Category: News about Women

Film of the week – Bedroom Farsi

The Star’s critic MARIA DUARTE recommends a quietly powerful drama that examines an Iranian mother and daughter who escape domestic abuse THIS quietly powerful drama set in Australia in 1995 explores a clash of cultures as it shows the resilience, […]

Unprecedented Crackdown on Women Intensifies in Iran

Widespread security force’s crackdown on women amidst economic hardship and public discontent CODIR calls for urgent solidarity action with women in Iran! Confirmed reports from Iran tell of a calculated attempt by the regime to drive the courageous women and […]

Iranian women violently dragged from streets by police amid hijab crackdown

Harrowing first-hand accounts of women being dragged from the streets of Iran and detained by security services have emerged as human rights groups say country’s hijab rules have been brutally enforced since the country’s drone strikes on Israel on 13 April. A […]

Eleven Women’s Rights Activists Sentenced to Over 60 Years in Prison in Rasht

On Wednesday morning, 27 March 2024, eleven women’s rights activists were sentenced to a total of over 60 years in prison by the Revolutionary Court of Rasht, the capital of Gilan province in North Iran. The activists are: Ms. Farough […]

Young women top the list of those affected by unemployment in Iran!

Data from the Statistical Centre of Iran shows that the unemployment rate for young people aged 16 to 24 is higher than the unemployment rate for the country as a whole.  One of the reasons for this is the limited […]

Woman, Life, Freedom

by Marjane Satrapi, Joann Sfar, et al., translated by Una Dimitrijevic An urgent, groundbreaking and visually stunning new collection of graphic story-telling about the present Iranian revolution from Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis. A collaboration of activists, artists, journalists, and academics working together to depict […]

Iranian Woman Defiant Despite ‘Medieval’ Flogging For Hijab Violation

Roya Heshmati has stated that she had been lashed 74 times because of a social media post she made in April in which she could be seen without a hijab. The lashes to Roya Heshmati’s body have triggered renewed condemnation […]

Women’s activism in Iran continues, despite street protests dying down in face of state repression

by Mona Tajali, Associate Professor of International Relations and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Agnes Scott College * Large-scale protests that erupted in 2022 across Iran, centering on women’s rights, captured the world’s attention. Iranians peacefully protested in the streets of places […]

‘Women are defined as second-class citizens at the mercy of men’

GITA AZADI of the Democratic Organisation of Iranian Women talks to the Star about Iran’s famous Woman, Life, Freedom movement, the misogyny of Islamist rule, and what women worldwide can do to show solidarity THE Democratic Organisation of Iranian Women […]

Iran: Compulsory veiling bill a despicable assault on rights of women and girls

Reacting to the news that Iran’s parliament has passed a new bill that would impose further draconian penalties severely violating women’s and girls’ rights as well as increasing  prison terms and fines for defying Iran’s degrading and discriminatory compulsory veiling laws, […]