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September 15, 2006 VOLUME 28
E-ZAN VOICE OF WOMEN AGAINST FUNDAMENTALISM IN IRAN
To our readers,
For too long the Islamic
Fundamentalists have exploited the disunity among women’s movement around the
world. While the barbaric practices such as stoning, public executions and
systemic violations of women’s rights in Iran continue, many activists are at
loss on mobilizing and organization globally. Given the horrific news coming
from Iraq or other parts of the Middle East, women’s global movement must
recognize the foot prints of the Islamic Fundamentalism. We should no longer be
at loss on how to counter this threat. A united front in defense of basic human
rights is needed to confront the expansionist ideology of Islamic
Fundamentalism. Ahmadinejad, Iran’s current president who is scheduled to
address the United Nations in New York next week, is clearly on mission to escalate
the gender apartheid policies in coming months. There is no doubt that
Ahmadinejad will use his UN visit to further advance his nuclear agenda and
defend his misogynous regime. Yet, no condemnation or protests have been
directed at him or his visits to the UN next week. The women’s global movement
should be on the forefront to established women's rights as key to international
relations. As a poem by Ayesha Imam reads:
"If you've come to help me,
You are wasting your time -- and
mine.
If you come because your liberation
is linked to mine, then let's join hands and start working together."
Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan are too fresh in all of our minds
to look the other way. In short, where terrorist or fundamentalist regimes take
over, women's rights are sacrificed first – then the world's. The time to act
is now; let us unite against the threat of Islamic Fundamentalism before it is
too late. To start with, we can speak out against Ahmadinejad’s presence at the
UN on Tuesday, September 19, 2006.
E-Zan Featured Headlines
AKI Italian News Site – August 18, 2006
Some 100,000 Iranian women have
signed a petition sent to world football's governing body FIFA to pressure the
Iranian government to scrap a law which bans women from going to stadiums to
watch matches. "We've been trying for over a decade to convince the
Islamic Republic's leaders that it is our right to enter stadiums to watch
games," Nasrin Afzali, one of the organizers of the petition campaign told
Adnkronos International (AKI) in a telephone interview from Tehran. "The
ban in unacceptable, it is an apartheid measure which must disappear. We demand
that FIFA put pressure on the Iranian authorities and that sanctions be
considered," Alzali said.
World Daily Net site – August 19, 2006
Human rights groups and concerned
individuals worldwide are demanding an end to stoning executions in Iran – and right now are pressuring the
head of the Islamic nation's judiciary to lift the death sentence against a
34-year-old mother of two young children. Malak Ghorbany was sentenced to death
June 28 by a court in the Iranian city of Urmia after being found guilty of
committing "adultery." Under Iran's strict Sharia law, women
sentenced to execution by stoning have their hands bound behind their back.
They are wrapped from head to toe in sheets before being seated in a pit. The
ditch is filled up to their breasts with dirt, and the soil is packed tightly
before people assemble to execute the woman by pitching rocks at her head and
upper body.
State Run Baztab Site – August 21, 2006
According to IRNA (state-run news
agency), Iran’s Deputy Health Ministry announced that
“between 20 to 24 percent of Iranian women are suffering from one or more kinds
of depression. [WFAFI: While the rate of depression among Iranian women
is much higher than was announced by the Iranian regime’s Health Ministry, they
still claim “this is an average rate with compare to other countries and it is
not bad at all”.]
NCRI Website – August 22, 2006
The commander of the State Security
Forces (SSF) in Tehran province, Brig. Gen. Reza Zari, unveiled a plan to
"deport 200,000 illegal aliens" and added that "the marriage of
these people to Iranian women and their children with no identification
papers" were a problem for the regime. He reiterated that "65,000
people in Tehran province alone have to be deported from the country in a
short period of time." Zari was
referring to Afghan and Iraqi refugees who had married Iranian women. For more
than a quarter of a century, the mullahs' regime had taken advantage of Afghan
and Iraqi refugees to export fundamentalism and terrorism. Their children are
presently deprived of citizenship, education, and health insurance. The
refugees are currently being forced to leave Iran with their families.
Radio Free Europe – August 28, 2006
Activists in Iran have started a petition
drive calling for changes to laws that discriminate against women. Organizers
hope to attract the signature of 1 million Iranians -- a challenge that they
say public officials could not ignore. Authorities blocked the gathering at
which the launch was supposed to take place on August 27 on a technicality. But
women's rights defenders are collecting signatures and vowing to broaden their
campaign nevertheless. This campaign is
just the latest move by women's rights activists who argue that Iran can be Islamic and
nondiscriminatory at the same time. Police violently dispersed a public protest
two months ago aimed at raising awareness of gender discrimination. One of the
demonstrators involved in that event -- former reformist lawmaker and student
rights activist, Ali-Akbar Moussavi Khoeni -- remains in custody.
NCRI Website – August 22, 2006
The state-run news agency ISNA reported that on Sunday the
commander of State Security Forces' Internal Security Division in Greater
Tehran Brig. Gen. Mohammad Alipour announced that in the past month, 64,000
"mal-veiled" women were reprimanded. Alipour said, "In one
month, 63,963 mal-veiled women were either warned or reprimanded, and 1,149
vehicles whose occupants were either mal-veiled or creating noise pollution
were confiscated." The NCRI's Women's Committee Chair Ms. Sarvnaz Chitsaz
described these vulgar remarks and the aggression by the regime's suppressive
forces against the country's women under the pretext of mal-veiling as yet
another form of suppression by the regime and an excuse to create fear in
society and take control in order to prevent an increase in social protests in
which women play a very active role."
United Press International – August 29, 2006
Police in Tehran have been ordering Iranian
women to cover up, stopping those they perceive as "badly veiled." The
crackdown followed the 2005 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "We
are certainly seeing a return to behavior we haven't seen for 10 years,"
Hadi Ghaemi of Human Rights Watch told The Telegraph. "Generally, the
imposition of strict Islamic codes has been increasing under Ahmadinejad."
Ghaemi said that the penalty for violating a code that requires the complete
covering of women's heads and bodies in public depends on the officers involved
and the women's political connections. "The person could end up in jail
depending on their relationship with the authorities," he said.
"Generally, the imposition of strict Islamic codes has been increasing
under Ahmadinejad." Just as women in recent years had pushed the
boundaries by wearing head scarves that revealed more than they hid, many
Iranians had flouted the law banning them from owning satellite dishes, the
report said. The government has been cracking down on them as well.
Roozna Website —September 6, 2006
Seyed Nezam Mola-Hoveizeh member of Parliament from
Dashte-Azadegan, Sattar Hedayatkhah member of Parliament from Boyer Ahamad,
Hamid Zangeneh MP from Ahvaz, Seyed Hadi Tabatabaei the MP from Ezeh, Abasali
Akhtari the MP from Tehran, Kamal Daneshyar the MP from Mahshahr, Mohammad
Taghi Kavianipour the MP from Nahavand and Ghodratollah Imani the MP from
Khoramabad sent a written warning to the Minister of Culture and Islamic
Guidance about women singing in choirs. They cautioned about allowing women
sing in choirs. In another warning to the Minister of Culture and Islamic
Guidance, Sattar Hedayatkhah the MP from Boyerahmad and Dena, Seyed Reza Ebadi
the MP from Birjand and Seyed Nezam Mola-Hoveizeh the MP from Dashte-Azadegan
requested movies that are anti-Islamic, immoral and against sacred defense be
banned in the country.
NCRI Website – September 15, 2006
Deputy Commander of State Security Forces in Khorassan Province, Brig. Gen. Satar Bozorgmehar
announced a new suppressive plan called "National Security" under
which 4,518 mal-veiled women had already been arrested, the state-run news
agency Mehr reported on September 11. He added that the plan would be
implemented through new patrols called "Anti-Vice Patrols" which are
comprised of both stationary and mobile units. Simultaneously, the
government-run media reported that the death sentences for two young women
identified as Shahla Jahed and Kobra Rahman-pour were upheld by the mullahs'
judiciary. One of the regime's female Majlis deputies, Eshrat Sha'egh, expressed
amazement at the media for paying any attention to the upholding of their
sentences. The two women have spent
several years in prison. Despite various attempts by women's groups to win
their freedom, the misogynistic regime has upheld their execution. Regarding
the increase in suppression of women, the NCRI's Women's Committee Chair Ms.
Sarvnaz Chitsaz said, "The attitude of the mullahs' regime in response to
increasing turmoil on the domestic and international scene is to step up
suppression inside the country especially against women and youths. The regime
is intensifying suppressive measures and intimidation of the Iranian people in
a bid to cap popular opposition to its rule and control the volatile state of
Iranian society." Ms. Chitsaz called
on international human rights organizations and women's rights groups to
condemn the suppression and execution of Iranian women.
E-Zan
Featured Reports
Muslim Sisters need our help
By Pamela Bone
The Australian
August 25, 2006
In Tehran in June,
several thousand people held a peaceful demonstration calling for legal changes
that would give a woman's testimony in court equal value to a man's. The
demonstrators, most of them women, were attacked with tear gas and beaten with
batons by men and women from Iran's State Security Forces, according to Amnesty
International. Iranian women may not travel without their husband's permission
but they are allowed to wield a truncheon against other women.
Do you think women in Western countries marched in
solidarity with the Iranian women demonstrators? Of course not. Do you think
there are posters and graffiti at universities condemning the Iranian
President? Of course not. You know, without needing to go there, that any
graffiti at universities will be condemning George W. Bush, not Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. (I concede Bush is easier to spell.)
You know, before you get there, that at the Melbourne
Writers Festival starting this weekend the principal hate figures are going to
be Bush and John Howard. You know there will be many sympathetic references to
David Hicks but probably none to Ashraf Kolhari, an Iranian mother of four who
has been in jail for five years for allegedly having sex outside marriage and,
until last week, who was under sentence of death by stoning.
Thank goddess, as they used to say: a few Western feminists
have begun to wonder why women who once marched for women's rights are marching
alongside people who would take away even the most basic of those rights. The
latest is Sarah Baxter, a former Greenham Common protester, who in Britain's
The Sunday Times had this to say about a recent demonstration in London calling
for a ceasefire in Lebanon: "Women pushing their children in buggies
bearing the familiar symbol of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament marched
alongside banners proclaiming 'We are all Hezbollah now', and Muslim extremists
chanting, 'Oh Jew, the army of Mohammed will return'.”I could never have
imagined that many of the same crowd I hung out with then would today be
standing shoulder to shoulder with militantly anti-feminist Islamic
fundamentalist groups whose views on women make Western patriarchy look like a
Greenham peace picnic." Another old feminist, Phyllis Chesler (she is my
age, so I may call her old), is the author of The Death of Feminism, published
last year. In her book, Chesler, who lived in Afghanistan for a time before she managed to
flee the country and her Afghan husband, wrote: "I fear that the 'peace
and love' crowd in the West refuses to understand how Islamism endangers our
values and our lives, beginning with our commitment to women's rights and human
rights."
Feminism is not quite dead, however. The execution of
Kolhari was stopped after a petition gathered thousands of signatures from
human rights activists in Iran and across the world, including
more than 5000 from the Feminist Majority Foundation in the US.
Yet in Canada it took an Iranian exile, Homa
Arjomand, to lead the fight to stop sharia courts being established there; she
did so with almost zero support from Anglo-Canadian feminists and academics.
Named Canadian Humanist of the Year, she's now running a campaign to stop honor
killings. In Canada? "In Canada we are not
witnessing honor killing much simply because in Canada women and young girls
who are not submissive are taken to their home countries such as India,
Pakistan, Afghanistan or Nigeria, and there they are being murdered by the male
member of the family or a hit man," Arjomand said in a speech earlier this
year. "And the (Canadian) state is not obligated to protect the individual
citizens who were forced to leave Canada by the head of the family." The
question is why so many Western feminists do not speak out about the cruelty
that blights the lives of millions of women in Islamic countries and would do
the same to women everywhere else should the Islamists succeed in their stated
aim of creating a worldwide caliphate. "On the defining issue of our
times, the rise of Islamic extremism, what is left of the sisterhood has almost
nothing to say," Baxter writes. Says Chesler: "Women's studies
programs should have been the first to sound the alarm. They did not." The
reason, as writer Fay Weldon has said, is that these days racism is a much
worse sin than sexism: a consequence, perhaps, of the success of the women's
movement in the West. Women who would speak out don't because of a (justified)
fear that they will be branded racists. Chesler has been ostracized by many of
her old friends in the women's movement. It has been said she has become
paranoid or gone mad or, worse, turned right-wing.
Well, maybe poor Sarah has turned right-wing, too. And Fay,
and Homa, and me. We've all become paranoid and right-wing. To say Bush is not
the wise statesman the world needs is a large understatement. Of course women
are entitled to oppose US foreign policy or to consider Israel's response to Hezbollah attacks
disproportionate. Yes, the prolonged detention of Hicks without trial goes
against standards of democracy. Yes, we must be vigilant, in fighting the war
on terrorism, that we do not lose sight of the values we are supposedly
protecting. Of course we must criticize our own.
But when we criticize only our own, when we talk only about
the present and past crimes of Western societies, doesn't this give com-fort
and encouragement to the suicide bombers?
Neither US foreign policy nor colonialism or imperialism is
to blame for a legal system that stipulates women guilty of adultery are to be
buried up to their chests and stoned to death, as in Iran. It is their culture,
or at least the culture as defined by the old men running the place, that is to
blame. Hate Bush if you want, but please understand that your enemy's enemies
are not necessarily your friends.
It seems inconceivable that we could lose this war against
terrorism. But if we do, the consequences will be awful. And they will be worse
for women, for the women in the generations that will follow us. We have to
fight not against Muslims but against Islamic extremism. Don't expect left-wing
men to help. They're full of "I'm not scared" bravado. Don't expect
all Muslim women to want to be in the fight. There have always been women who
oppose rights for women. (Remember the petition, from women, against Australian
women getting the vote?) But the least we can do is let the brave Muslim women
who are pushing for reforms know they have our support when they want it.
Most of us 1970s feminists are grandmothers now. Lifelong
socialist and humanist that I am, if fighting to prevent the possibility that
my granddaughters - our granddaughters - will one day be forced to wear a burqa
makes me right-wing, then right-wing is the label I'll have to wear.
United Behind Human
Rights
By
Kathryn Jean Lopez
The
Town Hall
August 26, 2006
"The only thing
necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Irish
statesman Edmund Burke's words still hold true three centuries later. Right
now, good men and women are doing something crucial: raising their voices in
outrage, trying to save the lives of Nazanin Fateh, Malak Ghorbany and many
other women just like them. Fateh, as of this writing, awaits retrial for
murder in Iran. Young Nazanin killed a
man in self-defense as a group of men attacked and tried to rape her and her niece.
During her first trial, she reportedly said: "I wanted to defend myself
and my niece. I did not want to kill that boy. At the heat of the moment I did
not know what to do because no one came to our help." (Presumably, because
this is Iran, where Islamic sharia law rules, had she allowed the men to rape
her and/or her niece -- the victims -- could both be facing possible execution
as adulterers anyway – in the name of a perverse conception of honor.) When I
first heard about Nazanin's horrific case, though, I knew that her execution
could be thwarted. In 2003, a Nigerian woman named Amina Lawal faced a death
sentence after a court convicted her of adultery, but an international
coalition fought for her life -- and succeeded. And in this new case, too, good
people have stepped up. Iranian-born Nazanin Afshin-Jam, a Canadian model and
pop singer (and former Miss World runner-up), refuses to let the issue die and
has the attention of celebrities and diplomats. When she heard about her
namesake's case, she had the flash that it could have been her, had her own
family not fled Iran after her father's
torture there at the hands of the same regime. (He was tortured, she tells me,
because -- as general manager of a Sheraton -- he allowed "music and
mingling between men and women": "He almost died due to his injuries
but thank God he is with us today.")
A coalition of folks
spanning from my conservative National Review to liberal human-rights groups
like Amnesty International have spoken out about Nazanin Fateh's case of
self-defense. Most recently, her devoted advocate, Afshin-Jam, has been honored
by a group called Artists for Human Rights, with an award presented by
actresses Anne Archer and Jenna Elfman.
In May, Afshin-Jam
interviewed her namesake by phone. Said Fateh: "Don't just help me, help
all 'Nazanins' and help us to go back to a normal life." There is no shortage
of Nazanins. In yet another case out of Iran -- another travesty of justice
under sharia law -- Malak Ghorbany, mother of two convicted of adultery, has
been sentenced to death by stoning. In Ghorbany's case, too, Left and Right are
united. There are many disagreements on Iran-related issues -- the country's nuclear
program, its involvement in terrorism, its Mike Wallace interviews -- but Legal
Rights Institute president Lily Mazahery, who has set up a Web site on behalf
of Ghorbany, says: "If there is one thing that I have learned from my
human-rights work, particularly on behalf of women and girls in Iran, it is
that everyone agrees and forms a united front against these atrocities,
regardless of his/her political affiliation ... For a Washingtonian, such as
myself, such a concept is a virtual miracle." But the consensus must, in
the end, go beyond advocacy for individual women's lives. Michael Rubin, editor
of The Middle East Quarterly, is emphatic: "Incidents such as these should
underscore just how antithetical it is to U.S. interests to legitimize
the regime." But he charges that in Condoleezza Rice's State Department,
while "there has been much talk of bribing Iran with incentives ...
human-rights preconditions have been taken off the table."
In a piece in the
upcoming issue of Rubin's journal, Islamic-studies scholar Denis MacEoin
implores us to link human-rights issues more firmly to trade and other
agreements: "Islamic countries and ordinary Muslims must be given
incentives to observe human-rights norms within their borders and disincentives
to apply the sharia in harsh and unjust ways."
He adds that
"original Islamic jurisprudence ... does not necessarily mandate such
severe punishments." That when Muslims violate human rights, they are not obeying
Allah -- they are perpetrating an evil. And good people must continue to protest.
Iran’s
Hard Line Begins at Home
By
Azadeh Moaveni
The
Time Magazine
August 27, 2006
When Behnaz Mohsenian, 29, started
English lessons at Tehran's Najdad Institute this spring, the
15 men and women in her class studied grammar sitting in mixed circles. Last
month the language school split the group by gender, with men and women meeting
on different days. Now plans are under way to move the women's classes to a
separate building, to eliminate altogether the possibility of illicit mingling.
"It feels," says Mohsenian, "as if we're all incapable of
behaving like normal people and need to be regulated at all times." When
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office last summer, everyone nervously
watched to see whether Islamic dogma would shape domestic policy. To much
delight, nothing changed: Western films were sold everywhere, women wore skimpy
veils, and couples held hands in the street. But the long, libertine honeymoon
is over. The hard line now seems to begin at home for the Ahmadinejad regime
(which last week inaugurated a new reactor project, defying a U.N. demand to
end its uranium-enrichment work by Aug. 31, and gave only a tepid response to
the West's offer of incentives).
Over the past few months, various
branches of the government have stealthily rolled back freedoms with moves like
the reinstatement of gender segregation in public institutions. Because the
Iranian system comprises ministries with overlapping mandates and security
apparatuses that operate independently, it's hard to say whether this is a
government-wide crackdown or whether some officials are just feeling emboldened
by Ahmadinejad's conservatism. Nonetheless, the tone is being set on high--and
the impact is being felt throughout society.
The new hypermorality isn't exactly
a return to the days of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Today the tactics are subtler
than in the past, when morality police were dispatched onto the streets of Tehran to harass youth. Instead, regular
Iranians are being cowed into the role of enforcer. A month ago, I met a few
girlfriends for coffee at a popular café. One of my friends lit a cigarette and
was informed by the embarrassed owner that smoking is now illegal for women in
cafés. Such small but significant restrictions are a discouragement. Half the
women I know don't go out for coffee anymore. So without a single police raid,
the authorities have stifled Tehran's bustling café scene. The
restrictions are multiplying daily, with dress codes imposed on
women's-clothing retailers and limits on women performing music in public.
Last week trucks laden with
satellite dishes rolled through my Tehran neighborhood; police have been
confiscating the illegal devices all around town. It isn't clear how long these
strict measures will last. So far, the government seems undaunted by the lack
of public enthusiasm for its causes. For instance, on the eve of the Lebanon cease-fire, it celebrated
Hizballah's non-defeat as if it were an Iranian victory. It cooked what was
billed as the world's largest kebab--more than 21-ft. long. And Iranians were
"asked" via the state-run media to go up to their rooftops at an
appointed hour and shout "Allahu akbar" (God is great). The
tradition, from the early days of the Islamic Revolution, used to draw people
out en masse. The city reverberated with their cries. Last week, across most of
Tehran, one heard only silence.
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