Figure 1.--This Iranian teenager had been found guilty of adultry and is being prepared for stoneing. She was 16 years old. She is being buried up to the waist to make it easier to stone her.

Women in Iran have the right to vote, but a wide range of Iranian laws descriminate against women. Many of these laws involve domestic arrangements and propery rights. Woman are subjected to a strict dress code and those who violate the code are brutalized. There are still public stonings for women found guilty of adultry. The Iranian regime seems especially concerned about the country's woman's movement. The movement sponsored a “Change for Equality” campaign which attempted to collect 1 million signatures to protest these discriminatory laws. This campaign focused on specific reforms, such as giving women’s testimony in court the same validity as that of men, equality of inheritance rights, the ending of polygamy, and equal compensation payments in cases involving wrongful death. The Iranian Judiciary under Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi Shahrudi has started to use the country's national security laws to imprison women’s rights activists. [Whitson] Iranian courts have been using article 610 of the Islamic Penal Code to punish women activists to jail terms. [Whitson] Iranian authorities appear to see pursuing women's rights as an assault on state security. Hana Abdi, a 22-year i=old young woman was involved in a 2008 campaign to collect a million signatures to supportv og greater rights for wopmen in Iran. She was arested and found guilty of "illegal gathering with an intention if commiting a crime against the nation's security". She was sentenced to a 5-year prisoin term. ["Women's activist ..."]

Sources

Whitson, Sarah Leah. "Iran: Women on Trial for Peaceful Demonstration," Human Rights News (February 27, 2007).

"Women's activist jailed in Iran," Washington Post (June 22, 2008).

Created: 4:58 AM 9/11/2007
Last updated: 8:41 AM 6/23/2008