November 3rd, 2014

According to The Times of Israel:

A British-Iranian woman who was arrested in Tehran after trying to attend a volleyball match has been sentenced to one year in jail, her lawyer was reported as saying Sunday.

Ghoncheh Ghavami, a 25-year-old law graduate from London, who was detained in June at a Tehran stadium where Iran’s national volleyball team was to play Italy, went on trial last month.

“According to the verdict she was sentenced to one year,” her lawyer Alizadeh Tabatabaie was quoted in Iranian media as saying, noting that the judge had shown him the sentence.

But no reason was given for the conviction.

Iranian officials have said Ghavami was detained for security reasons unrelated to the volleyball match. So far she has been held in the capital’s notorious Evin Prison for 126 days.

The “Free Ghoncheh Ghavami” Facebook page where her friends and family campaigned for her release features photographs of her against the slogan: “Jailed for wanting to watch a volleyball match.”

An update on the page on Sunday appeared to corroborate the one year sentence but bemoaned the closed-doors legal process that has prevailed in the case.

“This morning Ghoncheh’s family and lawyer returned empty handed from branch 26 of Revolutionary court,” it said.

“It is not clear to her family and lawyer as to what the current legal basis of her detention is. A fair and just legal process according to Iran’s legal framework is the basic right of every Iranian citizen. Why are these rights not upheld in Ghoncheh’s case?”

Ghavami’s arrest came after female fans and even women journalists were told they would not be allowed to attend the volleyball match at Azadi (“Freedom” in Persian) stadium in the capital.

National police chief General Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam said it was “not yet in the public interest” for men and women to attend such events together. “The police are applying the law,” he said at the time.

Women are also banned from attending soccer matches in Iran, with officials saying this is to protect them from lewd behavior among male fans.

October 16th, 2014

Per BBC:

A 25-year-old British woman called Ghonchech Ghavemi is to go on trial in Iran for watching a men’s volleyball match. She has already been in jail for three months. And has been on hunger strike for 14 days now in protest.
Her brother, Iman Ghavami, told the Today programme that his mother, who recently visited her in prison, found Ms Ghavemi pale and weak and “under a lot of psychological stress”.

Click HERE to listen to the audio interview with Ghavemi’s brother.

According to this article:

“The FIVB has reacted as well. FIVB President Ary S. Graca has written a letter to the Iranian President Of State, Hassan Rouhani, and asked him to rethink the imprisonment of the young woman. Graca would be delighted if Iran applied to host the 2018 World Championship. A spokeswoman of the FIVB added that, in order to do so, the country would have to respect the values of the World Volleyball Federation, which includes women’s right to participate equally in this sport (volleyball).”

More News Articles:

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September 10th, 2014

Iran is achieving success in the ongoing FIVB World Championship but a female Iranian fan, Ghoncheh Ghavami, is taking over the news headlines.

Per independent.co.uk:

A British woman has been in an Iranian prison for more than two months for trying to watch a men’s volleyball match.

Ghoncheh Ghavami, 25, was arrested along with more than a dozen women as they tried to enter a stadium where the Iranian national men’s team was playing Italy on 20 June.

She was released from custody but when she went back to collect her belongings days later, she was arrested a second time and transferred to Tehran’s notorious Evin jail, which is known for holding political prisoners and journalists.

Miss Ghavami’s brother, 28-year-old Iman Ghavami, said she rang her family in tears saying she had been put in solitary confinement for 41 days.

“[The family] can barely hold themselves together,” he told ITV News.

“They are torn apart – not just my parents but my grandparents, my uncles, everybody.”

Miss Ghavami, a budding lawyer who studied in London, has dual Iranian and British nationality.

A Facebook campaign to free her has started, garnering almost 9,000 “likes” and lead to protests at other Iranian volleyball matches.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was “aware of reports” of her imprisonment and was looking into them but its diplomatic powers are limited in Iran.

She had been protesting with other female rights activists at the Azadi Stadium, which means “freedom”, against a ban on women watching male sports.

The law was introduced after the 1979 Islamic Revolution as mixed crowds enjoying games, where men are not considered fully dressed, was deemed un-Islamic.

“In the current conditions, the mixing of men and women in stadiums is not in the public interest,” said Iran’s head of police, Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam, according to the Fars news agency.

“The stance taken by religious scholars and the supreme leader remains unchanged, and as the enforcer of law, we cannot allow women to enter stadiums.”

The ban, which extends to female journalists, has been lifted in exceptional circumstances but hardliners have said it is needed to protect women from “lewd behaviour”.

Foreign women who have travelled to Iran to watch volleyball matches have been permitted inside venues in the past but only when displaying their passport.

Shahla Sherekat, the editor of a monthly women’s magazine Zanane Emrooz (Today’s Women) had published a report on the sports stadium law and was called before Iran’s Press Court after hardliners accused her of promoting feminism and un-Islamic values.

Human rights activists in Iran had hoped the election of moderate President Hassan Rouhani would lead to more liberal laws and moves towards equality but the religious establishment under Ayatollah Khomeini holds huge power.