Hülya Gülbahar, president of the Association for Educating and Supporting Women Candidates (KA-DER), a nonprofit organization which works to increase the number of women in the Turkish Parliament, said the now present principle of equality between men and women has been removed from the draft. In addition, an affirmative action policy for women is not present, she said.

“Instead women are reduced to the status of needing to be protected

Last month Ms. Gulami’s home was surrounded by Ettelaat officers asking her to go with them. She had refused because there was not any order on officer’s hand. Days after Ms. Gulami herself attended to court to prevent any farther unlawful actions by Ettelaat.

Our latest information is that after twenty of disappearance, believed to be abducted by Iranian security agents, still there is no official information on Mrs. Qulami. Our reliable source has informed us that it was her wish to be defended both by Southern Azerbaijanis and by a named lawyer in the office of a centralist Iranian human rights office. Whilst Azerbaijanis are taking up her defence, after contacting the lawyer in complying with her wish, the lawyer’s response was to dismiss the case stating that “as long as this event has happened in Tebriz, let the lawyers in Tebriz to deal with the case.” It is common knowledge that the Iranian authorities do now even allow the prominent individuals, such Mr. Saleh Kamrani to appoint a lawyer.

Nearly three months ago Mr. Seferi was arrested by Iranian authorities in the Southern Azerbaijani city of Zengan and at the same time had succeeded to silence the victim’s brother and wife through threats and intimidation. The suspicion of friends and Southern Azerbaijani activists on the missing victim was verified when Mrs. Seferi was abducted in government premises approximately 10 days ago after being allured to visit her arbitrarily detained husband. Even now there is no official communiqué on their whereabouts.