Women's Day celebrations on mute in Iran

Suppression of women's movements and refusal to allow women to rally in public places by Iran's hard line rulers kept celebrations of this year's International Women's Day confined to small gatherings in private residences. The fear of harassment or arrest was real. Memories are fresh of the arrests of 10 women at a Mar. 8 rally in front of the Iranian Parliament, last year. Four days prior to that, 33 women's rights advocates, who had rallied in front of a revolutionary court to protest the trial of five women's rights activists, were arrested on charges of 'jeopardizing national security'. Since then, tens of more rights activists have been arrested, summoned by courts or security bodies, imprisoned, tried by revolutionary courts or prevented from leaving the country. Journalist, women's rights activist and a founder of the 'One Million Signatures Campaign', Parvin Ardalan, was dragged out of a plane she had boarded in Tehran on Mar. 6 to go to Stockholm, where she was to receive the Olof Palme Award for 2007 in recognition of her efforts to achieve equal rights for women. Other women's rights advocates have been sentenced to prison and even to lashes, as in the case of Marzieh Mortazi Langaroudi and Delaram Ali, a young student from Tehran university who was picked up at a peaceful demonstration in June 2006. "The ruling hardliners do everything in their power to make participation in women's rights movement and the campaign to change discriminatory laws costly and difficult for women, and the men who support them," a women's rights activist requesting anonymity told IPS in Tehran. "The hard line religious and political establishment sees women only as instruments for pleasing men, bearing children and homemaking and the word 'feminism' embodies to them everything that puts men's absolute authority in danger,'' she said. "The hard line establishment's views are so backward that even hard line female parliament members are angered and have to protest sometimes, like in the case of the recent government bill tabled in parliament that allows men to marry more wives without having to inform their first or even 'other' wives or the recent government decision to restrict the number of female students in universities," the activist added. According to Iran's Shariah-based laws, testimony by two women has the value of one given by a single man. Women inherit from their parents half of what their male siblings inherit. Based on the same laws men are allowed to have four permanent wives and an indefinite number of temporary wives. Gaining legal custody of children poses a big problem for women who get divorced. Although women are allowed to vote and be elected to parliament, they may not run for the presidency. The need to change these discriminatory laws led women's rights activists in August 2005 to launch the campaign to collect one million signatures to overthrow laws that are in contradiction to international human rights conventions -- to some of which Iran is also signatory. Campaigners claim their demands are not in contradiction with Islam because Shiite Shariah is receptive to changes in certain laws. As proof they cite the agreement of several prominent Shiite clerics such as Grand Ayatollah Sanei and Ayatollah Mousavi Bojnordi with some demands for changes in Shariah laws. These high-ranking clerics say the Shiite doctrine of 'need to adapt to requirements of time and place' does not consider changes in laws contradictory to Shariah. "The opposition to the campaign has taken a political aspect, too. Campaign activists are accused by authorities such as the intelligence minister Mohseni Ejei of being instruments of foreign powers for the overthrow of the Islamic regime. Almost invariably detained women's rights activists are charged with 'taking action against national security," a campaign activist told IPS. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were encouraged during the two terms of presidency of reformist Mohammad Khatami, but the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stopped much of the government assistance to the country's young NGOs, even suppressing them in some cases. In the past two years several NGOs, including women's rights organizations, were charged with conducting activities harmful to national security and were banned. The activities of some others had to stop when they were refused permission to operate. "Women's NGOs that have survived are deprived of any opportunity to reach their audience. Public halls are not allowed to let women hold gatherings and rallies. Access to women's rights websites is prevented by the order of judicial authorities. We are not able to get authorities' permission for publishing books and the only serious women's magazine, Zanan, was banned after 16 years of publication," the campaign activist told IPS. "All the suppression and obstacles have not stopped the campaign's progress because it uses new ways to reach out to women and men. Campaign workers try to talk to people everywhere, on the streets, in parks, at hairdressers and in shops and gyms, and collect signatures everywhere," she said. "So far 43 campaign activists have been detained and two have been in jail for over five months now," she said. Six Nobel prize winners, including Iran's Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi, and more than 200 women's rights advocates from around the world, issued a statement on Mar. 7 expressing "solidarity with Iranian women in their quest for equal rights and an end to pervasive legal discrimination against women." The signatories of the statement have called on the Iranian government to end what they call unprecedented obstacles and threats against campaigners. "Pressure on women has many aspects. Already numbering around 65 percent of the total number of students in universities, girls will face restrictions in education from next year. Plans to prevent girls from overtaking boys numerically in universities have officially been announced," Iman, a student from Allameh Tababtabaie University in Tehran, told IPS. "Ordinary women from all walks of life are undergoing a lot of pressure from the regime, too. For nearly a year now they have been subject to constant harassment by the moral police for the way they dress. Thousands of women have been arrested and charged with immoral behavior nationwide for not observing the prescribed Islamic dress code and hundreds of thousands have been stopped and warned on the streets by the police for the same reason," she said.