Friday 16 September 2011

Iran: Female Blogger Receives 50 Lashes · Global Voices

Iran: Female Blogger Receives 50 Lashes

These are the words Iranian blogger Somayeh Tohidloo wrote [fa] in her blog after receiving 50 whip lashes in Evin Prison on September 14, 2011:

Be happy, for if you wanted to humiliate me, I confess that I feel my entire body is suffering with degradation.

Somayeh Tohidloo

Somayeh Tohidloo

Somayeh was active during the 2009 presidential election in the campaign for Mir Hussein Mousavi, and she was jailed for 70 days in 2009, after a mass protest movement erupted in Iran. She was released after paying bail, but the flogging sentence was eventually upheld.

Green City writes [fa]:

Here is Iran, where Somayeh Tohidloo, a PhD-graduate is lashed while a $3 billion dollar fraud [over a Lake Urmia] happens, and nothing is done to punish the fraudulent acts.

Gomnamian blog writes [fa]:

Somayeh was accused of insulting Ahmadinejad… I was appalled to see a human being lashed for writing a post about a criminal.

Azarmehr writes:

Today, Somayeh's facebook page was inundated with messages of support. Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former advisor to Khatami, wrote: “Everyone who knows Somayeh Tohidlou, regard her as a symbol of reasonableness, moderation and character. Today when I learned she had received 50 lashes for having insulted the ‘very respectable president', I felt it was the Iranian pride which had been flagellated and not Somayeh's body. Somayeh, you are the only one who has not been humiliated as a result of this sentence”

The Islamic Republic has jailed several bloggers in recent years. Omid Reza MirSayafi, an Iranian blogger, died in prison on March 18, 2009, under suspicious circumstances.