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Finally Iranian authorities confirmed the arrest of Iranian-American citizen, Esha Momeni.
On Monday October 27th, Hassan Ghashgaee, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, in a press conferences in Tehran officially stated: "relevant divisions are processing this arrest, however the final report has not been sent out to the Foreign Ministry yet. "
This statement was released, while in the past 12 days following Esha Momenni’s arrest, none of Iran’s officials had confirmed her arrest.
Esha Momeni, a graduate student at California State University-Northridge and a volunteer of the One Million Signatures Campaign, was arrested on October 15 in Tehran for traffic violation while driving and was later transferred to Section 209 of Evin Prison.
Ms. Momeni was in Iran working on her academic research about Women’s Rights.
In an interview with BBC Persian, Reza Momeni, Esha’s father, explained that after 12 days he still does not know her daughter’s alleged charges and her whereabouts.
Last week, US States Department spokesperson stated that his department is following the matter and is seeking more information regarding the arrest of the US citizen.
Dr. Melissa Wall, Chairperson of Esha's Master's thesis committee stated that Esha was aware of the probable risks. Dr. Wall said, “ We talked about the probable risks of her working in Iran. But at the end it was her decision to go ahead with the project. She was interested in showing a more realistic and comprehensive view of Iranian women to Americans.”
Recently, the pressure has increased on members of the One Million Signatures Campaign.
Amnesty International, in a related report, published an article that indicates, after Esha’s arrest police searched her family's home in Tehran and confiscated her computer and her research notes. Women’s rights activists say that the Iranian government has increased its pressure on The One Million Signatures Campaign and its activists in recent months.
Recently, Ms. Sussan Tahmasbi, another member of this campaign, was prohibited from traveling in Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport. Ms. Tahmasbi was on her way to the United States.
The One Million Signatures Campaign, which was officially launched on August 27 2006, is a campaign [not an Organization] initiated by Iranian women's rights activists in Iran. It aims to collect one million signatures to demand changes to the discriminatory laws against women in Iran.
Last year, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejehei, the current head of the Ministry of Intelligence in Iran, accused women’s rights activists of assisting and helping the non-violent [soft] revolution. However the women’s rights activists deny such accusations and do not agree with this interpretation of their activities; they maintain that they, as group of volunteers, seek to secure equal rights in such laws as marriage, inheritance and women’s credibility as a witness.
The founders of the campaign believe that Iran’s constitution is unfair and discriminatory towards women and it is also in contrast with the Human’s Rights Convention and Iran’s international commitments. [Iran is a signatory to the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights and as such, is required to eliminate all forms of discrimination.]
By collecting at least one million signatures the activists and volunteers of the Campaign hope to encourage the Iranian governmental officials to revise, change and correct the discriminatory regulations against women.
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