Feminist Peace Network

The following is excerpted from the Women’s Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran E-Zan Newsletter dated January 15, 2007:

To our readers,

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.

State-run site Ayandeh Roshan - December 18, 2006 Grand Ayatollah Safi Golpaygani had meeting with members of Islamic education publication declared a few point regarding Moslem women and their seat in City Councils. He said, “Deception and propaganda encourages women to participate in non-traditional arena. Women need to be conscious of such schemes.” He emphasized that women should not participate in council. He said, “it is senseless for a woman to associate with a man for 4 years and also to compete with him to get this position.” He said a few words about the men that they too should serve on these councils as servants of God otherwise there is no honor in it. He added, for women, housekeeping and raising pious children is the best way to serve God. He also added, woman’s immethodical participation in the society will corrupt the social order.

State-run News Agency IVNA - December 28, 2006 Women are banned from sitting in the front seats of the busses. According to the head of Iran’s Highway Police, Ahmadi Ibrahim, women are no longer allowed to take the front seat in the busses. He said, “All public transportation and travel agencies have been informed about this new law. This is particularly important, because women seating behind the driver will be very distracting to the driver. Therefore, we have decided to ban women’s seating in the front of all busses traveling in or outside of the city.”

RFE/RL ˆ December 29, 2006 A member of the website staff who did not want to be named told RFE/RL that the two, Meysam Zamanabadi and Mohammad Zomorodian, were detained late on December 28 in connection with the release of video footage that shows Iranian Vice President Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaee taking part in a ceremony in Turkey where unveiled women were dancing. Under Iran’s Islamic laws men are not allowed to watch women dance and sing.

NCRI Website ˆ January 4, 2007T he mullahs’ Majlis “revised” the Fashion and Clothing Plan to gain the approval of the Guardian Council, the state-run news agency Fars reported on January 2. According to the report, “A committee has been formed which is comprised of a representative with full power from the ministries of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Higher Education, Industry and Commerce as well as the state radio and television, the Directorate of State Planning, and three representatives from related industries (fashion designers) and a representative from the Majlis Culture Committee as the inspector. The committee will supervise the implementation of the plan and the persuasion of the general public to refrain from making use of foreign fashions not customary to the Iranian culture and identity. This plan will be operational once it gains the signature of the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance.” The regime’s Majlis first introduced the plan on May 18, 2006. It was completed in September 2006. NCRI Women’s Committee Chair, Ms. Sarvnaz Chitsaz, reiterated that suppression and discrimination against women form the basis of the ideology, laws and conduct of this medieval regime. “This plan sets the stage for greater suppression of women,” she said. Ms. Chitsaz described such repressive plans and measures as a desperate attempt by the regime to thwart the active presence of women in antigovernment protests.

MedIndia Website ˆ January 5, 2007 Tehran is in the news for the wrong reasons, witnessing an upsurge in AIDS cases. The reason for this, according to AIDS workers is that many women, just barely twenty years old are offering sex in return for discounted clothes, available at shopping malls. There is an apparent lack of awareness in Iran regarding the infection and the manner of its spread. A country thronged by almost 300,000 prostitutes, most of them barely in their twenties, it is estimated that 11,000 of them in the least are carriers of the AIDS virus. Official data records show that there are 13,074 AIDS patients in Iran, but World Health Organization and the Iranian Ministry of Health believe this is only the tip of the ice berg. The realistic numbers could be between 70,000 and 120,000.

Iran Focus ˆ January 9, 2007 Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is involved in an extensive campaign to recruit Iraqi female spies with the help of local Iraqi parties backed by Iran, a prominent Arab-language website reported. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) is sending Iraqi women between the ages of 30 and 40 to neighboring Iran to receive training in the art of intelligence gathering, al-Malaf quoted “informed Iraqi sources” as saying on Monday. The report said some 2,000 Iraqi women had been sent to Tehran so far. It added that the women were traveling in smaller groups, though it did not specify how large each group was. Once in Tehran, they undergo a one- month-long training course jointly organized by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and the IRGC’s elite Qods Force. They are then dispatched to their areas of duty in Iraq. Al-Malaf said most the female recruits had strong ties to Iraq’s Shiite groups. SCIRI’s ties to Iran date back to 1982, when it was founded in Tehran on the orders of then- Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was tasked with writing the council’s manifesto and the group’s primary goal was to spread Iran’s Islamic revolution to Iraq. Iran’s current Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi was the group’s chairman for several years after its founding while Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim was appointed as the group’s spokesman. Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, the elder brother of current SCIRI chief Abdul Aziz al- Hakim, died in a deadly bomb blast in August 2003 in the Iraqi city of Najaf.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Atrocities