INTERNATIONAL PEN WOMEN'S DAY- MARCH 8, 2003 Impunity and Freedom of Expression

Four years ago, writers and secular activists Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar were murdered in their house in Tehran. Dariush was stabbed 12 times; Parvaneh, 23 times.

Parvaneh and Dariush had been married for nearly 45 years. They met in their teens at Tehran University gatherings and joined in a lifelong struggle against dictatorship. Dariush had been imprisoned on and off under the Shah and then again after the revolution. Parvaneh, an outspoken critic of the clergy's oppression of women, had been actively involved in human rights issues.

Parvaneh, in particular, was a vocal proponent of freedom of expression. Her poetry often directly served her commitment to expanding freedom expression of all voices in contemporary Iran, as in these lines from Rights:

Let us clear this dark trail
with the chimes of our hearts.
Let us put aside our sorrows
and wash the tombstones of our companions
with our own blood.
Let us sing the song of life
in the path of freedom in Iran.

Even after election of reformer Mohammad Khatami to the Presidency in 1997, Iranian authorities frequently placed restrictions on the couple's activities and kept them under close surveillance. Their telephone was monitored and visitors to their house were shadowed. This harassment was part of that widespread state repression of prominent dissidents whose activism following Khatami's election had attracted the attention of conservative forces.

In spite of the harassment, the Forouhars were among a small number of opposition activists who chose to remain in Iran while continuing to criticize government policies. Under difficult circumstances, the Forouhars prepared and distributed a weekly human rights bulletin to journalists and human rights organizations around the world. They gave interviews to international radio stations broadcasting to Iran about human rights issues. Parvaneh once remarked about the acute sense insecurity that accompanied their work, saying that at the end of every day they thanked God for granting them another day to live.

Parvaneh and Dariush were murdered on November 22, 1998. Investigations into these killings and the murders of other intellectuals and dissidents that same year were fitful, but in late 2000, hopes for justice rose with the trial of the presumed killers. Eighteen members of the Iranian intelligence stood trial before a military court. In January 2001, three of the defendants were sentenced to death and two to life imprisonment. However, human rights groups charged that the trial and verdicts stopped short of a full resolution of the killings. They pointed to the secrecy of the proceedings, the inability to determine if the judgments were based on facts and, perhaps most importantly, the refusal to hear testimony that would have implicated the then-Minister of Intelligence in ordering the killings.

In a 2001 interview, the Forouhar's son, Arash, said that his parents had done nothing wrong throughout their lives, except to stand by the people and protect freedom. He added, "Despite all the imprisonments, injustices and name calling, they never stopped their fight for the cause of justice and liberty in Iran."

Arash recalled the day of their murder. "Hundreds carried out the stabbed bodies of my parents… I know that they will forever live in the minds and hearts of all Iranians. And I know those who killed them will one day have to answer like all others who commit injustice. That day will not be far."

Photo above courtesy of www.iranian.com