Iranian Resistance calls for a thorough investigation into the death of Dr. Zahra Baniameri

NCRI – Following the arrest and murder of Zahra Baniameri, a twenty-six-year old Tehran University medical school graduate by the State Security Forces (SSF), Ms. Sarvnaz Chitsaz, NCRI’s Women’s Committee Chair called on Ms. Yakin Ertürk, Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council on Violence against Women to conduct a thorough investigation into the murder. She added that her committee is willing and able to provide documents regarding the matter.

Ms. Chitsaz said, "All evidence show that the SSF misogynist agents murdered the young physician."

"Forty-eight hours after her arrest in a park in the western city of Hamedan, the mullahs’ local judiciary branch announced that Dr. Baniameri committed suicide while in police custody. Earlier, she was accused by the judicial authorities of so-called ‘evident crime’," Ms. Chitsaz further added.  However, there are credible reports indicting that Ms. Baniameri was tortured while in the SSF custody.

NRCI’s Women’s committee Chair reiterated, "This is not the first time the regime commits such crimes against women in its prisons. It is responsible for the executions of thousands of women activists, among them many members of the main Iranian opposition the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran."

In July 2003, Ms. Zahra Kazami, the Iranian-Canadian photojournalist was arrested while taking pictures of a demonstration by the families of political prisoners outside the notorious Evin Prison. She was murdered under torture by the regime. Shortly after her death, the officials brazenly announced that "she died of a head injury which might be caused by an accident."  

Ms. Chitsaz called on all international women’s rights organizations to condemn the increasing suppression of the Iranian women by the regime and support their sisters under oppression in Iran.  

Secretariat of National Council of Resistance of Iran
November 14, 2007