This month, for the first time in 30 years, formal negotiations between the United States and Iran took place in a relatively positive atmosphere. As President Obama had promised during his campaign, dialogue took the place of diatribe. This is an important development. Why now and why during the term of the holocaust-denying, US-bashing President…
Tag: Iran
Executed But Not Forgotten: Iran’s Farrokhroo Parsay
NPR interviews Mahnaz Afkhami about Farrokhroo Parsa, the Minister of Education in Iran from 1968 to 1977. Ms. Parsa was charged with corruption after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and executed on charges of corruption. In the interview, Afkhami discusses the role that Ms. Parsay played as both her personal mentor and as a pioneer for…
‘I Was Iran’s Last Woman Minister’
In an interview with the BBC World Service, Mahnaz Afkhami discusses her role as Minister of Women’s Affairs in Iran, Farrokhroo Parsa, and the future of women in Iran. “I have no doubt that women are going to win…history is moving in a different direction,” says Afkhami.
Women are Driving Iran Toward Democracy
The images from Iran in the last two weeks have stunned the world: hundreds of thousands of women and men marching peacefully, first in support of reformist candidates and later protesting the government’s version of the results. Women played a prominent role at every level in this movement; in fact what unfolded in Iran would…
Women Inspiring Women
Mahnaz Afkhami is interviewed by Forbes, where she speaks about women’s rights in Iran and across the Islamic world. The interview covers myriad topics including Iran’s One Million Signatures Campaign, the push to reform family laws, and activism in Iran. “It is impossible to impose an archaic form of government on an aware and connected…
Fate of Iran’s Family Protection Law (in Persian)
In an interview conducted by the Feminist School’s Nooshin Ahmadi-Khorasani, Mahnaz Afkhami delineates Iran’s Family Protection Law – passed in 1967 and amended in 1975. She states that the law drew extensive disagreements from different groups, ranging from traditional clerics to leftists, at the time. Afkhami, however, adds that Iran’s former regime was proud of…
The United States Stands by Women in Iran (in Persian)
This article, which focuses on Iranian women’s One Million Signature Campaign launched in 2006, quotes Mahnaz Afkhami as saying “this popular campaign at the very least educates people and prepares the ground for a public consensus, and at the very most leads to codifying egalitarian laws for women.”
VOA Roundtable: Discriminatory Laws against Women in Iran (in Persian)
Following a violent crackdown of women’s peaceful protests in Tehran, VOA Persian aired a program on discriminatory laws against women under the Islamic Republic regime, including a Q and A with callers from all over the world with Mahnaz Afkhami as its guest. Afkhami pointed out that Iranian women had never faced such violence or…