From the Women’s Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran:
NCRI Website – April 17 2008 Hossein Tayeb, deputy commander of the paramilitary Bassij Force, a domestic subordinate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the formation of new “Security Patrols,” reported the official news agency IRNA on Wednesday.”The major goal for running the new Bassij patrols is to guarantee the safety and security of citizens in urban areas as well as combating ‘hooligans and thugs.’…In addition, the [occasional] checkpoints run by the Bassij [in the neighborhoods] will be available, as before, at the time of possible crisis,” said Tayeb. Separately, Ahmadreza Radan, chief of the State Security Force (SSF) — mullahs’ suppressive police — in Greater Tehran announced what he called the new “phase” of the so-called “boosting public security plan,” reported the state-run news agency Mehr on Wednesday. “In enforcing the “public security” boost, Tehran’s metropolitan police will get tough on “mal-veiling” in private companies and small businesses such as coffee shops, internet cafes, clubs and restaurants. The goal is to combat the lawbreakers and criminals,” added Radan. Running new security patrols by the Bassij force in the streets of the cities across the country, under the pretext of increasing public security, is aimed at combating the volatile state of the society. Fighting the so-called “mal-veiling” is designed to suppress the growing public uprisings by workers, students, women and youths in Iran.
NCRI Website – April 17, 2008 In a rear move, even by Iranian regime’s standards, female members of the State Security Forces (SSF) — mullahs’ suppressive police – searched women shoppers’ purchased items for what they called “immodest buys.” This was the sense outside a major department store on the busy Seven Tir Square (Rezaiiha) last Sunday. SSF agents, besides checking young women for what they had on carefully examined hand bags and shopped items of every woman leaving the store. What followed was even stranger; the police women would questioned the shopper with items deemed immoral outerwear about their reasons for buying such goods. The new move was enforced last April with the so- called “boosting public security” by the SSF in particular aimed at what was described as “mal- veiling.” The length and severity of the crackdown has been unprecedented in the under the clerical rule in recent years. Vans of the moral police are still a common sight in Tehran’s main squares as officials monitor passing women. Women deemed inappropriately dressed are usually hauled to a moral detention centre to sign a written statement not to repeat the offence and await family members to bring them more modest clothing.
Agance France Presse – April 17, 2008 An Iranian court has given a women’s rights activist and journalist a suspended flogging and jail sentence for disturbing the public order, media reports said today. Nasrin Afzali “was sentenced to 10 lashes and a six- month jail term for disturbing public order. “The sentences will be suspended for two years,” her lawyer Mohammad Mostafai was quoted by the Etemad newspaper as saying. Afzali was arrested in March last year along with 32 other women in front of a revolutionary court where five women’s rights activists were on trial for organising a protest in a Tehran square advocating equal rights. “My client had appeared in front of the court as a journalist to cover the trial of five women who had participated in the Haft- e Tir square rally,” Mostafai said. Afzali is also a member of the women’s committee in a radical pro- reform student group, the Office to Consolidate Unity. Iran has put mounting pressure on women’s rights advocates and in recent months several have been arrested for calling for changes to Iranian laws that discriminate against women or for taking part in public protests. It is not the first time that Iran has handed a women’s rights activist a lashing sentence. Leading activist Marzieh Mortazi Langroudi was given a suspended sentence of 10 lashes and six months in prison in February for her participation in the solidarity protest outside the revolutionary court. The five feminists were accused of acting against national security for the June 2006 demonstration in Haft-e Tir square, where 70 people were arrested amid allegations of police brutality. Protesters demanded equal rights for women in marriage, divorce, inheritance and child custody.Agance France Presse – April 27, 2008 Iran’s toy market is being inundated by models of Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter and the young must be protected from their harmful cultural effects, the prosecutor general was quoted as saying on Sunday.”Promoting figures like Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter and the uncontrolled import of CDs of video games and films should alarm all the country’s officials,” Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi was quoted as saying by the student ISNA news agency. “We need to find substitutes to ward off this onslaught, which aims at children and young people whose personality is in the process of being formed,” he added. Dori Najafabadi’s comments came in a letter to an Iranian vice president, urging measures to protect “Islamic culture and revolutionary values”.
RSF – May 9 , 2008 The international press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urged Iranian authorities earlier this week to end a recent spate of systematic attacks against women’s rights publications. The statement by RSF comes on the back of the jailing of three women for six months and a two-year suspended sentence ordered earlier this month against the editor of feminist website “Change for Equality”, Parvin Ardalan. Ardalan’s sentence comes after she was accused last year of “illegal assembly and refusing to obey police orders with the intention of harming national security”, a charge brought against her for her attendance at a demonstration in Tehran calling for equal rights between men and women. Ardalan’s case hit the headlines after she was awarded the Olaf Palme prize for her work in forwarding women’s rights, but was not permitted to leave the country to collect her award. Nasrin Afzali, Nahid Jafari and Marzieh Mortazi, three feminist activists were in March sentenced to six-month jail terms as well as suspended sentences of six lashes each. The three were accused of “disturbing public order” for their part in a demonstration in support of feminist colleagues on trial for their activities. RSF went on to add that a number of women’s rights websites had become inaccessible. In October 2007, RSF ranked Iran in 166th place out of 169 countries on its annual world press freedom rankings.
Saoud al-Zahed, AlArabiya.net, May 11, 2008 Iran’s Supreme Judiciary Council condemned a 28- year-old homeless woman to death for killing and dismembering her five-day-old baby. The woman, Suhayla, admitted to murdering her infant son, saying she wanted to save him from facing the same fate as her, Iranian daily Etemmad Melli reported. Suhayla has lived on the streets since the age of 15, when she ran away from home. She worked as a prostitute for years in Tehran and was arrested and committed to a social rehabilitation center where she had her baby. When the judge asked why she dismembered the child, she replied: “I am training myself to kill properly so I can take revenge on the one who made me what I am.” According to sociology professor, Amanullah Quraee, there are 300,000 homeless women in Tehran. A report published on International Women’s Day said more than 8 million Iranian women live under the poverty line and that 86% of homeless women were victims of sexual exploitation. The report added that prostitution in Iran had reached its highest rates ever and that there were around 8,000 pick-up places in Tehran.
‘Rapping’ Iranian Men
May 11, 2008
Radio Free Europe
Antoine Blua Not allowed to sing in Iran about the harsh treatment of women in society, the Iranian rap group Tapesh 2012 (Pulse 2012) is doing just that — from its base in Germany. The group’s latest song, “Ma Mard Nistim” (“We Are Not Men”), focuses on the Iranian feminist movement and its struggle to overcome violence against women.
The band’s founder, Omid Pur-Yusofi, says “We Are Not Men” is a critique of Iran’s traditional male- dominated society and the harsh conditions many Iranian women face.He says those difficult conditions exist even in his own family, which has lived in Germany for 20 years. “My parents are educated, but I can feel patriarchy in my family,” he said. “After all these years [living in Germany] there is still a sense of patriarchy in my father’s heart. It’s been a problem for my mother even after more than 50 years of living with him.” A quick look at the comments posted on YouTube about the song shows that it has thus far attracted a lot of praise — and has been viewed more than 32,000 times since it was posted on that website just a little over one week ago.
But the group’s lyricist, 27-year-old Shahin Najafi, says he expects some negative reaction from Iranian men about the song. He admits that the title, “We Are Not Men,” is provocative, as “men” refers to males’ power in the traditional Iranian society. “This is the reality,” he said. “If you are cross-eyed and somebody reminds you about it, you’ll get angry because that is the reality. When somebody of the same gender talks about your faults as a man, you will get angry.”
Najafi started his career in Iran as a poet. He also was the leader of an underground music band before moving to Germany three years ago following what he describes as increasing pressure from Iranian authorities.
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