BEIRUT, Lebanon - Iranian police shoved and kicked them, loaded them into a curtained minibus and drove them away. Hours later, at the gates of Evin prison, they were blindfolded and forced to wear all-enveloping chadors, then were interrogated through the night.

All 31 were women - activists accused of receiving foreign funds to stir up dissent in Iran. But their real crime, says Mahboubeh Abbas-gholizadeh, was gathering peacefully outside Tehran's Revolutionary Court in support of five fellow activists on trial for demanding changes in laws that discriminate against women.