By Kayhan Life Staff
On Sept. 23, unknown persons carried out a grenade attack on a house in the Janbazan neighborhood of Sardasht, in West Azerbaijan, belonging to the father of Naskeh Afkhami, a human and women’s rights activist, Hengaw Organization for Human Rights reported.
Ms. Afkhami, 39, who lives in Switzerland, was among a group of rights activists who recently exposed the identity of a group allegedly responsible for abducting and raping girls and women in Sardasht.
A source close to Afkhami’s family reportedly said: “A person who did not identify themselves contacted Afkhami’s sister, asking her to pressure Naskeh to reveal the identity of her source who gave her information about the gang.”
A source close to the event has described the grenade attack as “unprecedented,” adding that it frightened Naskeh Afkhami’s elderly parents and caused substantial financial damage to their house.
Recently, several women’s rights activists in Sardasht, social media users, and the Instagram account of “feminists of Sardasht” have reported on an extortion gang that allegedly abducted girls and women and raped them on the town’s outskirts.
The alleged grenade attack on Afkhami’s father’s house occurred right after the news about the gang broke out.
The media outlets have published no further details about the gang.
The Instagram account of “feminists of Sardasht” has been taken down since the report came out.
According to activists familiar with the situation, although authorities know the men’s identities, and despite criminal complaints filed against them, they have not arrested the alleged culprits.
A social media user, Bahar Abbasi, on Sept. 23 tweeted: “Why do men who have raped many women and whose identities everyone knows roam the streets of Sardasht freely and rape girls and women?”
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