Change for Equality: The General Secretary of the Organization of Researchers and Scholars of Qom Seminary while claiming that discriminatory laws against women can be reformed, has condemned the sentence issued in the case of Delaram Ali.

In an interview with the site of the Campaign, Change for Equality, Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi claimed that the protest on 12th of June, 2006 in Hafte Tir Square was legal and emphasized that "according to the law, protests are legal as long as no one is armed and that their aim is not in contradiction to Sharia. As such, the protest organized by women’s rights activists which has been used as a justification for the issuing of prison and lashing sentences was not illegal."

Ayatollah Tabrizi went further to claim that the charge of "actions against national security" is a political strategy intended to discredit and explained that: "governments cannot charge citizens with this crime for the simple act of political and social activism. The charge of "actions against national security" has a specific definition and it is not right to accuse just anyone of these kinds of activities."

This religious scholar went further to explain that reform is possible with regard to all laws pertaining to women’s rights and emphasized that "we have many laws that address women’s status or even men’s status [in the Iranian legal code], which have to be reformed in accordance to current needs in order to come in line with and meet the needs of citizens. Concerning women, laws such as dieh (or compensation for bodily injury), inheritance, child custody, divorce and…can in fact be changed, and these reforms and changes are in no way in contradiction to Sharia law. In fact, many religious leaders and grand ayatollahs have issued Fatwas which seek to reform current laws."

Read the interview in its original Farsi