Shadi Amin

On April 17, 2018, after a trial lasting seven days, Toronto Deputy Judge Christopher Ashby ruled in a 26 page decision that he had “no hesitation” in finding that the web postings, Facebook posts and emails were legally defamatory, and that despite his vociferous denials, Arsham Parsi “was involved in the creation and publication of the articles on justice4lbgt.com and for the email”. The court ruled that Parsi was liable for the defamatory website and related web postings and emails, and ordered Parsi to pay Shadi Amin $25,000.00 in damages, in addition to interest and court costs.

From 2015 and for three years,Shadi Amin was publicly subjected to a stream of extremely serious derogatory accusations posted on an anonymous website and on Facebook, and sent under false names to third parties such as Amnesty International and the BBC. The attacks, which were vicious and wholly untrue, damaged her human rights work in Europe and elsewhere in the world. The postings falsely accused her of having a “criminal record”, of engaging in “abuses, rape, bullying and money laundering”, of being guilty of “documented cases of verbal, physical and sexual violations”, of being guilty of “corruption”, of being a “homophobe” and “anti-male”, and of engaging in an abusive relationship with a vulnerable refugee that constituted “emotional rape”. Although the postings were anonymous, Shadi Amin, with the technical help of IT savvy friends, believed she had traced the website, www.justice4lgbt.com, to another Iranian ex-pat living in Toronto and active in the Iranian community, Arsham Parsi. Parsi strenuously denied any involvement in the worldwide campaign of online abuse, but when the vicious harassment continued, Shadi Amin launched a defamation action in a Toronto court.

Amin took part in a panel with 6Rang at Istanbul Pride 2014, where she and others discussed forced sex changes that have taken place in Iran. She and Raha Bahreini spoke about these human rights violations against LGBTQ people in Iran at Stockholm Pride in Sweden in 2014. She was quoted by The Guardian, saying, "In a democratic society, a sex-change operation is an option for transsexuals, but in Iran it's an obligation for their survival."

Her selection and translation of Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde's articles were published in a book entitled Ghodrat va Lezzat (Power and Joy) which is one of the few Persian resources on compulsory heteronormativity and lesbian existence. She is the co-writer of Crime and Impunity; Sexual Torture of Women in Islamic Prisons. Amin researched, did fieldwork and provided literature review for the publication on human rights violations against LGBT individuals in Iran, Patholigizing Identities, Paralyzing Bodies: Human rights Violations Against Gay Lesbian and Transgender People in Iran (2014).

Amin won the 2009 Hammed Shahidian Critical Feminist Paper Award jointly with Golrokh Jahangiri. The award was created in memory of Iranian feminist scholar and professor Hammed Shahidian of the University of Toronto and is used to award funds for critical examinations in studies of Middle Eastern women. Amin used her award to research political prisoners in Iran in the 1980s and study rape and sexual abuse, which she presented at the seminar The Political Prisoners, Beyond the Wall, the Word held in Toronto in 2011. In 2012, Amin was part of a panel with Amnesty International, speaking at an event before the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHO). In 2013, she participated in Turkey's Gay Pride as it was the closest location to Iran where a Pride event was hosted.

Amin organized a protest in 2000 at a conference in Berlin against the conservative backlash then occurring in Islamic State in Iran. As a member of the Berlin Exiled Women of Iran Against Fundamentalism (BEWIAF), she asked to open the conference with a moment of silence for victims of the Islamic Republic, while other members of BEWIAF opened up "the black chadors they were wearing, inside which were slogans against the meeting and the Islamic Republic." The act led to several members of audience attempting to stop the protestors and the police were called.

Prior to leaving Iran, Amin had to hide her sexuality in public, though she had freedom to express herself in her own family. Amin was politically active starting in 1979, when she was only 14: she was against Khomeini's rule. Eventually, she had to flee in 1983, traveling to Pakistan, through Istanbul and Berlin to settle in Frankfurt.

Shadi Amin (Persian: شادی امین ‎; born 1964) is an Iranian writer and activist. She was forced to leave Iran in early 1980s because of her political activities. Amin is currently living in exile in Germany.