In July, 2017, the Daily Beast covered the uptick in violence against prominent women’s rights activists in Iran. “Mahnaz Afkhami, who served as minister of state for women’s affairs under the pre-revolutionary government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and now runs the Women’s Learning Project in Bethesda, Maryland, says that in recent months, the Iranian…
Tag: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Obama, Ahmadinejad, and the Women of Iran
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…
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…