IRAN - Jan 17 - Ebadi Calls For Abolishing Solitary Confinement.

Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi asks the Iranian judiciary to ban solitary confinement, calling it "illegal" both domestically and internationally. In a news conference after holding a seminar on the issue, the human rights activist said: I announce to the world that solitary confinement is (still) in use in Iran. I ask judicial officials to abolish the cells". Ebadi said holding prisoners in solitary confinement was psychological torture and that although it was illegal under domestic and international laws, it was still forced on pro-democracy activist in Iran. Ebadi, the first Iranian and Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, on Jan 16 refused to appear in a hard-line revolutionary court which had ordered her to attend or face arrest. She said she would defy the summons as a human rights violation case.

The US State Department said last week it was following Iran's actions against Ebadi and others, a comment which was considered by Tehran as an intervention in national affairs. "Human rights is an international issue and not a domestic one, the world has the right to speak about human rights in Iran as we have the right to express opinion about the situation Iraq and Palestine", Ebadi said in an interview the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper, published Jan 16. Ebadi said she was optimistic about the future of human rights in Iran. She said: Comparing it to the situation that prevailed in early 1980s, we can say it is better now and this makes me feel optimistic, despite problems such as religious and gender discrimination, lack of freedom of expression, democracy and children's rights". Ebadi was jailed for 25 days in 2000 after she defended the family of a victim of a police and hard-line vigilantes raid on a Tehran University dormitory the year before. She later co-founded the Center for Protecting Human Rights.