Two Iranians in this year's Hellman-Hammett award list

Parvin Ardalan

Two Iranian writers, Parvin Ardalan and Azin Izadifar are amongst the recipients of Human Rights Watch's Hellman-Hammett award this year.

Human Rights Watch announced that 42 people from 20 different countries received the Hellman-Hammett award this year.

Human Rights Watch awards the Hellman/Hammett award every year since 1990 to writers who are targeted for expressing views that their government oppose, for criticizing government officials or actions, or for writing about things that their government do not want to come to light.

Parvin Ardalan is an Iranian writer, journalist and women’s rights activist who has been arrested and prosecuted in Iran for her writings.

She is the editor-in-chief of Tribon-e Feministi Iran site and also active in Zanestan and Change for Equality websites.

She is a member of Iran's Women’s Cultural Centre and a co-founder of the One Million Signatures Campaign to end discriminatory laws.

She won the award for the best investigative reporter in Iran’s Sixth Media Festival in 1999 and in 2007, she was awarded Sweden’s Olaf Palme prize for her human rights activism.

Last year, following the crackdown on protesters of the alleged fraud in the presidential elections of June 2009, Ardalan left Iran and currently resides in Sweden.

Azin Izadifar, the other Iranian recipient of the Hellman-Hammett award, left Iran in 2006 after Iranian security forces raided her home and she has cooperated with Amnesty International since. Izadifar, was arrested at the age of 16 and sentenced to three years in prison by the Islamic Republic.

Human Rights Watch reports that over the years she has written four books, 19 articles, and hundreds of poems, all unpublished.

She is currently residing in California and in the process of writing her childhood memoirs.