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Iranian women taking charge to secure their rights

Jill

Ali has posted a beautiful speech by Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Lily Mazahery. It’s a must-read, especially for those who think that women in majority-Muslim nations are silent. A taste:

Some of you may be familiar with the case of Atefeh Rajabi, a girl-child hanged to death in the city of Neka in the early hours of August 15 of 2004. Her crime was officially declared to be “adultery,” even though she had never married and was only 16 when the very judge who had condemned her to death served the added role of executioner by personally placing the noose around Atefeh’s tiny neck and ordering her body to be lifted. Unofficially, however, Atefeh’s crime was defiance – defiance of the un-natural and unreasonable rules that were forced upon her by the Islamic government; defiance of her status as something less than human; defiance of the inequality, poverty, and misogyny that has infested Iran in the past 27 years; and defiance of the binds designed to break the human spirit and destroy the essence of childhood. To the very end, Atefeh maintained her defiance. Witnesses speak of an unusual sense of calmness in her beautiful blue eyes to the last minute. They recount the girl-child’s insolent last words, which were: “At the very least, you could have given me a glass of water. Animals are slaughtered more humanely than this.”

Read it all.

9 thoughts on Iranian women taking charge to secure their rights

  1. What does one case prove? The majority of women in Islamic countries practice their religion quite faithfully, in its regional variants. They are the supporters of some practices that you, I guess, would consider sexist.

  2. Lily is a friend of mine: she’s absolutely wonderful and her speech was excellent (this version has all the original links in it), but she’s actually Persian-American and lives in Washington where she runs the Legal Rights Institute.

  4. Amanda, that punishment is too lenient in my estimation. They need to gnaw on his entire misogynist body for eternity a la Prometheus in order for the punishment to be equitable. And this:

    Animals are slaughtered more humanely than this

    Made me so fucking angry that words were impossible for me for a few minutes. I wish that piece of fecal matter was here now and his throat was in my hands, slowly being crushed. And this is coming from a pacifist.

  5. Mohammad on a stick. These people are freaking INSANE. And they’re going to have nuclear arms (or maybe have them already)?

  6. Jane, who says a link to a speech is about proving anything. Can it not illustrate, inform, or simply communicate?
    As far as I can see, Jill didn’t propose a thesis in this post, she simply posted an example of human-rights activism by a Persian-American activist.

    If you read the speech, you might have noticed that Ms. Mazahery talks about reading women’s blogs, in Farsi, from Iran—these women’s views and experiences, which the Iranian power structure would have us believe don’t exist, are reaching a wider audience.

  7. Jane,

    I’m not sure if I’m following your post correctly or not.

    But:
    Just because a Muslim woman in particular country “follows” the practices that are often times, in fact, I might go as far to say, almost all the time, IMPOSED, does not, in any way shape or form, mean that those women SUPPORT those practices.

    Perhaps Atefeh’s point, in her speech, was to give one example of many girls and women who are victims of the same ridiculous “Islamic” punishments. It’s not often that we (in the West, Muslims and non-Muslims) get to hear about stories like this.

    Jill’s point about women in majority-Muslim nations not being silent is extremely important. These women are NOT silent.

    Another important read is Shirin Ebadi’s Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope.

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