A/HRC/34/40 35. In June 2016, Ms. Mohammadi, a prominent human rights activist who has been campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty and had been sentenced to 16 years’ imprisonment in May, went on hunger strike for 20 days to regain access to her children. In December, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian charity worker, whose detention was considered arbitrary by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in August 2016, 12 was reportedly pressured to choose between moving her 2-year-old daughter into prison with her for up to three days a week or signing a document indicating that she renounced to her right to be with her daughter.13 She was also reportedly detained in isolation for two months upon her arrest and on several occasions thereafter. C. Situation of women 36. The Government has still not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Law and practices discriminating against women and girls, notably with regard to marriage, divorce, child custody, freedom of movement, nationality, employment and access to political functions, have remained in force, with no initiatives to repeal or amend them. 37. A crackdown on women’s rights activists was observed in 2016. Several women who had been involved in the campaign for increased representation of women in the parliamentary elections in February 2016 were reportedly summoned for long, intensive interrogations by the Revolutionary Guard Corps, accused of espionage and threatened with imprisonment on charges related to national security. 14 Initiatives such as the website “Feminist school” and the campaign to change the masculine face of parliament, launched ahead of the parliamentary elections, came to a halt following pressure on women’s rights defenders. 38. In October 2016, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, a writer and human rights activist, started serving a six-year prison sentence on charges including “insulting Islamic sanctities” for writing an unpublished story about stoning. Together with her husband, Arash Sadeghi, she was initially taken to a secret detention place. She was later transferred to Evin prison under the control of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, where she was held for 20 days without access to her family, a lawyer or a court. She was reportedly subjected to long hours of interrogation while blindfolded and threatened with being sentenced to death. Her husband was reportedly subjected to torture by his interrogators. Ms. Ebrahimi Iraee was eventually released on bail in December, after her husband initiated a life-threatening hunger strike in protest against her imprisonment. In their comments on the present report, the authorities stated that Ms. Ebrahimi Iraee was on leave from 2 to 6 February 2017, but as she did not return on time, she was arrested 15 days later and returned to prison. 39. In November, Alieh Matlabzadeh, a photographer and women’s rights activist, was arrested on her return from a seminar on women’s empowerment in Georgia. 15 Twenty other women’s rights activists, who took part in the same seminar, were reportedly questioned by the Ministry of Intelligence. A few days later, Ms. Matlabzadeh was summoned to present herself for interrogation at Evin prison. At the time of writing the present report, she had been released on bail and no information was available on the charges brought against her. 40. Bahareh Hedayat, another women’s rights activist, was released in September 2016 after serving a five-year prison term. In an opinion issued in June 2016, the Working Group 12 13 14 15 See opinion No. 28/2016. See www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/iran-british-woman-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-pressured-jailor-give-daughter. Amnesty International, “Iran: women’s rights activists treated as ‘enemies of the state’ in renewed crackdown” 10 August 2016. Ms. Matlabzadeh worked for various publications, including Zanan (Women) magazine before it was banned. She is a member of the “One million signatures for gender equality” campaign and has actively protested against acid attacks on women. She also made a documentary entitled Let’s Not Forget Victims of Violence against Women in Society. 7