-----Original Message-----
From: martin@laurentides.net <martin@laurentides.net>
To: profem-l@postbox.anu.edu.au <profem-l@postbox.anu.edu.au>
Date: 28. desember 1997 16:08
Subject: ÆPROFEMÅ URGENT ACTION REQUEST: "There is no hope but us"
>Michele Landsberg asks me to pass on to PROFEM this extremely vital action
>request. She writes: "I'm frantic about this. Because I've sat with her,
>cried and looked
>into her eyes."
>Whether you are a Canadian or not, your FAXes to our government can help
>save Fateneh Fazelinasab from being returned to her sexist torturers.
Please
>FAX in today!
>
>Martin Dufresne
>Montreal Men Against Sexism
> PLEASE PASS ON TO ALLIES & FRIENDS
>_______________________________________________________________________
>Michele Landsberg's Toronto Star column for Sunday, December 28
>http://www.thestar.com/back_issues/ED19971228/news/971228A02_LANDSBERG28.ht
ml
>>From beneath her stiff green blindfold, Fateneh Fazelinasab, then age 25,
>could not see her torturers in the Evin jail in Tehran. She could only hear
>their voices --- taunting, threatening, brutal --- and the frighteningly
>loud music they played to charge up their courage for the job.
>
>They threatened to gang rape her so she would no longer be a virgin and
>they could legally execute her. They asked her to choose --- by feel ---
>which cable they should beat her with. And they taunted her beliefs,
>"played with my mind", she says.
>
>Isolated, terrified, afraid that no-one in the world knew where she was, or
>cared about her ideals of democracy and equality for women, Fateneh steeled
>herself to fend off the brainwashing. "The interrogators win," she said.
>"Sometimes, for just one terrible moment, you begin to believe that you
>have done something wrong by thinking differently from the
fundamentalists."
>
>That mental torment was terrible, but the physical agony was indescribable.
>When the first blow descended, the first of many, "the whole room crashed
in
>on me," Fateneh remembers.
>
>Fateneh, a student in laboratory science at the University of Tehran, had
>long supported the Mujaheddin (the leading resistance movement to the
>Iranian government) by speaking to other students and distributing
>pamphlets. Her cousin Kayvan, who was actually a member of the movement,
was
>captured and murdered by the regime in 1991 --- shortly after Fateneh
>learned that her boyfriend of four years, whom she hoped to marry, had
also
>been seized and killed.
>
>They kept Fateneh in jail for 13 months. The cell was tiny -one and a half
>metres square --- and four or five women crouched there, taking turns to
>sleep. There was constant tumult, shouts, instability, prisoners being
>dragged out and never seen again. The physical humiliations were so
profound
>that Fateneh can't speak them aloud. She sits straight, her intelligent
face
>set in pain. She composes herself in silence and wills away the brimming
tears.
>
>Fateneh was sexually tortured with electrodes. She would regain
>consciousness on the corridor floor, in agony. They also bound her ankles
>together to the point of excruciating pain, and then beat the soles until
>her feet were swollen to twice their size Then she was forced to march in
>place.
>
>Even worse: "When of us was not taken out for interrogation for two or
three
>weeks, we feared that our file was lost, that we would be forgotten there
>forever. We actually were glad when a guard called our name," she recalls
>bitterly.
>
>At the end of 13 months, Fateneh's father had scraped together a large
>enough bribe that a hasty court session ruled she could be let go "for lack
>of evidence". Released to her family, she saw them recoil in fear, not
>recognizing this puffy, haunted, filthy stranger as their daughter.
>
>Under strict surveillance and mounting pressure from the police to become
>an informer, Fateneh fled the city and hid with her mother's aunt in a
>remote village. She stayed in hiding for three years, until her family had
>found the money and a trustworthy connection to smuggle her out of Iran.
She
>walked for five hours over the mountains to Turkey, dressed in white to be
>less visible against the snow. A month later, in March of '96, she was at
>(Toronto's) Pearson airport, alone, with her suitcase, asking for refugee
>status.
>
>Fateneh learns English and women's studies at City Adult Learning Centre.
>She still wakes gasping from nightmares, jumps at certain voices on the
>street, gets thinner and thinner. Nevertheless, according to refugee
>volunteers, she has made tremendous progress since she arrived, shattered
>and lost.
>
>"I've seen refugees for 15 years," says Ali Gholipour, volunteer director
>of Vigil, a church-sponsored agency that helps refugees. "This case, I was
>sure, was impossible to reject."
>
>So I would have thought. Walking away from our interview, I was blinded by
>outraged tears. Canada has just ordered Fateneh deported to Iran by January
18.
>
>At her refugee hearing last winter, a hostile Refugee Board member, Jack
>Davis, dismissed her after only four contemptuous questions. He did not
>ask her about the torture, the bribe, the fear. He simply decided,
>arbitrarily, that she was "not credible" because, in his opinion, if the
>authorities really wanted to harm her, they could have tracked her to her
>great-aunt's house. Besides, if she were really afraid, why didn't she ask
>for refugee status in Turkey? (Fateneh knew that Turkey sends back more
>than half the Iranian refugees). He insisted she would not suffer "inhumane
>treatment" back in Iran.
>
>The hearing process is not meant to be adversarial; it is supposed to seek
>the dispassionate truth. Normally, a hearing may take up to two days;
>Fateneh was dismissed in half an hour. All those familiar with Fateneh's
>case believe that a terrible miscarriage of justice has occurred. "He
played
>with my mind," she recalls haltingly --- the same phrase she used for her
>Khomeini tormentors. Davis is no longer a member of the Board, but the harm
>he did lingers on.
>
>Canada is a signatory --- but evidently not much of an observer of --- the
>Convention Against Torture, which forbids sending a victim back to her
>torturers.
>
>Please, in this peaceful lull between Christmas and New Year, join me in
>pleading with Immigration Minister Lucienne Robillard to grant Fateneh
>Fazelinasab refugee status on compassionate grounds. Beg Health Minister
>Allan Rock and Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, as guardians of the public
>trust, to intercede strongly.
>
>There is no hope but us, and almost no time left to save Fateneh
>Fazelinasab's life.
>
>Fax Mme. Robillard at: 613-952-5533. Allan Rock: 613-952-1154. Lloyd
>Axworthy: 613-996-3443.
>
>Thank you.
>
>Michele Landsberg
>
>
>_________________________
>web: http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~gorkin/profem.html
>e-mail: owner-profem-l@coombs.anu.edu.au
(Sample letter)
Subject: Imminent deportation of Ms. Fateneh Fazelinasab
To: Ms. Lucienne Robillard, Minister
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Government of Canada
Ms. Robillard,
I am deeply concerned with the imminent deportation from Canada of a
woman who has been tortured and threatened with death in Iran.
Please look into your government's obligations in this matter and
don't let the shoddy treatment received by Ms. Fazelinasab further mar the
reputation of Canada as a country that offers relief to torture victims.
I include Michele Landsberg's moving testimony to the indignities
suffered by Ms. Fazelinasab, both in Iran and in Canada, and will be looking
forward to your letter explaining how your government plans to better
protect Ms. Fazelinasab's human rights.
Martin Dufresne
Montreal Men Against Sexism
(snail mail address)
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