Spring of freedom

The woman who removed her headscarf is jailed hand harassed by Iranian state security forces  At the close of 2017, an Iranian woman removing her hijab and waving it like a flag became a symbol of the protests sweeping through Iran. That woman's current whereabouts are unknown, but locals claim she was arrested by police.  The woman in the video was violating Iran's so-called modesty laws, which mandate that women wear Islamic head coverings at all times.  At the time, some media reports claimed these laws were no longer enforced in cities like Tehran during the protests. However, the laws and accompanying punishments were only loosened slightly. Those wearing loose-fitting hijabs and too much makeup were assigned to mandatory Islamic culture classes, rather than the usual punishment of jail time. The illegal punishment they have had to bear has always been much more than what is foreseen in the law.   Anti-government protests raged in Iran as the n...

woman in iran with women should have same rights as men on her hands Every year, the day November 25 comes as a grim reminder that we have a long way to go for achieving gender parity. There are still many countries in the world where women cannot fully exercise the right to shape their own destiny. Violence against women is another detestable vestige of the mostly patriarchal societies inherited by our generation. It may seem that we have come a long way since the Dark Ages, but there are still some countries in the world that have made little progress in according equal rights to women and men. There is even a country where misogyny is the order of the day and where women have no legal rights. It may come as a shock to many, but Iran continues to run in this way. The Iranian regime may keep up pretences in public on issues related to women’s rights, but in practice women remain second class citizens in that country.       The violence led to c...