Canadian professor Homa Hoodfar, imprisoned in Iran, still not allowed contact with family, lawyer
Canadian professor Homa Hoodfar, imprisoned in Iran, still not allowed contact with family, lawyer – Homa Hoodfar, the Concordia University professor …
Homa Hoodfar, the Concordia University professor seized in Iran, has disappeared into Evin prison. Her family and her lawyer have been refused all contact in the two weeks since she was suddenly arrested in Tehran.
“We have heard she’s been detained in a specific branch of Evin prison — Branch 2A, which is under the control of the counter-intelligence unit of the (Iran’s) Revolutionary Guards,” says her niece, Amanda Ghahremani speaking to CBC from Montreal.
“Other than that we have no details of her arrest or detention.”
Hoodfar, a professor of anthropology, with Iranian and Canadian passports, was on a mostly private visit to Iran to see friends and to do some research into women in the public sphere. She has a long academic career in gender issues, much of it in majority Muslim countries.
She was first visited by the intelligence unit of Iran’s
Revolutionary Guards in March, at her apartment in Tehran, where they seized a computer, her phone, and her passport; she was forbidden to leave Iran. On June 6, during another interrogation, she was arrested.
Her niece says in spite of no official charges, and no access to her file, details about Hoodfar and the charges against her are being leaked to conservative Iranian media with links to the Revolutionary Guard.
Iran Briefing | News Press Focus on Human Rights Violation by IRGC, Iran Human Rights