In the News
Mahnaz Afkhami has been featured in the news in print media, social media, and on television and radio.
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Remarks by Mahnaz Afkhami on behalf of the women and girls in Iran for the 2023 Atlantic Council Distinguished Leaders Award
On May 11, 2023, the Atlantic Council honored the courage of Iranian women and girls at the 2023 Distinguished Leadership Awards. A delegation of Iranian activists and scholars accepted the award on behalf of the women and girls in Iran. Actress and activist Nazanin Nour read the acceptance remarks written by WLP Founder and President, and Former Minister for Women’s Affairs in Iran, Mahnaz Afkhami at the awards celebration. Good evening. Thank you, Atlantic Council, for the tremendous honor of this Leadership Award, representing the women and girls of Iran who are fighting for freedom and equality. Distinguished guests, it is a privilege for me to accept this award on behalf of the millions of mothers, sisters, and daughters in Iran who–at great personal risk–are pressing for a brighter future. The seeds of Iranian women’s liberation were planted over a hundred years ago. In 1906, Iranian women took an active …
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Flashpoint Iran (Voice of America News)
In this interview with Michael Lipin, VOA News, Mahnaz Afkhami discusses how the memory of the women’s rights movement of Iran in the 1970s inspires the protests today. Afkhami also speaks about her time as the first minister for Women’s Affairs of Iran and her current work at the Women’s Learning Partnership. The conversation focuses on the idea of consciousness raising and the passing on of generational knowledge. The interview begins at 15:08.
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Voice of America Farsi Newsclip
This newsclip, shared by VOA Farsi, discusses the Rising for Social Justice event in support of the protests in Iran. This event took place at George Washington University and featured Mahnaz Afkhami and Roya Hakakian.
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Iran’s former women’s minister on ‘first global revolution shaped by women’
In an interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN, Mahnaz Afkhami reflects on current events in Iran in comparison to the progress made when she was the Minister for Women’s Affairs of Iran. Afkhami speaks in depth about the women’s movement in Iran since the turn of the 19th century, her time as a cabinet member in Iran, and the undoing of her work by Ayatollah Khomeini. She also speaks about her grandmother, her mother, and her time spent in the United States before her return to Iran as an adult.
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Contextualizing the Iranian Protests
Western sanctions have slowed Iran’s economy, causing protests against the absence of freedom and opportunities — teachers their lack of pay; farmers their lack of water; retirees their fear of economic insecurity. But at the heart of this powerful new movement has been Iran’s women, whose frustration with Iran’s misogynist theocracy had been mounting for four decades. This week on International Horizons, RBI Research Associate Ellen Chesler is joined by Mahnaz Afkhami, former Minister of Women’s Affairs in Iran, and Kelly Shannon, Associate Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University, to discuss the rise of the women’s movement in Iran. The interviewees describe how the different interpretations of the Quran have influenced politics and the role women play in Muslim societies, the prospects of the protests in Iran, and the importance of collective action in bringing about change.
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Special Program: Girls of the Sun Land
The program focuses on the effort of Iranian women in the 2022 protests that began after the death of Mahsa Amini. Mahnaz Afkhami is interviewed at 48:25.
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Book Report
In this brief book report, Caralee Adams of Bethesda Magazine discusses Mahnaz Afkhami’s memoir The Other Side of Silence: A Memoir of Exile, Iran, and the Global Women’s Movement. Adams also shares a brief background on Afkhami.
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Iranian Women’s Revolution
In an interview with H. Andrew Schwartz, from The Truth of the Matter podcast hosted by Center for Strategic & International Studies, Mahnaz Afkhami discusses the current protests happening in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini. Afkhami explains her views on the protests and what they may mean for Iran in the future.
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Rosemary Barton (CBC TV) Interview with Mahnaz Afkhami
In conversation with Rosemary Barton, of CBC Television, Mahnaz Afkhami speaks about her views on the current protests taking place in Iran in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini, Afkhami also shares her views on the global support for Iranian women and how it is affecting Iran and the movement itself.
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She was Iran’s women’s minister before the 1979 revolution. Now she’s watching protests in exile.
In this interview with CBC Television, Mahnaz Afkhami shares her views on Iran, both before and after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. This interview occurred in the aftermath of the death of Mahsa Amini and at the beginning of the responding protests that rocked the country in late 2022. Afkhami also discusses her own background as the Secretary General of the Women’s Organization of Iran and as the Minister for Women’s Affairs.
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