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Moral Victory
of Iranian Women
30 Years Later
Elaheh Amani with Lys Anzia
Women News Network WNN
30 years ago, Dr. Shirin Ebadi, the first female judge in Iranian history, was removed from her post when religious authorities in Iran declared that all women serving in the country as judges were “unfit” to perform their duties. She was then immediately demoted to a position as administrative clerk in the courtroom where she once presided. Dr. Ebadi was hit then by the inequities of women’s rights and inequality in Iran, but she did not let that stop her.
During a time marked by political and religious upheaval, Shirin Ebadi found her path and continued her journey by becoming a human rights advocate and attorney. By serving the public, she helped those who looked to her to provide counsel on the interpretation of rights under Iran's Sharia laws.
In 2003, Dr. Ebadi received the Nobel Peace Prize “for her efforts for democracy and human rights” as she “focused on the struggle for the rights of women and children.” Almost six years later, in Feb 2009, the struggle to defend human rights in Iran continues:
“The issues facing us today are increasingly complex. A certain number of states have ignored the rules of international law to impose relations dominated by force. Domestically, repression is increasingly often gaining the upper hand over the respect of rights and freedoms,” said Ebadi to human rights defenders, FIDH (International Federation of Human Rights).
Over the past 30 years, Ebadi has been the target of threats, arrests and assassination attempts, but she is not slowing down. She keeps moving forward. Today, she continues, in spite of recent reversals, to represent victims of human rights injustice and discrimination in Iran.
“I realize that putting so much stock in political dialogue seems overly optimistic, given the gulf that exists between the West’s expectations of Iran and the Iranian system’s inclination to compromise. I focus on the political process not because I imagine we will refashion a new relationship around the negotiating table anytime soon but because I see no other options ahead. Iran, for its part, must peacefully transition to a democratic government that represents the will of the majority of Iranians,” said Ebadi in her 2006 book, “Iran Awakening.”
Now at the age of 61, her life is in more danger than ever. A sentence for “death” has recently been written by vandals on the walls outside her home and office in Tehran and pinned on her door. But the fearless Iranian human rights lawyer has a deep conviction that, “When you believe in the correctness of your work, there is no reason to be afraid of anything.”
Recently, only a few weeks following an invitation to give a series of public lectures for the University of Malaya, the Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs suddenly cancelled Ebadi’s speaking tour. “Dr. Shirin Ebadi is a strong critic (of the Iran government),” said the Ministry. “Her public speaking engagements in Malaysia would cause a disruption of the good relations between the governments of Malaysia and Iran, especially in the field of education,” continued the Ministry’s office communication.
“On the brink of the 10th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights Defenders and the 60th anniversary year of the International Declaration of Human Rights, it is ironic that a 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been censured in Malaysia. But as that censured visit came to a close, on Sunday Dec 21, 2008, plain-clothes and uniformed police and security officials raided the offices of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC). DHRC's staff speculates that the closure was in part pushed through on the heels of an October 2008 report on Iran’s human rights by the UN General Assembly.
The subsequent closure of the DHRC building in Tehran has come as a very hard blow to human rights defenders worldwide. DHRC cases defending women rights' activists, prisoners of conscience, journalists and students have been compromised, along with the documentation of families of prisoners with reports of human rights abuses. Additionally, the DHRC committee of investigation on fair elections has now been forced to completely halt its work for the upcoming April elections in Iran.
“The closure of DHRC is not just an attack on Shirin Ebadi and her Iranian colleagues, but on the entire international human rights community of which she is an influential and important member,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
“Thirty years on, some of the worst abuses of the Shah’s time – torture, executions and the suppression of legitimate dissent – are still being replicated in Iran,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program. This, he said, was all “despite the efforts of the country’s growing and valiant community of human rights defenders.”
On the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution, a new and innovative opportunity to address the status of democracy in Iran may be secretly on the mind of many Iranian citizens. Many who participated in Iran’s revolution 30 years ago had high hopes for freedom and independence, dignity and rights. But the hopes and aspirations of Iranian women were shadowed by despair in the early months of the new Islamic Republic.
“As long as I am alive, I will do my duty and activities,” said Ebadi to the press recently. Exposing Ebadi to higher risks and dangers, her advocacy work on issues related to human rights violations in Iran and her defense in the human rights of Iran’s Baha’i community, has placed her in a very precarious position.
When she received the Nobel Peace prize in 2003, she used the $1.4 million prize money to found and finance the opening of a center for legal rights counsel in Tehran - the now-defunct Defender of Human Rights Center.
Threats and harassment against Ms. Ebadi have followed her to Germany, where she received the “Tolerance Prize” from the Protestant Academy of Tutzing. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) warned Ebadi that she was not in favour with Iran’s government officials, who felt she was exploiting the government’s “patience and tolerance. This (Tolerance Prize) award," they went on to say "was bestowed on her because her remarks are contrary to the interests of the Iranian nation.”
Since the Islamic revolution 30 years ago, the population of Iran has doubled. Seventy percent of all Iranians are the same age, or younger than, those who took part in the revolution. Today, these youth are eager to just “live their lives” and be a part of the global community. Out of two million students attending institutions of higher education, more than 60% are women. Thirty years ago, of the 100,000 students attending institutions of higher education in Iran, only 17.5% were female.
The leadership, creativity and utilization of communication technology by the young women of Iran is setting a vibrant and energetic example for other global social movements. Iran's women are now heralding a new global 21st century women’s emancipation. While in Western society, young women are often hesitant to claim the identity, or even use the word “feminism,” feminism in Iran has become commonplace in the discourse.
In Iran, Feminism is considered neither taboo nor dreadful. The creation of online human rights journals, “The Feminist School” and “Campaign for Equality” are two examples of this expanding trend.
Despite women's place in the colleges, they still constitute only 15% of the formal paid labor force. According to the results of the 1385/2006 Iranian census, only 3.5 million Iranian women are salaried workers, compared with 23.5 million men. Female share of the labor force is less than 20%, considerably below the world average of 45%.
Slightly more than half of all teachers in Iran today are women, but the proportion of female university teaching staff is only 20%, less than that of Algeria (41%), Tunisia (40%), Turkey (38%), and Bahrain (36%). More appalling is the fact that less than 4% of employed women are found in senior, executive or managerial positions.
The Campaign Against Stoning and All Forms of Violence against Women, The White Scarves Campaign – fighting against gender segregation in Iran Stadiums and Kanoon Zanan are all part of a 30 year tran scri pt of a nation where women will no longer accept an inferior position in society. Iranian women writers, novelists, journalists, publishers and movie directors are defining and redefining gender roles and gender relations on a daily basis.
In a 21st century re-interpretation of 14th century Sharia law the Iranian people, and Iranian women in particular, are claiming moral victory and the beginning of real legitimacy.
Special correspondent for Women News Network - WNN, Elahe Amani, is director of Technology for Student Affairs at California State University. She is also a 2007 Lillian Robles Award winner for her outstanding community service, social education efforts and feminist activism and is chair of Women Intercultural Network (WIN).
Humanitarian journalist, Lys Anzia, is Director/Editor-at-Large for Women News Network - WNN
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