Shadi Sadr is a young feminist attorney and journalist who has been in the forefront of women’s rights struggles in Iran during the past few years. She was abducted by plainclothes police on July 17, and released eleven days later. She was arrested once before at a women’s rights demonstration in 2006. In this article dated August 14, 2009, she responds to Ayatollah Mehdi Karroubi’s open letter to Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani about the need to investigate the rapes of young protesters imprisoned after the forged June 2009 election. Sadr begins her article specifically with the case of Taraneh Mussavi, a young victim whose identity has been questioned by the Iranian government.
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Author: Frieda Afary
Interview with an Iranian Queer Activist
Hazhir is a young writer/poet/journalist/activist. Soon after the publication of this interview with Cheraq, the online journal of Iranian queers, he was forced into exile. Excerpts from the December 2007 interview follow.
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2007 Open Letter to Ahmadinejad Illuminates Student Demands
The Office for the Consolidation of Unity is Iran’s largest student organization. In this open letter to Ahmadinejad, which was distributed two weeks after his controversial speech at Columbia University in September 2007, readers can find important details about the demands of Iran’s current student movement.
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Why We Say No to the Compulsory Hijab?
Fatemeh Sadeghi has a Ph.D. in political science and has taught at the Islamic Azad University of Karaj near Tehran. She is the daughter of Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali. In this courageous article, published in May 2008, she challenges the oppression of women in Iran today. Soon after the publication of this article, she was suspended from her teaching post at the University of Karaj. A number of students protested her suspension.
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Speech by Mansour Osanloo of Tehran Bus Workers Syndicate
Excerpts from a speech made by Mansour Osanloo, the leader of the Tehran Bus Workers Syndicate, to the International Trade Union Confederation in Brussels, Belgium in June 2007. Upon his return to Iran, he was abducted and imprisoned. He has been in prison since then.
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