www.IranDokht.com
2005-06-13

June 12, 2005
Dr. Nayereh Tohidi

Today was a great day for the women rights activists in Iran. Following a public call for a protest against violation of women’s rights in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran issued by about 40 women NGOs, many prominent women writers, lawyers, artists and activists, and many women journalists and web-loggers, a feminist demonstration, of a kind unprecedented in Iran, was successfully held on Sunday, June 12, 5-6 pm in front of the main gate of the University of Tehran in the central city of Tehran.

Against all the odds and intimidations, women came, a few thousands of them came, women and some men too, they were very determined, well-organized, alert, and timely on what to demand and how to let people in Iran and outside Iran hear their voices. As the ending statement (the resolution) of this demonstration indicates and also as most of the slogans show, these women stressed the necessity of changes in the constitution and the legal system. Many of the laws are reinforcing violation of women’s human rights and justify violence against women instead of protecting them against violence. Women demonstrators see the present law (based on sharia) as the main obstacle against their move toward equality and empowerment of women.

The slogans included: “Our path to liberation: just law and women’s consciousness”, “Anti-women laws are the basis of despotism”, “Remove all the unequal rights, anti-human laws”, “We are women, we are human beings, we are citizen of this country, yet we have no rights”, “Human Rights is the path to democracy in Iran”, “Misogynic laws and violent discourse are war on women,” “Oppressive laws and patriarchal traditions should be abolished”, “Women’s rights should be vindicated”, “Free Political Prisoners!”, ”No to legal violence against women”.

The organizers had mobilized many male intellectuals and activists as well by having them sign a petition in support of their action, some of whom also showed up during the demonstration. Some of the demonstrators have boycotted the upcoming presidential elections and are calling for a national referendum for the election of a new constitutional assembly and the establishment of a new secular constitution. Some of the demonstrators will be voting for the reformist Presidential candidate, Dr. Mostafa Moiin, yet they all came together regardless of their political and ideological differences to demand their human rights and changes in the constitution.

This action of women has been cleverly planned to coincide the peek of the presidential election campaign, hence a relatively less repressive atmosphere. The security forces whose number was overwhelming, therefore, were careful not to attack women demonstrators before the public eyes, though they kicked some of the women (as reported by Parvin Ardalan and Fariba Davoudi-Mohajer) and kept yelling at many others, took away and torn many of the women’s placards and surrounded women demonstrators with big buses preventing more women and men from joining them. Yet the event went relatively peacefully, no reports of arrest or serious damage to the participants have been confirmed so far. Women kept holding hands and resisting the security forces by singing the new freedom song recently composed for this occasion.

Except for a few (Simin Behbahani, a popular feminist poet, Marziyyeh Mortazi-Langaroudi, a message from Shirin Ebadi, and a few others), the planned speakers were prevented from delivering their speeches due to the tension created by the security forces. A group of Kurdish women who had come all the way from Kurdistan (Marivan) managed to sing in Kurdish and deliver a speech. The women from Azerbaijan did not get a chance to deliver their speech, nor could many other prominent women activists give a speech due to the tension. However, the text of their messages can be read at the site of the Iranian Feminist Tribune (see below).

As assessed by some of organizers of this event, including Noushin Ahmadi-Khorasani, Shadi Sadr and Mahboobeh Abbasgholizadeh, overall, this was a great day for women activists to gain more confidence, to improve their organizational skills, to strengthen the ties among various women NGOs and to articulate their demands more clearly and unanimously. Once again, women showed that they constitute the primary agents of the burgeoning civil society and the pro-democracy movement in Iran. This bold yet measured and well-thought action by women NGOs will remain as a turning point in the history of the women's movement in Iran.

Another important aspect of this action was its transnational or global dimension. As Noushin Ahmadi-Khorasani, one of the main organizers of the June 12th event put it, "this action could not have succeeded without the effective international support behind it, having 5 Nobel laureates, the Human Rights Watch, and hundreds of academics and human rights activists from different parts of the world behind us gave us a sense of security and confidence to go ahead and overcome the fear of arrest." For the international campaign behind this move, please view and consider signing this related PETITION .

Congratulations to all who worked so hard in the front and behind the scene -- inside and outside Iran -- to make the June 12th action a real success, the positive implications of which for women’s rights, human rights and democracy in Iran will yet to come.

To read the reports by the organizers (in Persian), the resolution of this action, and other background information, click on the links below:
Iranian Feminists Tribune
Women in Iran

For photos taken during the demonstration, please go to the Photo Report of Women’s Demonstration.

Also available for viewing is the ISNA report cited in Iran-Emrooz:
Iran Emrooz

Nayereh Tohidi, Ph.D.
Chair and Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, CSUN & UCLA