Despite violent repression, the Iranian women’s movement is defiant.
The Guardian – Comment Is Free – 7 March 2007
Why is much of the left and the liberal media ignoring the struggle for democracy and women’s rights in Iran?
Tomorrow – 8 March – is International Women’s Day and the women of Iran are growing bolder and more defiant than ever. Last Sunday, a group of courageous women’s rights activists staged a vigil outside the Engelab Court in Tehran. They held banners demanding: “We have the right to hold peaceful protests”.
These gentle, unthreatening women – armed only with words, ideals and paper placards – were violently attacked by the police, on the orders of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime. One woman had her head battered against the side of a police bus, shattering her teeth.
Another demonstrator, Nahid Mirhaj, accused the police chief of “using obscene words and describing us as’misfits'”.
The BBC correspondent in Tehran, Frances Harrison, says police and plain-clothes security men arrested at least 32 women, including nearly all the leaders of Iran’s women’s movement. They were shoved into curtained buses and driven away. Unbowed, they are now on hunger strike in Evin prison, which is notorious for torture and deaths in custody. Their families and friends have begun a vigil outside the jail.
Human Rights Watch reports that some of the arrested women have since been released, but confirms that 26 are still in detention.
Sunday’s demonstration was the latest in a series. It was called in solidarity with five women activists who are on trial after they staged a peaceful rally last June against Islamic laws that discriminate against women – in particular the sexist laws on polygamy and child custody. The five activists in the dock are Nusheen Ahmadi Khorasani, Parvin Ardalan, Sussan Tahmasebi, Shahla Entesari and Fariba Davoodi Mohajer.
For holding a peaceful protest, they are charged with endangering national security, propaganda against the state, and taking part in an illegal gathering. Another four women’s rights campaigners are awaiting trial on similar charges arising from the same protest last June.
Parveen Adalan, one of the women currently on trial, said her lawyer had not been shown any of the evidence against her, even though she has been interrogated five times by the police and intelligence agencies. “They didn’t give them our documents to read, so we don’t know what’s happening,” she told the BBC.
Human Rights Watch has condemned the five women’s trial; arguing that they had been exercising their lawful right to freedom of peaceful assembly.
The Organisation for Women’s Liberation in Iran is appealing for international solidarity: “We call upon all freedom-loving people to protest against the arrest of these women activists and to call for their immediate and unconditional release.”
Last year’s International Women’s Day rally in Tehran was battered and dispersed by the regime. Over 1,000 women had gathered in Park Daneshjoo to demand equal citizenship. They were violently set upon by baton-wielding militia (the basiji), police, soldiers and special anti-riot squads from the Revolutionary Guards.
The liberal western media – including The Guardian – has mostly failed to report these women’s protests and their bloody suppression. The left, too, ignores the heroic struggle of the women of Iran. Misogyny and police brutality are not okay in Britain, but apparently acceptable in Tehran. Why the double standards?
To mark International Women’s Day in London, a public meeting entitled ‘Women’s Rights, the Veil, and Islamic and Religious Laws’ will be held at the University of London Union on Thursday 8 March, from 6-10pm.
The event is co-sponsored by the International Campaign in Defence of Women’s Right in Iran-UK, the National Secular Society and the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association. The speakers are:
Sonja Eggerickx: President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union
Ann Harrison: Researcher, Middle East and North Africa Department of Amnesty International’s International Secretariat
Maryam Namazie: Director of the Worker-communist Party of Iran’s International Relations Committee
Taslima Nasrin: Bangladeshi writer, feminist, human rights activist and secular humanist.