and had called on the ‎international community and human rights groups to confront this disaster.‎
The assault by the Basij members lasted an hour during which one member threatened, ‎‎“We do not support a secure life for those who through Zionists policies desire to cover-‎up the crimes of the West.”‎
In response to these threats and multiple assaults by government agents and Basiji ‎members on to her house and law offices the day before, Shirin Ebadi criticized those ‎responsible for the attacks on the Center for the Defense of Human Rights and said, ‎‎“These pressures and threats are aimed at stopping the work of human rights activists.”‎
Regarding the view that the government was engaging in these measures as a way to ‎pressure Ebadi to leave the country, she said, “I can only say that until I am alive I shall ‎not leave the country under any circumstances. I am an Iranian and must live, work and ‎die in Iran.” She also vowed never to abandon her civic actions. “I have a message for ‎those who engage in violence which is that they will not get anywhere through these ‎actions,” Ebadi stressed.‎
Media assault on Ebadi heightened last December when she, along with other human ‎rights activists, launched the “National Peace Center”, in addition to her Center for the ‎Defense of Human Rights.‎
At that time, Iran’s state-run television launched a program titled “20:30” under the ‎direction of the political bureau of the radio and television network, and Keyhan pro-‎government newspaper launched a series of reports on her, which Ebadi characterized as ‎completely the “reverse”, both of which began a media assault on her labeling her to be a ‎‎“war-monger”. It should be noted that Keyhan daily which is under the management and ‎editorship of Hossein Shariatmadari who is a well-known prison interrogator and the ‎current representative of the leader of Iran in this newspaper, at the time wrote extremely ‎insulting pieces on Ebadi labeling her “the mercenary old woman”.‎
A few days prior to the attack on Shirin Ebadi’s house and offices, student Basij had ‎warned on its official website that it would destroy Ebadi’s “secure boundary”.‎