As profoundly ridiculous as the recent case of the seven young people tried in Tehran for singing and dancing to a pop song was (see the post entitled On the Will to Happiness), the case of Ghoncheh Ghavami is even more absurd and depressing.
For here we find a women's rights activist from Shepherd's Bush with a law degree from SOAS, languishing in an Iranian prison for over a hundred days and presently on hunger strike, for the "crime" of attending - or rather attempting to attend - a men's volley ball match at the Azadi stadium.
In Tehran primarily to visit family and friends and to work with a charity that teaches street urchins to read, 25-year-old Ms Ghavami fell victim to a law passed in 2012 which bans women from attending all major sporting events - not just volleyball - in order to protect them from the lewd behaviour of male spectators caught up in the excitement of the moment.
Although formally she has been charged with spreading propaganda against the Iranian regime (a charge that potentially carries a jail term of several years), Amnesty International is right to insist that what Ghoncheh is really being punished for is her peaceful attempt to highlight discrimination against women in Iran.
I wish there was something clever I could say here - a way to give the story a neat philosophical twist - but, as is increasingly the case, my heart's not in it. I simply want this young woman freed and allowed to come home as soon as possible. That, and the end of all forms of sexism, misogyny, and violence against women (particularly when institutionalized at state level and justified by religion).
