Shima Babaei (Death Threats)
Ms. Shima Baba’i was born in Sari, Mazandaran Province, in 1994. She is married, and is an activist for civil rights and women’s rights. In Iran, Ms. Baba’i was active in the areas of human rights, appeals for justice, women’s rights, and opposition to executions, and she wrote about these activities in her online pages. Because of these activities, the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arrested her in May 2016, and detained her for interrogation for a few days in Security Ward 2A. After she was freed on bail in 2016, Ms. Baba’i was expelled from university, where she was studying architecture. Starting in 2017, she was active in the “White Wednesdays” campaign against the law of compulsory hijab, and she was one of the first women in this campaign to be arrested by the Tehran Morality Police, on August 19, 2017. During court proceedings on May 26, 2018, at Branch 1090 of the Guidance Court of Tehran, she was charged with “attempting to appear in public without hijab” and “publishing obscene material in cyber space.” She was sentenced to prison and to pay a monetary fine.
On February 1, 2018, Ms. Baba’i and her husband were arrested in Behbahan, at the family home of her husband Mr. Dariush Zand, on the charge of “acting to overthrow [the regime] during the Dahe-ye Fajr [period].” They were detained and interrogated for a month, and they were forced to confess on camera in solitary confinement in Ward 209 of Evin Prison, after which they were released on bail. This time, she was dismissed from her place of work. In 2018, after being threatened with summons several times and finding out that there had been a new file opened on her containing the potentially capital charges of espionage and blasphemy, she and her husband Mr. Zand, who is also a social activist and who had been arrested in December 2017, were forced to flee to Turkey, where she resumed her activities.
Ms. Baba’i describes her social activities in Iran: “I would visit mothers who were seeking justice and families of people who had been killed in the demonstrations, I would participate in protest gatherings, and I would write about these in my online pages. I was also active in [the campaign] “No to Execution”. Soon after, I ended up in security organisations and I was detained several times for short periods. In May 2016, I was arrested for the first time by Revolutionary Guards Intelligence and I was taken to Security Ward 2A in Evin Prison. They kept me in solitary confinement for 8 days and they interrogated me for long periods, every day. At the time I was 21 and they accused me of many things such as propaganda against the regime and insulting the leadership. I was temporarily released on bail. After I was freed, not only did I not keep silent, but I joined activities for women’s rights. I participated in the White Wednesdays Campaign against compulsory hijab. A short while later I was arrested by the Moral Security Police. One time when I was summoned for interrogation, my father came with me for support. He was beaten and arrested. He was charged with insulting the agent who had insulted me, and he was sentenced to 74 lashes. I was sentenced to imprisonment and a monetary fine. But I continued my activities. In December 2017, I participated in countrywide protests alongside my husband. He was arrested on December 30, 2017. I was severely beaten on the street and I was pepper sprayed in the eyes. They beat my husband and took him with them. A few days later he was freed on bail. Two weeks after that, when we went to Khuzestan to make plans for our wedding, we were arrested and brought back to Tehran. I spent one month in a solitary cell in Evin Prison, Ward 209. After interrogation, psychological torture, and forced confession in front of a camera, we were released on bail. After our release, the threats and the summons began. Every time they had an excuse to summon us and threaten us in relation to our activities. After being released in 2016, I was expelled from university, and this time I was dismissed from work. I was also barred from leaving the country. So basically, I could not study, I could not work, and I could not leave the country. Even after all of this, I was not discouraged and I continued my activities. After a while, I found out through my lawyer that they were building a new case, charging me with espionage and blasphemy. At that point we were forced to flee to Turkey with smugglers and on foot.”
In Turkey, she continued her online activities. She was especially active in disseminating news about suppression and killings by the Islamic Republic, and in accurately reporting about the victims of the October 2019 protests. Security organisations of the Islamic Republic threatened her in relation to these activities. According to her, her family was contacted by the Evin Prosecutor’s Office and by the Information Ministry and threatened because of her activities. She received many threatening messages through social media networks. They would threaten to abduct her or to kill her. Ms. Baba’i comments on these threats, “I was continuously intimidated on social networks, and it was widespread! One time, a person who was wearing a Basij uniform, had covered their face, and was carrying a military Kalashnikov, obviously filming on a military base, was threatening to kill me, and was saying, ‘Protesters will not dare to come to the streets anymore!’ In the beginning I didn’t take these threats seriously, but after a while, as the volume increased, I began to feel the danger. One time a news item was published on different unknown sites, saying the Islamic Republic had fatally shot me. My family had seen these and they were very worried about me. One time when my husband’s family members were going to travel to Turkey to see us, they were arrested at the border and interrogated by the security forces. They found our address on a family member’s phone and told them, ‘Tell your son and daughter-in-law to shut up, otherwise we will have Interpol police return them to Iran.’” Ms. Baba’i lived in the city of Van in Turkey. She didn’t leave the house because of the proximity of this city to Iran and because the police refused to move her to a safer location. Due to these threats, Ms. Baba’i eventually received a humanitarian visa from the government of Belgium and was transferred to Belgium with her husband Mr. Zand.
Ms. Baba’i’s father, Mr. Ebrahim Baba’i, was a political activist and a former political prisoner. He was wanted by the security forces and he lived in hiding in Iran. In January 2022, when he was secretly trying to leave Iran, he was abducted by the Iranian security forces in a border village and his whereabouts remain unknown to this day. According to Ms. Baba’i, after her father was abducted, some people contacted her, saying they were smugglers, and told her that her father had passed away in a border village in Turkey. They asked her to go to this village, which is close to Iran, in order to collect her father’s body. Through a Turkish lawyer who was following up on her father’s situation, she was able to ascertain that nobody in that border village knew about her father, and that the message from the smugglers was a ruse to lure her to the border region, so that they could take her back to Iran.
Mr. Ebrahim Baba’i had a history of political and student activities and he had been in prison for several years. When Ms. Baba’i had been summoned by the security police, he had objected to the disrespect shown by the officer towards his daughter. Subsequently, he had been charged with “disrespecting a government official” and had been sentenced to 74 lashes. Previously, during his imprisonment in Evin Prison, he had been given a five-year suspended sentence. With this sentence, his previous sentence would be reactivated, so he was living in hiding in Iran and he was going to secretly leave Iran. At the time of the compilation of this report, there is no news of Mr. Baba’i and his name is included in Amnesty International’s list of “Enforced disappearances.”
Shima Baba’i continues to oppose the Islamic Republic Government and comments, “I do not feel completely safe here in Belgium, either, but I have a duty to continue my activities in order to achieve my goal which is the freedom of Iran.”
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Sources:
Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran interview with Shima Baba’i, March 13, 2023;
Voice of America interview with Shima Baba’i, January 2, 2022;
Radio Farda report on the abduction of Ebrahim Baba’i and the plot devised by the Islamic Republic to lure Shima Baba’i to the Turkish border, January 2022;
BBC Farsi report on the abduction of Ebrahim Baba’i, January 2022;
Center for Human Rights in Iran, June 6, 2018;
Amnesty International Statement, May 5, 2022.