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March 8th, International
Woman's Day
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Demonstration on March 8th, International
Woman's Day
Time: 8 Esfand, 1383
Place: Laleh Park, Tehran
International
Symposium March 8: Eliminating Violence Against Women in Muslim Societies
International Symposium
Leading to Change:
Eliminating Violence Against Women in Muslim Societies
PRESENTED BY
Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP)
with the support of the
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
Kuwait
to discuss women's votes
The Kuwaiti parliament is to debate a bill to grant
women full political rights, a Kuwaiti minister has said.
Deputy Prime Minister Mohammad Sharar said that legislators would
discuss the bill in March.
Young
in the Arab World: Bahrain
A tiny island state in the gulf, Bahrain has a buzzing club scene
and alcohol is allowed. But how free do young people feel in the capital
Manama, and what future they see for themselves?
Ellen MacArthur, Britain's newest
world record holder
Dame Ellen, originally from Derbyshire, but now living
in Cowes, Isle of Wight, crossed the finishing line off Ushant, France,
at 10.29pm on Monday after 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds
at sea - trimming more than 32 hours off Joyon's time.
Ebadi Seeks Iran
Solitary Confinement Ban
Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi Monday asked the Iranian judiciary
to ban solitary confinement, calling it "illegal" both domestically
and internationally. "I announce to the world that solitary confinement
is (still) in use in Iran. I ask judicial officials to abolish the
cells," the human rights activist said in a news conference after
holding a seminar on the issue.
Ebadi, who is a lawyer, said holding prisoners in
solitary confinement was psychological torture. Although it was illegal
under domestic and international laws, it was still forced on pro-democracy
activists in Iran, she added. Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.
She was the first Iranian and Muslim woman to receive the honor. On
Sunday, Ebadi refused to appear in a hard-line revolutionary court
that had ordered her to attend or face arrest on an unspecified charge.
Ebadi was jailed for 25 days in 2000 after she defended the family
of a victim of a police and hard-line vigilantes raid on a Tehran
University dormitory the year before. She later co-founded the Center
for Protecting Human Rights.
Iran backtracks on women
election candidates
A ban on women standing in Iranian presidential elections in June
remains in force, a constitutional watchdog body said Saturday, rejecting
earlier reports in the official media that the ban had been lifted.
Guardians Council spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said there had been
no change in the watchdog's interpretation of a key word in the Islamic
republic's constitution that has long been taken as referring to men
only.
"My comments regarding the Guardians Council and the word rejal
have not changed and there is nothing new," Elham told the official
IRNA news agency. As late as Saturday evening, Iranian state television's
English-language service had been reporting that the Guardians had
decided to lift the ban. The disputed word, which comes from Arabic,
could also be interpreted as meaning "personalities" in
Persian and this is the translation used in some English translations
of the
Iranian woman released
after 7 years on death row for police chief's murder
- An Iranian murderess who spent seven years on death row returned
home Thursday to a tearful reception after a charity organization
paid the victim's family to secure her freedom. Afsaneh
Nowrouzi was sentenced to death in 2001 for murdering Behzad Moghaddam,
a police chief, and sexually mutilating his body after he tried to
rape her.
The death sentence raised an outcry from women's activists and drew
the attention of international groups who sought to overturn the verdict.
Nowrouzi, 34, arrived at Tehran airport accompanied by her husband
and was received by about 20 relatives, many of them in tears. In
a gesture of celebration, family members distributed sweets and candy.
Nowrouzi was released from prison in Kish island on Wednesday after
an Iranian charity organization paid the equivalent of about $43,000
Cdn to the victim's family.
Under Islamic law, a victim's family can demand punishment or accept
money in return for the convicted person's freedom. The victim's family
had initially agreed to be paid $77,000 in return for Nowrouzi's freedom,
but the charity organization persuaded them to decrease the amount.
The organization paid the money after a fundraising campaign. Nowrouzi
killed Moghaddam in 1997. She also cut off her assailant's penis and
placed it on his chest, a rarely reported event in this conservative
country where even talking about sex is taboo.
The Islamic court rejected her claim of self-defence and issued a
death sentence after convicting her of murder. She was in prison until
Wednesday. Activists used the case to highlight the difficulties that
Iranian women encounter when pursuing justice against rapists. Unless
a woman has very strong evidence, it is very difficult to prove she
was raped in Iranian courts and sometimes a woman can instead be charged
with adultery or illicit sex, which can carry the death penalty. Iran's
Supreme Court initially upheld Nowrouzi's death sentence, but last
year, under intense international pressure, judiciary chief Ayatollah
Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi ordered a stay of the verdict. The
Supreme Court took a second look at the case and overturned the death
sentence. It ordered a new ruling from the Kish court, after which
Moghaddam's family accepted the money.
First Iranian Women Gear Up For
"Mount Everest"
Sent by: Talieh Shahrokhi
Iran's national woman mountaineering team started Thursday the first
stage of preparatory camp for reaching the Everest peak to be the
first Iranian women group to scale up to the highest altitude in the
world.
The two-day camp was held in Kelardasht, in the heights
of Alam Kouh, north of Iran.
Iran's national woman mountaineering team will set
out to Himalya region to conquer the 8848-meter Everest mountain late
on this year.
(From
all of us at "Persian Journal", wish them the "Best")
© Iranian.ws
