The Mourning Mothers are a group of Iranian women whose spouses or children were killed by government agents in the protests following the disputed Iranian presidential election of 2009.[1] The principal demand of the Mourning Mothers is government accountability for the deaths, arrests, and disappearances of their children.[2] The mothers meet on Saturdays in Laleh Park in Tehran, and are often chased by the police and arrested.[1]
The Mourning Mothers have called for the revocation of death sentences for political prisoners, the release of prisoners of conscience, and trials of "those who were responsible for and who ordered their children's murders." [3]
On January 9, 2010, more than thirty Mourning Mothers were arrested by security agents at Laleh Park. According to eyewitnesses, the mothers were attacked by over 100 police and plainclothes agents, who violently forced the mothers into police vans.[2] These arrests were widely condemned by human rights organizations.[3] The mothers were released from prison on January 14, 2009.[4]
Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi urged women around the world to show solidarity with the Mourning Mothers by wearing black and meeting in neighborhood parks on Saturdays from 7 to 8 pm.[5]