Months after Ghoncheh Ghavami, a British-Iranian 25-year-old, was arrested in Iran after attempting to attend a men’s volleyball game, her brother has flown to New York to try and bring attention to her plight. Ghavami, who was arrested on June 20 in Tehran, has just been charged with “propaganda against the regime,” her brother, Iman, told VF Daily.

“Ghoncheh also said that they have sent her case to the Revolutionary Court, and that the charge is propaganda against the regime,” Ghavami said during an interview in New York. “That’s all she knows at the moment.”

Iman hopes that his presence in the city during the United Nations General Assembly can lift the profile of his sister’s detention. He says his sister has not been allowed to see a lawyer for the duration of her time in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, and that pleas to officials at many levels of the Iranian government have gone without reply.

The United Kingdom’s Foreign Office released a read-out of Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond’s Monday meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister Javid Zarif, in which Hammond claims to have raised Ghoncheh’s case with his Iranian counterpart. “We discussed bilateral relations and reaffirmed our commitment to reopen our Embassies once the necessary practical arrangements can be made,” Hammond’s statement reads. “I also raised the U.K.’s continuing concerns about Iran’s approach to human rights, in particular the treatment of a number of British-Iranian dual nationals detained in Iran, including Ghoncheh Ghavami.”

Iman has started a petition and is doing a string of interviews in the hopes that international attention can bring some clarity to his sister’s situation. A Change.org petition he started has more than 240,000 signatures at the time of this writing, and Iman was pleased to see his sister’s name in the foreign secretary’s statement.

He also noted that U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani were meeting on Wednesday, and hoped Cameron would raise the issue with the Iranian leader. “They are the politicians and diplomats—they know how to resolve these issues,” Ghavami said.

“I also personally flew here to New York to see if I could take just a few moments of Mr. Rouhani’s time, and let him know what’s happening to my sister, and what my family is suffering through,” Ghavami said, noting that his families letters to Rouhani’s office have yet to receive a reply.

Women are banned from attending some sporting events—including soccer matches—in Iran. Some accounts of Ghoncheh’s case, including one by Amnesty International, place her as part of a group of dozens of protesters outside of the stadium. Her brother denied those reports, and insists that neither his sister nor anyone in his family “has ever had political tendencies.”

Ghavami said his parents—who are in Iran and have been able to occasionally see Ghoncheh—do not understand exactly what their daughter has been charged with. “She just wanted to watch a volleyball match, and that was something that President Rouhani had publicly lobbied for, and he was in the newspapers advocating for attendance the same day my sister went to the match,” Iman said. “The general feeling was that this whole thing was resolved, and that women could get into the stadium. The International Volleyball Federation had come to an agreement with Iran about this issue. But, again, we don’t understand how attending a match could be propaganda against the regime.”

Ghoncheh, a dual national of the U.K. and Iran, had been living in London for the past six years. She holds a degree in law from SOAS, University of London, and was born in Iran. Iman said his sister had booked airfare to Germany, where she was due to attend a friend’s wedding, for the week after her arrest.

Ghoncheh was arrested on June 20 and questioned for hours after trying to watch the Iran-Italy volleyball at Azadi (or “freedom”) Stadium. She was released, but again arrested after authorities learned she was a dual citizen. Ghavami was held in solitary confinement and repeatedly interrogated, all while a court repeatedly extended her “temporary detention” status. According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, such periods are “an egregious denial of due process and a serious human rights violation,” and often result in the extraction of “confessions” that are later used in court as proof of wrongdoing.

Iman said his parents were incredibly concerned because, for the first time, the prison had cancelled a planned visitation. The last time Ghoncheh’s parents saw her, Iman said, she was “distressed” because she “had been getting the impression that she would be there for a long time.”

“Her spirit was still there, and she’s not broken, but she’s feeling a lot of pressure,” Iman said.

President Rouhani met with a number of American journalists and editors on Monday. They pressed him about the case of Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter who, along with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, has been detained in Iran. Rouhani said he was “quite optimistic” that the conservative Iranian court would resolve Rezaian’s case, but did not say he could, or would, personally intervene.

Jon Stewart’s film Rosewater, opening November 7, chronicles the detention of Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-American journalist who covered anti-Ahmadinejad protests for Newsweek. The film promises to focus international attention on Iran’s detention policies.

Rouhani is seen as a moderate, and has at times clashed with the more conservative parliament and court in Iran. His office does not control the intelligence ministry, the Revolutionary Guard, or the revolutionary courts.

While specific numbers are hard to come by, Human Rights Watch believes there are “hundreds” of political prisoners in Iran (the group defines “political prisoners” as those who are “imprisoned for exercising their right to free speech or religion, or for their peaceful political activities”). Iran’s judiciary claims it does not hold any political prisoners, instead referring to such detainees as “national security” cases.

When asked if he felt Rouhani had power over his sister’s case, Iman said he believed Rouhani’s position would have an impact. “My parents, they have tried every possible option in the past three months,” he said. “I’m sure that Mr. Rouhani is more powerful than they are, and I really hope that he can use that power to do whatever he can.”

Iman also made sure to insist that his family’s case is not a political issue, and should not play any part in negotiations between Iran and the United States, who are working toward a deal on nuclear energy in Iran. “All we want is to bring her back home,” Iman said. “Ghoncheh’s story is not a political one, it is just a sad, human one. My sister’s case is purely a human case.”

 

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/09/ghoncheh-ghavami-family-iranian-woman-jailed