<<Back

January 15, 2007 VOLUME 32

Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi is an Iranian teenager who was sentenced to be hanged for murder by an Iranian court. Just a few hours ago, according to various Newswires, an international campaign to save Nazanin’s life forced the Iranian court to drop the charges against her. The Associated Press reports: “An Iranian court convicted and sentenced Nazanin to death more than a year ago after she admitted stabbing to death one of three men who allegedly tried to rape her and a 16-year-old niece. Fatehi was 17 years old at the time. Fatehi and her niece were in a park outside Tehran with their boyfriends when they were approached by the three men. The boys fled after the men pushed the girls to the ground. Fatehi drew a knife and stabbed one man in the arm and another in the chest, killing him, according to the court records. In June, a court ordered her death sentence stayed and a new trial ordered. In the second trial, which began Wednesday, the court decided the killing was not premeditated and did not warrant the death penalty.” Nazanin’s lawyer expects the court would sentence her in accordance with Islamic law to pay blood money to the family of the man.

WFAFI congratulates all those who worked tirelessly in defense of Nazanin and urges the world community to continue its focus on the status of those women still facing stoning and execution in Iran.

Stoning

December 20, 2006

By Tina Ehrami (Master of International Public Policy), poet and human rights activist

Submitted to WFAFI

 

There is no saviour

From the soil,

That swallowed you like quicksand.

Don't blame Mother Earth,

She damns humanity tonight.

 

There is no saviour

When your hands are tied,

And your body suffocates, cold and dark,

While your head is left out to bleed.

 

There is no saviour

From the sharp stones that hit your face

Until your crimson blood enrages the madman,

So he can empty his bucket of guilt over your virgin veil

 

There is no saviour

When the stars and the moon turn their backs

To hide away from this orgy of insanity

Don't blame the sky,

She cries for all you, your sisters and mothers.

 

There is no saviour

When your face is gone and your scream

Reaches only as far as the valley of the deaf

And the only thing that remains,

Are the seconds of your sobs echoing in our ears.

 

Iran police move into fashion business

January 2, 2007

By Frances Harrison

BBC News

Women in high-heeled shoes and plenty of make-up strut down the catwalk amid clouds of artificial smoke.

It is the first time live models have been allowed to appear in a fashion show in post-revolutionary Iran.  The only unusual aspect is that they are all wearing Islamic dress; including some draped from head to toe in the all enveloping chador. It's part of a new drive to give women more attractive choices of Islamic dress that allow them to express their individuality, while remaining within the letter of the law. Not everyone in the all female audience was happy.

"I don't think ordinary people will like this show because everything comes from Arab culture," complains Faranak who says she wants something more Iranian and indigenous.

Her friend agrees: "Here we didn't see anything interesting - in terms of colours and designs we have much better stuff; just look on the streets of Tehran they're wearing much better clothes".

 

'Western dolls'

Many of the women on the streets of Tehran do indeed look more like Western fashion models than the models on the catwalk.

“ We want to guide designers to meet the needs of society, not to get ideas about fashion from satellite television” Sardar Ansari, Iranian police force 

In skimpy tight overcoats and high heeled shoes and token headscarves perched on the back of their dyed hair, they are what the authorities call "western dolls". Many young women born after the revolution do not seem to have accepted the official idea of Islamic dress. Conservative MP Rafat Bayat, who always wears a black chador, believes the problem is the state never educated young people properly. "The generation born after the revolution has grown up in families that do not believe in these principles and they are estranged from these laws," she says. "We thought there would be no problem because we had an Islamic Republic and we thought everyone knew the constitution," says Mrs Bayat with regret. According to the law, a woman who does not cover her hair and body in public can be fined or imprisoned for up to two months. But there are hundreds of shops throughout North Tehran selling glamorous strapless dresses and low-cut, beaded tops for women to wear at parties.

 

Heavy-handed

During the reformist period, restrictions were relaxed to allow women to wear bright colours for the first time since the revolution. But right-wing conservatives are outraged by what they see as western permissiveness now creeping into Islamic dress. There is also a growing awareness that heavy-handed police action like raids, arrests and closure of fashion boutiques simply do not work. And interestingly, though he is an ultra conservative, President Ahmadinejad did not bring about the crackdown on un-Islamic dress that many feared. "Observance of hijab has got worse since the new government because Mr Ahmadinejad is not that strict on this issue," complains Mrs Bayat. "Mr Ahmadinejad thinks we should not use force when acting on this issue so as a result hijab has become weaker" she says.

 

New models

Aware that imposing Islamic dress by force hasn't worked, Iran's police decided to hold their own fashion exhibition recently to educate women about what they should be wearing - though there were no live models. "We want to guide our designers to meet the needs of our society," explained Sardar Ansari of the Iranian police force. "We don't want them to get their ideas about fashion from satellite television." The police exhibition included displays about what is considered un-Islamic dress and an attempt to convert young women to wearing the chador. For many older women it's a symbol of their commitment to the revolution. But young women are increasingly turning away from the chador - it's expensive, hot and difficult to wear. So chador designers have come up with new models to make them more stylish and practical, for example a chador with sleeves. "The traditional chador is a semi circle of cloth, and keeping it on your head is really hard and you absolutely have to wear something underneath - an overcoat and headscarf - to complete your Islamic dress. “But by wearing this new type of chador it's not necessary to wear an overcoat underneath," says designer Fahimeh Mahoutchi. Increasingly there is recognition that women - rather than men - should be the ones who decide what kind of Islamic dress they wear. "Clothing is not something you can impose from outside; it is something you should accept willingly and instinctively," says Mrs Ghandforoush from the provincial governor's office. "Each person has his own particular background and attitude to dress."

In other words, the establishment realizes that the children of the revolution are rebelling against drab, uniform-style clothing, and it wants to keep them in line by offering a little glamour.

 

Sex and Shopping Brings HIV Crisis in Iran

January 03, 2007

The Guardian

Robert Tait in Tehran

In a smart boutique displaying an array of miniskirts and skimpy tops, the shopkeeper was too busy attending to his female customers to listen to a sermon on HIV/Aids. "I don't know anything about it at all. Come back after I've finished with my customers," he told the volunteer health education worker. The volunteer, Amir Fattahi, was unsurprised. Observation and experience told him he had interrupted no ordinary business transaction. The four young women, he surmised, were prostitutes striking a deal with the shopkeeper offering sex in exchange for free or cheap clothes, an increasingly common arrangement in Tehran's fashion shops. Health education workers say the practice undermines efforts to combat HIV/Aids in Iran, where the disease is increasingly spread through sexual contact. Along with health officials they believe Iran's strict sexual mores are loosening among its predominantly young population. An official drive has been launched to raise HIV/Aids awareness, which lags behind that in the west.

However, experts say the fight to stop the disease spreading is being hampered by a lack of hard facts. While the latest figures show 13,704 registered HIV cases, World Health Organisation and Iranian health ministry estimates put the true figure at between 70,000 and 120,000. Experts believe many infected young people do not seek blood tests because they are too ill-informed or are afraid of their parents finding out.  In the Qaem mall in north Tehran's affluent Tajrish district, where two floors are dedicated to women's fashion, several shopkeepers admitted to first-hand experience of receiving offers of sex. Arash, 23, said he had been propositioned 40 or 50 times in his store. "I reckon that 50% of shopkeepers have accepted sex in return for clothes," he said.

Ahmed Reza, 23, admitted having accepted such offers. "I was sitting outside the shop when two women came and said they wanted to try various manteaus [overcoats]," he said. "They asked for a bargain and I offered them the standard discount. But they said, 'We cannot pay that - if you give us a good discount and your mobile number, we will serve you'. So I gave them more discount and got their mobile numbers.

"I can tell a prostitute by their attitudes and body language. When she asks the price of something, I say it's much more than it really is. Then I reduce it when she asks for discount, so she think she's getting a great bargain and offers sex."  Iran's Islamic authorities attempted a clampdown on the trade by deploying policemen and plainclothes security guards inside shopping malls. "I don't think [the prostitutes] are HIV/Aids-aware," said Mr Fattahi, a team leader with Iran Positive Life, a volunteer group part-funded by Unicef. "If they are infected and have sex with three or four shopkeepers a day, you can imagine the danger. I think most of the shopkeepers know the risk but they can't resist the temptation. Most times, the opportunity arises too quickly to take precautions." Iran Positive Life is trying to raise shopkeepers' awareness in the hope that it will rub off on the prostitutes. Every evening, teams of volunteers tour boutiques asking shop assistants about their level of HIV/Aids knowledge. On one tour, joined by the Guardian, most of those canvassed knew it could be contracted from unsafe sex and that using condoms could provide protection. However, experts say this awareness often does not translate into personal practice and is not passed on to prostitutes. "We have found that while people know about HIV, their information is not necessarily enough for them to use precautionary methods when engaging in sex," said the group's managing director, Amir Reza Moradi, who became HIV positive after receiving an infected blood transfusion.

"At the same time, it's hard for us to reach sex workers, so our education workers go to malls and speak to shopkeepers ... If the shopkeepers become educated and change their attitudes, hopefully the sex workers will notice and change their own ways."

Iran Positive Life's volunteers have spoken to an estimated 5,000 young Iranians in shopping centres, parks and coffee shops since the group launched its "peer education" programme three months ago. It has opened counselling services at health centres in an effort to estimate how many cases result from sexual transmission, rather than from drug addicts' infected needles.

Official resistance to a more explicitly sexual message is strong. While the government has a five-year plan to tackle HIV/Aids, its information campaigns have been criticised as inadequate. Yet the religious hierarchy apparently needs no convincing. A recent survey of 17 senior ayatollahs produced a near-unanimous response condoning condom use and in favour of educating the young on sexually transmitted diseases.

In numbers: 300,000  Estimated number of Iranian women who work as prostitutes.

20 Average age of prostitutes in Iran. Many are girls who have run away from home.

120,000 Estimated number of HIV cases is 70,000-120,000.

Estimated number of infected women aged 15-49:

11,000. Number of Iranian deaths from Aids: 1,600 (2005 figures).

<<Back