TEHRAN, 16 January 2005 — Iran’s Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi said yesterday she won’t obey a summons by the hard-line Revolutionary Court even though she could be arrested, a challenge to the powerful body that has tried and convicted many intellectuals. Ebadi, the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, received the summons Thursday.
“The manner in which the summons has been arranged is illegal. I won’t go to the court,” Ebadi told reporters. “A summons has to specify the reason. That a summons is issued for somebody without specifying the reason and subject is illegal.”
Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, one of three lawyers to represent Ebadi if she is charged, said the Revolutionary Court can arrest Ebadi for disregarding the order. Though a reason wasn’t specified, Dadkhah said she had been summoned to testify as a witness, not as an accused.
The summons was issued Wednesday, ordering her appearance within three days, which would be by yesterday. However, because she received the summons Thursday, Dadkhah said the deadline was today.
In Washington, the US State Department has warned it is watching the situation, with spokesman Richard Boucher saying Friday that arresting “proponents of moderation, pluralism, and political reform” violates international human rights standards.
“We will continue to follow closely the (Iranian) government’s actions against Ms. Ebadi and others,” Boucher added. Dadkhah, who co-founded the Center for Protecting Human Rights with Ebadi and several other lawyers, said Friday that his center does not recognize the Revolutionary Courts because “they are not mentioned in the constitution.”
Meanwhile, Ebadi’s memoirs will be published in the United States after a change in US regulations on publication of authors from embargoed countries, Random House said in New York on Friday. The US publisher said Ebadi’s book would “offer a vivid picture of the struggles of a woman whose spirit has remained strong in the face of political upheaval, persecution, and the challenges that women around the world face as they raise families and pursue their work.”
In another development, Iran has agreed to avoid setting a firm deadline for talks with the European Union on its nuclear program and could maintain its freeze of uranium enrichment activities until at least mid-year, a top official was quoted as saying yesterday. “We have reached an agreement with the Europeans not to threaten each other with a deadline,” senior nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian told the Kayhan newspaper.
The EU and Iran this week kicked off a fresh round of talks on a potentially lucrative trade pact after a deal clinched in November by the European bloc’s three most powerful members — Britain, France and Germany — for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment. The trade deal forms part of a package of possible incentives Iran could earn if the talks also manage to produce “objective guarantees” the country is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
