Women’s rights activist Maryam Bahreman was arrested yesterday in Shiraz.
Kaleme website reports that Iranian security forces arrived with an arrest warrant at Bahreman’s home and spent three hours searching and confiscating books, documents and a computer before finally arresting her for “activities against national security.”
A few days earlier the activist had published a letter on her personal weblog, Yek varagh pareh digar, addressed to opposition leader MirHosein Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard.
The opposition has started a letter-writing campaign to Mousavi and Rahnavard, who have been under house arrest since February for rallying protesters to march in solidarity with the recent Arab uprisings.
Bahreman wrote to the opposition leaders: “For sure these bitter days will also pass.”
Bahreman indicates that she writes in order “to protest the house arrest of Mousavi and Rahnavard and to join the symbolic movement that praises the resistance put up by the two leaders after the ominous coup.”
The opposition refers to the events that followed the 2009 presidential elections as a “coup d’etat” and maintains that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gained his second presidential term through vote fraud.
On Wednesday, another women’s rights activist, Mahboubeh Karami, received a summons from Evin Prison. Reports indicate that she has been called to serve out her three-year sentence.
Karami was sentenced to four years in jail for “membership in the Human Rights Activists of Iran organization, propaganda activities against the regime, assembly and collusion with an attempt to commit crimes against national security and publishing falsehoods.” The sentence was later reduced to three years in the appellate court.
Karami was arrested in March of 2009 and released on a $500,000 bail after 170 days in jail.
