Atena Faraghdani, artist and civil activist, has been summoned to branch 15 of the revolution court. In her complaint she has protested sexual harassment by authorities in the Revolutionary Guard’s prison during her time behind bars through degrading body searches, stripping her in her cell, beatings and insults, violation of her private space in prison by placing closed circuit camera in the bathroom and showers, confiscation her personal items including her lap-top, tablet and the ear set of her telephone, and finally refusing to hand them back to her…
She also went on hunger strike for 20 days protesting not having access to a lawyer, being deprived of phone calls with her family and the continuing illegal detention in solitary confinement.
While being ordered to appear in the regime’s court on January 10, 2015, Faraghdani wrote in her Facebook page, “This time I will be sitting in the defendant chair with pride and I will read out my defense to a person who has maintained his position for over 25 years.
Khamenei, what you describe as propaganda against the state, I view as soothing men and women that have seen their children gunned down in 2009. What you describe as actions against national security and staging gatherings and collusion with a sinister sect, I describe as supporting men and women that have been deprived of their basic rights to higher education for the ‘crime’ of being Baha’i … If there is truly such a strength and security in your ‘Revolutionary Guards’, why didn’t you use them to arrest the murderers of the ‘Nedas, Sohrabs and Sattars’!!… Come and let us lean on our own trees, because tomorrow no one else will respond to our measures other than our own consciences before all those of our time who chose to remain silent. This in itself is a major and unforgivable crime.”
