Efforts are underway to pressure the Iranian authorities to release Canadian academic Homa Hoodfar, who is being held in Tehran’s Evin prison after being arrested on baseless charges while in the country.
An anthropologist and professor at Montreal’s Concordia University, Hoodfar, 65, is a world renowned expert on sexuality and gender in Islam.
She now faces charges of “sedition against the state”, or of "co-operating with a foreign state against the Islamic Republic of Iran." Prosecutors have yet to present any evidence to support the charges since she was arrested for a second time in early June.
In an ordeal that dates back to March, Hoodfar was first detained by a counter-intelligence unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards days before she was scheduled to return to Canada. After having her passport confiscated she was subjected to interrogation.
Professor Hoodfar's family and close colleagues are leading a campaign to free her, which has garnered tremendous support from Education International (EI), its affiliate the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), and activist organisation Labour Start.
In a letter addressed to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayed `Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani, EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen asks that the charges be reconsidered.
“We are of the view that Professor Hoodfar’s detention represents infringements of various international human rights’ conventions and the right to academic freedom. Education International has informed the Director General of UNESCO on this matter,” wrote van Leeuwen. “Education International invites the Iranian authorities to consider the immediate and unconditional release of Professor Homa Hoodfar, and to respect fully the fundamental rights of all teachers and citizens.”
Since arriving at Concordia University in 1991, Hoodfar has become a pillar of its Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Popular with her students, she is an admired teacher and a widely sought-after supervisor.
To join the more than 2,000 signatories of the CAUT petition calling for Hoodfar’s release and right to return to Canada, please click here.