Mitra Kahrom was forced to endure extreme violence at the hands of a brutal husband whose crimes against Mitra are endorsed by a brutal and misogynist regime. Unable to tolerate life under such repression, Mitra went to the streets in protest against the Islamic Republic; she was identified and hunted by the regime. Subsequently, she fled to Sweden and has been openly and vocally active in organizations that oppose the Islamic Republic regime. Mitra has numerous grounds on which to claim asylum in Sweden. Despite this, the Swedish government wants to send her back to a place in hell where the flames burn hotter for women: the Swedish government wants to deport Mitra back to Iran. We at Mission Free Iran oppose the Swedish government’s illegal efforts to deport Mitra, and we ask that you join us in demanding Mitra’s right to asylum in Sweden. A sample letter-writing action appears below Mitra’s story, which appears in Farsi then English.
بگذارید از بی حقوقی اجتماعی و انسانی خودم به عنوان یک زن ایرانی در پناه قانون شرع اسلامی و فرهنگ آن برایتان بازگو کنم. من را هنگامی که هنوز نوجوانی بیشتر نبودم و مثل هر جوانی هزاران امید و آرزو داشتم به شوهر دادند. ازدواج کاملا سنتی بود و از پیش شوهرم را نمیشناختم. من هم مانند دختران دیگر به تن دادن به این ازدواج محکوم بودم. عجیب است؟ در ایران اسلام زده این اصلا عجیب نیست، و من هم مانند هزاران دختر دیگر که به ازدواج با مردی که نه میشناسند و نه می‌‌خواهند محکوم…..
اگر نمیدانستید بگذارید بگویم که زن بودن در ایران اسلام زده یعنی بردگی،یعنی کلفتی و موجودی که وجودش برای ارضای نیاز‌های دیگران ضرورت یافته و از خود اختیاری و استقلالی ندارد. به تمام اینها در موارد بسیاری مثل مورد من زیبایی طبیعی را هم باید افزود….زیبایی جرم است و زن زیبا به این دلیل هم مجازات میشود. در خارج از خانه میبایستی نگاهم را از زمین بر نمیداشتم، اگر مردی به من نگاهی می‌انداخت در جا مجازات میشدم. در داخل خانه اگر تنها بودم در را از بیرون قفل میکرد. حتی اجازه نداشتم به دیدن پدر و مادر و خانواده‌ام بروم و یا آنها را در خانه خود پزیرأیی کنم.
من آن هنگامی که بدنم زیر مشت و لگد له میشد و یا سگک کمربندش تنم را مهر میزد و یا زیر ضربات سیلیش خون بینی‌ام دیوار اتاق را رنگ میکرد جایی را برای پناهبردن به آن نداشتم.قانونی برای حمایت از من وجود نداشت.آن زمان هم که بالاخره به مقامات شکایت بردم ، گفتند که شوهرت است حق شرعی و قانونیش است ..حق دارد که ادبت بکند، اگر دوست نداری مهرت را به بخش و اگر راضی شد طلاق بگیر!
شاید بخش بزرگی از زنان دنیا، آنان که در کشور‌های اسلام زده مانند ایران زندگی میکنند عمق این درد را احساس بکنند وقتی که کودکانتان را میگیرند و به پدر زورگو و وحشی تحویل میدهند و می‌گویند اگر راضیش کردی اجازه دیدن کودکانت را خواهد داد و این بی عدالتی و این نا انسانی با اتّکا به قانون اساسی و فرهنگ ناشی از آن قانون زور و خشونت و وحشیگری…و من ۶ سال است که جگر گوشگانم را ندیده ام!
و من، میترا کهرم، زنی جوان ، مادر ۲ کودک، خورد و تحقیر شده در اوج بی حقوقی در سال ۲۰۰۹ به بهانه انتخابات به خیابان رفتم که رژیمی را که حامی و سرچشمه ظلم و زور بر علیه زن است به زیر بکشم. رژیمی که تجاوز می‌کند، دست و پا قطع می‌کند، دار میزند و سنگسار می‌کند. رژیمی که به دست کودکان سنگ میدهد که به سر زنی که تا سینهٔ در خاکش کرده‌اند بکوبد؛ رژیمی که کودکان را به میادین اعدام میبرد تا صندلی را از زیر پای آنکه از طناب دار آویخته اند بکشد…کودکان را …جگر گوشگان معصوم شما و من را!
من به عنوان یک زن در کشوری که قانون اساسیس، به تجاوز و زور و جرم مشروعیت میدهد و برای توسعه فرهنگ وحشیانه اسلامی میلیارد‌ها دلار پول مردم فقیر و گرسنه را، کودکان کار و خیابان را ، دختران و پسران رنگ باخته و رنجور خورد سال تنفروش را صرف تبلیغات کثیف اسلامی و گشت‌های عجیب و قریب لاک ناخن و موی سر و پوشش اسلامی می‌کند به خیابان رفتم که از حق خودم، از حق کودکانم، از حق ما و کودکانمان و برای جامعه شایسته انسان دفاع کنم و چه در ایران یا که در سوئد یک لحظه از مبارزه بر علیه این رژیم تبعیض و جهل و کثافت دست برنداشته ام، و دولت سوئد تصمیم به بازگرداندن من به آن جهنم را دارد.
Mitra Kahrom, as an Iranian woman, wants to tell you about her human and social rights which, under shari’a constitution and Islamic culture, have been violated.
Mitra was married when she was still a very young girl, with thousands of hopes and dreams. Yet she was already, as a woman like any other, condemned and found guilty. Do you know why? Because she was a woman. Being a woman in an Islamic-infested society means being a slave, a servant, a creature without any independence. As in many cases like Mitra’s, even her beauty was a crime – a crime for which she was fundamentally guilty: if she was looked at, she should be punished.
Mitra was not a free being. Outside the house, she was forced to look at the ground when walking. Inside the house, while home alone, she was locked in. The doors were opened only when her husband was home. Mitra didn’t even have a right to visit her parents and her family, or receive them at home. When Mitra’s body was bruised by kicks and punches, when angry red welts rose where his belt buckle lashed her flesh, when the blood sprayed from her nose and painted the walls as he slapped her face, she had no place to take refuge. There was not a law to defend her. When Mitra finally complained and explained the situation to others, she was told, “But he’s your husband! He has a right! If you don’t like it, you can forfeit your economic rights, and if your husband accepts it, you can divorce.” And these are the Constitution and the shari’a law in the Islamic Republic.
I ask women all over the world who might be a little bit acquainted with the problems of women like me in Islam-infested countries: How can a woman and a mother survive the soul-crushing agony of losing her children to a dictator, criminal husband, who is protected by a dictatorship and criminal Islamic constitution that tells you that if the father agrees, you can visit your children? I have not held my children in 6 long years. This is why, out of desperation, I went out to the streets in the aftermath of the elections in 2009, with the hope of overthrowing a regime that rapes, executes, stones… a regime that puts stones in the hands of children and encourages them to hit a woman buried to the chest in the dirt, that encourages a child to pull the chair from under the feet of a person to be hanged from the noose. This regime has a constitution that promotes all of these barbarities, and it has invested millions of dollars of hungry and deprived peoples’ resources to expand and deepen its culture of savagery, bloodshed and barbarity – and it is teaching all of this to my children too.
I went to the streets in 2009 to stop this.
PLEASE URGENTLY SEND THIS SAMPLE LETTER TO STOP THE SWEDISH GOVERNMENT’S ILLEGAL DEPORTATION OF IRANIAN ACTIVIST AND VICTIM OF GENDER-BASED OPPRESSION, MITRA KAHROM.
Dear friends: Mitra’s illegal deportation by the government of Sweden is scheduled for Friday, 2 September 2011. In Mitra’s case, not only would Mitra face persecution if returned to Iran because of her political activities inside and outside of Iran, but she would also face persecution because she is a woman: being subject to misogynist laws and a gender-apartheid state is fundamental persecution based on Mitra’s sex. She has a fundamental right to protection from both political and gender-based persecution. Please URGENTLY use the below as a sample letter to send your own letter of complaint to the Swedish government; relevant email addresses are below.
SAMPLE LETTER:
To Tobias Billström, Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy, Sweden, regarding Mitra Kahrom (case no. 11-461807):
I am writing to you to demand an immediate halt to the imminent deportation of Mitra Kahrom, an Iranian asylum-seeker who has sought refuge in Sweden from persecution by the Islamic Republic of Iran (case no. 11-461807).
Under the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mitra’s very femaleness constitutes a crime. Women in Iran are subjected to a crime against humanity known as gender apartheid. In Iran, there was no legal recourse for the brutal gender-based violence that Mitra suffered at her husband’s hands. And shari’a law has ensured that Mitra is so lacking in rights that she has not even been allowed to see or hold her beloved children for the past 6 years, because under the Islamic Republic regime, the father of the children has rights, while the mother has none.
In addition to being a member of a persecuted group in Iran, with a right to seek asylum on that basis, Mitra also has a political case. She actively participated in the 2009 post-election protests, and she was recognized; her picture was in the hands of security forces from Ministry of Information. In Iran, she was beaten, tortured, and forced to confess against herself and her friends. As soon as she could, she fled Iran for Sweden, where she continued to work actively against the Islamic Republic; she has the right to claim asylum on the basis of her sur place activism. In addition to being a Mission Free Iran activist, Mitra is a member of the Solidarity Council of the Iranian Freedom Fighters’ Front in Stockholm, and is in charge of public relations with television and radio stations in the United States as well as with local radio stations. All of her interviews are on YouTube, and her face is known to the Islamic Republic.
Some links to video clips featuring Mitra include the following:
http:// www. youtube.com/watch?v=fFJDMSg93_o
http:// www. youtube.com/watch?v=ebT2mC6m0y0As you well know, the Islamic Republic considers all Iranian political asylum-seekers to be criminals, deeming their quest for asylum as propagating against the regime. The Islamic Republic has on several occasions declared and applied its intent to prosecute returned political asylum-seekers, on the basis of Article 7 of the Islamic Republic’s Penal Code. Rahim Rostami, a teenaged Kurdish asylum-seeker returned to Iran by Norway and immediately imprisoned is one such example. Mitra Kahrom has sought political asylum abroad and therefore, under the Islamic Republic, is subject to prosecution by the regime.
It has also been documented during the recent attempted deportation of Peyman Najafi [1] that the Islamic Republic is keeping close surveillance on individual Iranian asylum-seekers abroad, publishing the names of Iranians seeking asylum abroad and anticipating their prosecution under Article 7 once they are returned to Iran by complicit governments.
It is illegal under international law for any country including Sweden to deport a person who has a legitimate fear of persecution in their home country. It is therefore undeniably illegal under international law for the Swedish government to participate in the crime of deporting Mitra Kahrom to Iran, where she will clearly and without a doubt face persecution for being a female, for participating in protest demonstrations in Iran, and for organizing against the Islamic Republic outside of Iran .
The Swedish government has repeatedly violated the rights of asylum-seekers. On September 3, 2010, in the case of R. c. v. Sweden (application no. 41827/07), the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg found that deporting an Iranian dissident to Iran would be a violation by the Swedish authorities of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Yet despite this finding, the Swedish government has continued without pause to illegally attempt to deport Iranian activists like Navid Mirpourzadih, Sanan Ashrafi, Marzieh Kamangar, Mehdi Maleki, Keivan Soufastaei, and others, all of whom are clearly and undeniably at risk not only of detention and torture by the Islamic Republic of Iran, but at unquestionable risk of execution.
We once again demand an urgent, immediate halt to Sweden’s latest attempt to illegally refoule Ms. Mitra Kahrom to Iran. She is at certain risk of persecution if returned to the Islamic Republic. Given the the Migration Office’s blatant, repeated violations of international law regarding refugee rights, risking the lives of Iranian and other asylum-seekers, we demand that Sweden must not only immediately halt the illegal deportation of Mitra Kahrom, but must immediately cease all deportations to Iran.
Sincerely,
[your name]
[1] 18 August 2011: Islamic Republic’s Media Follows Cases of Iranian Political Asylum-Seekers Abroad; Accuses Political Refugees of Propagation against the Regime (http://missionfreeiran.org/2011/08/18/islamic-republics-media-follows-cases-o...
SEND TO:
Tobias Billström, Swedish Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy and
Press Secretary Linda Norberg
Key emails:
migrationsverket@migrationsverket.se, registrator@foreign.ministry.se, guterres@unhcr.org, swest@unhcr.org, hq@iom.int, maja.kocijancic@ec.europa.eu
Swedish media:
71000@aftonbladet.se, anita.nasberg@ltz.se, arne.lindh@folkbladet.se, bjorn.hedensjo@dn.se, chefred@svd.se, christer.sandberg@folkbladet.se, elisabet.rydell-janson@ltz.se, ettan@aftonbladet.se, gefle.dagblad@gd.se, insandare@hallandsposten.se, jonathan.falck@gp.se, kundservice@svd.se, malin.perk@folkbladet.se, marta.magnuson@gp.se, redaktion.gt@gotlandstidningar.se, redaktion@gotlandsallehanda.se, redaktion@halsingekuriren.se, redaktion@kkuriren.se, redaktionen@hallandsposten.se, redaktionen@hd.se, redaktionen@tt.se, tips@expressen.se, per-anders.broberg@expressen.se, redaktionen@gt.se, redaktionen@kvp.seDecisionmakers:
jerzy.buzek@europarl.europa.eu, michael.spindelegger@bmeia.gv.at, kab.bz@diplobel.fed.be, info@mvp.gov.ba, iprd@mfa.government.bg, imprensa@itamaraty.gov.br, imprensa@planalto.gov.br, pm@pm.gc.ca, ministar@mvpei.hr, minforeign1@mfa.gov.cy, podatelna@mzv.cz, udenrigsministeren@um.dk, vminfo@vm.ee, umi@formin.fi, bernard.kouchner@diplomatie.gouv.fr, inform@mfa.gov.ge, guido.westerwelle@auswaertiges-amt.de, gpapandreou@parliament.gr, titkarsag.konz@kum.hu, external@utn.stjr.is, dcpf@mea.gov.in, minister@dfa.ie, gabinetto@cert.esteri.it, segreteria.frattini@esteri.it, mfa.cha@mfa.gov.lv, tonio.borg@gov.mt, secdep@mfa.md, post@mfa.no, DNZPC.Sekretariat@msz.gov.pl, pm@pm.gov.pt, msp@mfa.rs, ministry@mid.ru, miguel.moratinos@maec.es, beatriz.lorenzo@maec.es, registrator@foreign.ministry.se, info@eda.admin.ch, info@mfa.gov.tr, haguew@parliament.uk, stewartkb@state.gov
Wednesday 31 August 2011
Mitra Kahrom: Because She is a Woman. | URGENT: Stop the Illegal Deportation of Mitra Kahrom to the Misogynist Islamic Republic of Iran. | برای ایران آزاد mission free iran
