On 15 June, shortly after the day of solidarity with Iranian women (12 June), about three dozen people gathered at Amnesty International UK’s Human Rights Action Centre to take part in an event on women’s rights in Iran. They came to learn more about Iranian women’s fight for gender equality and take various actions for female human rights defenders.
The evening kicked off with an excellent documentary by Sheema Kalbasi, which gave the audience a good overview on the restrictions imposed on women’s daily lives. With the help of this film, ‘Women on the Front Line’, we learnt about the discriminatory laws and practices that exist in the country, such as the fact that a woman’s testimony at court is valued half as that of a man. Or to name another typical example: the law says that the guardianship of a child is with her father.
After the film, we turned to our special guests who enlightened us about the situation of women in some specific contexts.
Our first speaker, Dr Pejman Abdolmohammadi is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Middle East Centre of the London School of Economics. He streamlined some major aspects of domestic politics in the contemporary Iran, putting an emphasis on women’s part in it.
After the ’79 revolution, in spite of the imposition of Islamic values on the people in schools, universities and working place etc., within the Islamic Republic the most secular civil society in the Middle East has raised been. The separation of religion and politics turns to be crucial, especially for the youth and for young women. In this structure, the role of women is very important. Dr Pejman explained that, which seem to be just a small action: leaving part of the hair uncovered by the scarf is actually a significant sign of protest. This shows a constant dissenting stance towards the Islamic Republic. From the political point of view, this could be seen as the beginning of a political process: first asking for small things, which, over a longer period of time, could accumulate and go beyond the authoritarian rules.
Finally, Dr Pejman talked about a demographic gap, which is reflected in the current political context of Iran. As he said, out of the 78 million Iranians, around 50 million are under 35 years of age. Due to their age, they haven’t still been able to form a new social elite and build a strong opposition, which could be able to offer solid alternative to the current political regime. However, Dr Pejman anticipates that this gap will be filled in the next ten years. As he said:
“In the new social elite, women and youth can have a very important role: they can be leaders in a new Iran in a new Middle East in the following years.”
Our second speaker was Dr Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer, former judge, human rights defender and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Dr Ebadi opened her speech with an impressive sentence, saying that:
“The Islamic revolution was a revolution of men against women.”
In the revolution, women lost all the rights they had already gained. 46 years have passed, but the situation of women in the country is getting worse day by day. The authorities apply discriminatory policies and measures against women in the name of Islam. Based on this, it is not surprising that the women’s movement has become secular. Over the years, women realised that the name of Islam has been misused.
Dr Ebadi pointed out that currently around 50 women activists are held in prisons across the country. They are kept in harsh conditions, often in solitary confinement for months and without adequate medical care. Dr Ebadi highlighted the case of Narges Mohammadi, who was her colleague and a co-founder of her NGO, the Human Rights Defenders Centre. Narges Mohammadi has recently been rearrested to serve her remaining prison term she received for her peaceful human rights activism. Dr Ebadi emphasised that Narges is still too ill to be in jail, therefore, every signature collected with a petition for her release counts a lot. She encouraged the audience to keep campaigning for Narges and for other prisoners of conscience in Iran.
Finally, Sonya Sceats, the Director of Policy and Advocacy at Freedom from Torture described how her organisation helps survivors of torture from Iran, by providing them with rehabilitation and other clinical services. She pointed out that the organisation, which is one of the largest torture treatment centres in the world, has received more than 5000 referrals for Iranians since its establishment 30 years ago. In 2014, 1 in 5 of their treatment clients was from Iran and 23% of these were women. She explained that this does not necessarily mean that men are more likely to be tortured in Iran, but that women may face more difficulties in escaping from Iran.
In 2013, Freedom from Torture released a major research report on torture in Iran in the lead up to, during and after the 2009 presidential elections. The report was based on forensic medico-legal reports prepared by Freedom from Torture clinicians. While some of the torture survivors in the research had a history of political activism, many of them became active for the first time around the 2009 elections, even if they only had minor roles in the protests and demonstrations. However, Sonya also emphasised in relation to Iranian torture survivors:
“Many of our clients have no history of political activism at all. [..] They were caught up for all sorts of reasons.”
This includes being at the wrong place in the wrong time, or because of family relations or violations of the dress code.
Regarding rehabilitation work with Iranian torture survivors specifically, Sonya talked about high levels of distrustfulness and even paranoia related to the extreme psychological impact of torture. Iranian torture methods are highly sophisticated and designed to destroy the victim’s sense of identity and ability to enjoy intimate relations with others, including in the long term. Clinicians at Freedom from Torture sometimes speculate that some of these methods may have been devised by psychologists. Finally, Sonya also referred to the great difficulties that many Iranian torture survivors encounter in the British asylum system. In many cases their asylum claims are disbelieved, in fact almost 50% of Iranian asylum applications are rejected and, sadly, many of these are claims by torture survivors with genuine protection needs.
After the speeches, the renowned experts answered the questions of the attendees and following the official programme, panellists and members of the audience could further engage in a conversation over a small drink reception.
However, we weren’t there just to talk: attendees had their photos taken with a placard demanding “Equality for women in Iran” with the photo of Narges Mohammadi. They also left their signature on a petition for the release of this high-profile women’s rights defender, which, in the meantime, arrived to the Iranian Head of Judiciary.
To sum up, in two hours we learnt a lot about women’s rights and status in Iran from different point of views and also understand that we need to be on their side in their fight for gender equality.