By Nora Boustany
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 29, 2008; A12

Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace laureate, said yesterday that authorities in Tehran have promised to investigate death threats she received this month.

"Before, each time I was threatened and I informed them, they turned a deaf ear," she said in an interview during a visit to Washington. "This time, they came to investigate. They asked a lot of questions." She added: "No visible results yet."

Ebadi, who has gained international acclaim for her work on behalf of dissidents, women and victims of human rights abuses, is a controversial figure in Iran. She was one of the country's first female judges until fundamentalist Islamist revolutionaries took power in 1979 and limited women's roles in public life. Since then, Ebadi has worked as a lawyer and human rights advocate.

"Those who threaten me are those who oppose my opinions and hate my mentality," she said, appearing unperturbed by what she described as an intensified campaign to intimidate her in recent weeks. "I don't have a financial dispute with anyone. I always defend those whose rights have been violated pro bono."

Ebadi said she has no idea who is responsible for the death threats against her. One note left behind her office door on April 2 said "Your death is near." Another, which appeared a few days later, warned her to "watch her tongue."

Ebadi reported the incidents to police in Tehran. "It is the duty of the police to keep the security of all, and I brought this to their attention because it is up to them to provide the security of intellectuals and all Iranians." she said. Ebadi shared a letter she wrote to the police department with Iranian news outlets. Only one local newspaper carried the letter.

One case of the sort that riles her critics concerns the killing of Zahra Bani Yacoub, a 27-year-old doctor, in Hamadan, 190 miles southwest of Tehran. Six months ago, as she was speaking with her fiance in a public park, Bani Yacoub was detained by members of a volunteer militia, known as the Basij, that helps to enforce a strict interpretation of Islamic law in Iran.

She was handed over to the morals police and jailed separately from her fiance, Ebadi said. When Bani Yacoub's family went to check on her two days later, they were presented with her corpse and official explanations that she had committed suicide.

"This was just an act," Ebadi said. "At the claimed time of suicide she was talking to her brother by cellphone."

"Where in the world does someone . . . end up dead for just speaking to her fiance in a park?" she asked.

Ebadi is representing the Bani Yacoub family in a lawsuit against the director of the prison and the Basij volunteers, whose names she cannot reveal in keeping with Iranian law.

Ebadi said she did not vote in Iran's recent elections because her ballot could have served to legitimize and confirm a government overseen by clerics. But Ebadi also observed that when satellite-dish raids are carried out, residents reinstall them soon after. "No one denies that the clergy are still influential, but this also means that technology has won over censorship," she said.