Ms. Vazehan is the first female political prisoner arrested during last year’s uprisings who has been sentenced to execution.
She was arrested along with two of her children on December 29, 2009, two days after the Ashura uprising, by the agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) who carried out a violent raid against her residence. She spent more than a month in solitary confinement under physical and psychological tortures meant to force her to agree to televised confessions. Her children also spent some time in solitary confinement to “confess” against their mother.
Ms. Vazehan’s uncle, Mr. Parviz Feyzi, was a political prisoner and PMOI supporter who was executed by the inhumane clerical regime in 1985 at the age of 30. Upon hearing the news of her brother’s execution from Asadollah Lajevardi, the warden of the notorious Evin Prison (also known as the “Butcher of Evin”), Ms. Vazehan’s mother suffered a heart attack and subsequently died.
Ms. Vazehan’s sister also spent four years in the Iranian regime’s torture chambers in the 1980s on charges of supporting the PMOI.
The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran calls on the United Nations Secretary General, the UN Security Council, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, all human rights organizations and women’s rights advocates to condemn the death sentences against political prisoners in Iran, particularly the sentence concerning Ms. Vazehan, and to enact urgent measures for her release.
Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
August 25, 2010