Why Is Iran Afraid Of Its Women Who Fight For Human Rights Including Rights Of Women?
Many
Muslim Countries Persecute Human Rights Activists Though They Claim To Follow
Democratic Values
Intro:
1. Iran has a
long record of persecuting Human Rights activists
2. Nargis
Mohammadi has been sentenced to 8 years in jail and 70 flogging
3. Earlier she
served a five years sentence.
4. A number of
Iranian rights activists have been arrested and jailed by authorities in Iran.
----
By
New Age Islam Staff Writer
29 January
2022
The UN has singled out Iran for
discrimination against women, so why is it elected to the main UN body
dedicated to gender equality? EPA/Stefan Zaklin
-----
The
sentencing of Nargis Mohammadi, a rights activist and colleague of Nobel Peace
Prize winner rights activist of Iran Shirin Ebadi by an Iranina court to 8
years of prison and 70 floggings once again shows the poor track record of Iran
and other Muslim countries on rights front.
Nargis
Mohammadi was sentenced to 8 years prison only after a 5 minutes hearing. This
shows the farcical judicial process while dealing with human rights issues.
Nargis has
been an eyesore of the Iranian government for years as she has been working with exiled human rights
activist Shirin Ebadi who was persecuted by Iran government.
In 2016,
she had been sentenced to 5 years prison for expressing her views against death
penalty and her stand against prison authorities. She was released in 2020 only
to be sentenced again for 30 months. This time she was arrested in November
2021.
Nargis has
been working for Defenders of Human Rights Centre and has been fighting for
human rights of citizens and for judicial reforms in Iran.
Nargis is
not the only woman rights activist of Iran to have gone through persecution for
speaking in favour of human rights and trade union rights or demanding judicial
reforms in the country. There are other brave women in Iran who have dared to
stand up against the religious authorities and protest against the human rights
abuses committed by the government.
Saba Kord
Afshari is another young Iranian rights activist who has been jailed for
opposing the mandatory hijab laws and protesting against corruption in
government’s rank and file. She staged a protest She has spent more than two
years in jail in two separate sentences. She was also accused of promoting
prostitution and immorality in public when in 2019 when she posted a video of
herself without a scarf. She was arrested and was sentenced to 20 years of
prison. She said that in Iranian prisons, there was no sign of human rights.
This speaks highly of the poor condition of prisons in Iran.
Another woman
rights activist is Yasman Aryani who opposed the mandatory hijab laws and has
spent two years in prison for her ‘crime’ for speaking for the rights of women.
She has been detained twice and has spent nearly two years in prison. She was
also a participant in the protest against hijab and corruption. She was
arrested in 2018 and was sentenced to one year prison and was released in 2019.
But her imprisonment could not silence her and her resolve to fight for women’s
rights. In 2019, on Women’s Rights Day, Aryani and her mother presented flowers
to the women of the women only car of Iran’s Metro to promote resistance
against compulsory hijab laws. This act earned her and her mother the wrath of
the government and she and her mother
were sentenced to 16 years in prison. Later Aryan sentence was reduced to nine
years and six months. They have been in jail since then. This is unimaginable
in a modern society where only protesting against hijab laws can earn a
sentence for 16 years.
Tehran, Iran, April 2017 ©
Grigvovan/Women’s Rights in Iran
----
Atena Daemi
is yet another women rights activist of Iran who has earned the wrath of Iran’s
religious authorities who deny the rights of women granted to them by Shariah.
The conservative religious leadership always try to stifle the female voices
that speak up against harassment and persecution of women.
Atena
fights for the rights of children and opposed death penalty. In 2014 she had
been arrested for meeting the families of prisoners and making the plight of
the prisoners public causing embarrassment to the jail authorities as the condition
of jails in Iran are very poor and the treatment of prisoners in those prisons
was like animals. She was arrested and kept in solitary confinement. She was
sentenced to 14 years but the sentenced was later reduced to seven years. The jail authorities physically tortured in
jail. When her two sisters complained to the court about the torture they were
also arrested. Daemi staged hunger
strike in protest of their arrest. The inhuman treatment meted out to her in
jail caused her serious health problems like skin disease, falling eye sight and stomach problems.
Sepideh
Qolian is another woman rights activist whom the Iranian government fears and
tries to silence. She fights for labour
rights of workers. She speaks and writes about the inhuman treatment of
prisoners in Iran’s prisons. Her book “Tilapia sucks the blood of Hur-al-Azim
deals with the inhuman conditions of Spider Prison. She was arrested in 2019
and was sentenced to 19 years in prison for publishing false news, colluding
against national security, illegal assembly and false propaganda against the state. Later her sentence was reduced to
five years. From the prison she wrote a book giving an account of the jail
condition. She wrote that the jail cell was very small that is 5 square metres
with a filthy carpet and two filthier blankets. She also revealed the practice
of the jail authorities of extracting forced confessions. She was also offered
pardon on the condition that she would apologize to the supreme leader Ayatollah
Khamenei but she refused to apologize. She remains in jail.
Hangameh
Shahidi is another woman activist journalist who has spoken against stoning for
adultery. She is vocal for human rights and supports women’s rights in Iran.
She has been detained three times and has served jail terms for five years.
These are
some of the brave women who have shown the courage to stand up against the
highhandedness of the religious authorities and have supported women’s rights.
They have also made the miserable condition of prisons in the country and the
illegal and unIslamic practices of the jail authorities. The women have
protested against mandatory hijab, against injustice to the working class and against the child
rights abuses.
But the
Iranian government, instead of bringing jail and labor laws reforms, instead of
giving a respectful place granted to them by Islam, have jailed the women with
sentences ranging from five years to 14 years, not for killing people but for
just opposing mandatory hijab, torture in jails and opposing the punishment for
adultery by stoning.
This is how
women are being treated in Iran which claims to be a truly Islamic country. The
Islamic government in practice behaves like the Taliban in Afghanistan. The
women of Iran are more educated than their Afghani or Arab counterparts and so
they are aware of their rights and place in an Islamic society. They have
refused to bow down to the authorities and to the religious leadership.
To claim to
be a truly Islamic country, Iran needs to change its attitude and policy towards
women and should change its laws in accordance with the laws in modern Islamic
countries. It needs to reform its jail system and stop torturing women
prisoners. These are inhuman practices unbecoming of an Islamic country.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-human-rights/iran-human-rights-women/d/126263
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic
Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism