Iranian Women Still Denied Fundamental Rights
By Kaveh Taheri
There is a large disparity when comparing women’s rights in Iran and in the West: Iranian women are still denied their basic fundamental rights. Iranian women are treated as second-class citizens, but authorities choose to ignore that women cannot enter stadiums and that there are gender barriers in the market. They choose to ignore that women have no control over their bodies and that they cannot leave the country without permission.
Ban on traveling abroad and entering stadiums
Women are banned from leaving the country without first receiving permission from their husbands; single Iranian women (up to age 40) may need their father’s permission to travel abroad. Husbands can ban their wives from leaving the country at any time.
Female athletes in Iran face huge difficulties in attending matches. Niloufar Ardalan, the captain of the Iranian soccer team and the best female player equipped with her “magic” left foot, was deprived of playing in the Women’s Futsal Championship of Malaysia in 2015 due to Sharia law. Niloufar was banned from attending the matches after her husband, TV showman Mehdi Toutounchi, did not allow her to attend the tournament based on Iran’s Islamic rules. Today, Iranian women are still banned from stadiums. The ban originated after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran which Iranian hard-liners approved and implemented.
Gender Discrimination
Iranian parliament opposed granting citizenship to children born of Iranian women and foreign men. Hossein-Ali Amiri, the Iranian Deputy Minister of Interior, said the adoption of this law would create “security, political, and social” problems for the country and increase immigration, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. Iran’s Islamic rules, however, do not extend to children born to Iranian women outside Iran.
Gender inequality and discrimination pervade Iranian society under Islamic laws. According to Article 157 of Iran’s new penal code, which was approved in January 2012, the criterion for criminal responsibility for girls is the age of eight years, nine months. In addition, the testimony of a man is often given twice the weight of a woman’s. Moreover, the testimony of a woman is not accepted for certain types of offenses.
Women undergo various forms of harassment, abuse, and discrimination by the Iranian regime on a daily basis for not observing “proper” hijab. Hijab refers to the head covering traditionally worn by some Muslim women as well as modest Islamic styles of dress. Article 63 of the penal code: “Those women that appear in the streets and public places without the Islamic hijab shall be sentenced to prison or fined as a punishment to pay some money to superior authorities.”
According to Article 1168 of the previous civil code, the guardianship of children is granted to the father and/or the paternal grandfather. Further, the husband can end his marriage without any grounds in accordance with the law. Article 1133 of the previous civil code (192
Without an acceptable excuse, the wife’s failure to comply with the lawful wishes of her husband constitutes nushuz, or disobedience, which means she may lose her rights, according to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC). While women may contract only one marriage at a time, under Iranian Islamic law it is a man’s religious and legal right to marry more than one woman. Men may enter into as many as four permanent marriages at a time. Although the right is not stipulated in the civil code, the IHRDC said that it could be deduced from several articles. The courts can also approve a minimum age to marry—13 years for girls. Authorities turn a blind eye to underage marriage, where immature girls have not even reached the legal age to vote. Meanwhile, marriage laws in developed societies have age limits of at least 16 to 18 years.
Under Iran’s Islamic rules, it is the duty of the husband to work for a living and provide nafaqah, or maintenance, for his family; wives have no such duty. However, if women decide to work, whether on account of their personal desire or due to insufficient income of the family, they do have the right to work.
Despite the 2013 election of President Hassan Rouhani in the Islamic Republic of Iran, women continue to face new challenges in exercising their civil rights. It is a great challenge for women to reach equality as well as accessing education and workforce resources, according to the Women News Network.
In Iran, the president is elected for a four-year term by the direct vote of the citizens, but it is not as simple as that. The president must be elected from among religious and political men, according to Article 114 and 115 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Thus, the constitution rules out half of Iran’s population and systematically bars women from running for president.
Equal rights to inheritance is also not established under Iran’s Islamic Sharia law—when a father dies, his son is entitled to twice as much as his daughter, according to Article 907 of the civil code.
Iranian women deserve the same basic rights as men. Discrimination against them must end.
This article was written by Kaveh Taheri & Laleh Moazen.
'We don't have any gays in Iran,' Iranian president tells Ivy League audience
Last updated at 17:04 25 September 2007
Vilified as a Holocaust denier, a supporter of terrorism and a backer of Iraqi insurgents, the president of Iran was actually able to make New Yorkers burst into laughter - though he did not intend to.
"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at Columbia University last night in response to a question about the recent execution of two gay men there.
"In Iran we do not have this phenomenon," he continued. "I do not know who has told you we have it."
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Loud laughs and boos broke from the audience of about 700 people, mostly students at the Ivy League school whose garb included "Stop Ahmadinejad's Evil" T-shirts.
Everyone from presidential candidates to September 11 families had expressed outrage that Ahmadinejad would speak there.
After his assertions that Israel persecutes Palestinians and that Iran's nuclear program is for energy not weapons, the Iranian leader's comment on gays broke the tension.
But it spurred strong reaction too.
"This is a sick joke," said Scott Long of Human Rights Watch, saying Iran tortures gays under a penal code that punishes homosexuality between men with the death penalty.
When Ahmadinejad, speaking in Farsi, actually tried to crack a joke, it drew no laughter, although maybe the nuance was lost in translation.
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"Let me tell a joke here," Ahmadinejad said. "I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs, or testing them, making them, politically they are backward, retarded."
The crowd seemed uncertain how to react. Some applauded that pacifist sentiment, others seemed befuddled by the insensitive use of the word "retarded".
Ahmadinejad's visit here was preceded by a deluge of objections when it became apparent he wanted to lay a wreath at Ground Zero and that he would speak at Columbia.
Presidential candidates from both major U.S political parties took swipes at the president of a country President George Bush calls part of "the axis of evil." They said he denied the Holocaust, supported terrorism and armed Iraqi insurgents.
New York City councilman Anthony Weiner had a different way of capturing all that.
"Sometimes we have snakes slithering through the streets of New York," Weiner told protesters outside the United Nations, where Ahmadinejad will speak today.
And in a city known for its blunt manners, the Iranian president's reception was bound to be frosty. The New York Daily News had the front page headline, "The Evil Has Landed."
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At Columbia, university President Lee Bollinger pulled no punches. He called him a "petty and cruel dictator" and said his Holocaust denials suggested he was either "brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated".
"I feel the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for," Bollinger said to loud applause.
In retort, Ahmadinejad berated Bollinger as a rude host.
"Many parts of his speech were insults," he said. "We actually respect our students and the professors by allowing them to make their own judgments."
Not everybody objected to his speaking appearance.
"If the (Columbia) president thinks it's a good idea to have the leader from Iran come and talk to the students as an educational experience, I guess it's OK with me," Bush told Fox News.
I did a quick scan of internet articles. Transgender surgery is permitted but homosexuality is still punishable by death. Their rationale for permitting transgender surgery is that while you can't change your "true" gender, the surgery reveals your true gender. If you're a transwoman attracted to women, they'll still kill you.
First of all how distressing and I sure hope the EO doesn't go through. Surreal.
Second of all, I admit to just quickly scanning most of the replies as I am running out of time this morning but Arkteia, your above post caught my attention. I am not sure I completely agree with you about your last statement. But perhaps I am wrong and I am interested to find out the truth. Aren't women's rights still restricted in Iran? If you don't mind I would appreciate hearing more. Thanks.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kaveh-taheri/iranian-women-still-denie_b_9607430.html
https://www.iranhumanrights.org/201...blicly-decries-ban-for-playing-without-hijab/
and who can forget this?!? "Iran has no homosexuals". Sure he is not in power anymore but do you think much has changed?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nian-president-tells-Ivy-League-audience.html
and they immediately became our friends (in 1944). And they can do nothing wrong by us.
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