Bahareh Hedayat


Bahareh Hedayat is an Iranian student activist and campaigner for women's rights. She was arrested on July 9, 2007, and on August 9, 2007 but released on bail. She was again arrested and released in 2008, and in 2010 was sentenced to nine and a half years' imprisonment for anti-state propaganda.

Life

Hedayat is a founding member of a petition for women's rights in Iran known as the "One Million Signatures campaign".
She graduated from the University of Economic Sciences in Tehran. She was a student at the University of Tehran in the School of Economics.
On June 14, 2016, the United Nation’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an opinion demanding Hedayat's immediate release, her imprisonment since 2009 being arbitrary and against international law. Hedayat experienced severe negligence and was denied access to her medical needs at various times throughout her imprisonment. She was also on occasion denied family visits and phone calls. During her time in prison, Hedayat translated Dave Eggers book The Circle and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas from English to Persian all by hand and with the help of a dictionary.
In 2012 Hedayat was awarded with the Edelstam Prize for outstanding contributions and exceptional courage in standing up for one’s beliefs in the defense of Human Rights.
On 10 February 2020, Bahareh was arrested by Tehran University security police. She was later taken to Qarchak prison. There she started a hunger strike.