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This is a summary of the speech I gave about my book, Crossing the Red lines, The Struggle for Human Rights in Iran, in a book signing event that took place on August 9th 2007, in Washington DC.
My main goal for writing this book was to show that even in some of the hardest situations, one could find new ways to criticize the system and challenge the dominant power. The only condition for implementing these new ideas is to make sure that they are suitable and appropriate for the needs and limitations of our society.
For 22 years, I practiced law in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In addition to being a lawyer, starting from sometimes around 1991 or so, I became active in the field of journalism once again. In Fact, this was in fact, how I started to write about women’s rights and human rights in general. My main goal was to give people correct information about discriminatory laws.
As many of you perhaps know, entering the professional world of law and the judiciary system of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a female lawyer by itself requires one to cross many redlines. Women were deprived from becoming judges immediately after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, and in general lawyers do not have, nor have they had, much respect and credibility within the system. These obstacles significantly decreased the number of female lawyers during the first few years of the revolution and those who had decided to pursue their career were facing overwhelming number of problems. In other words, being a woman and a lawyer were considered unforgivable sins. During those days, even trying to have the judge look at you straight in the eyes was a difficult task, let alone having a legal debate with them and defending a client. The judges would not take female lawyers seriously and humiliate them with their words and gaze. I spent many years of my life trying to overcome these obstacles and redlines. In Crossing the Redline, I have described some details about those years and my attempts in order to work my way around the system.
The other redline is undoubtedly the laws that were written after the success of the Islamic Revolution. These laws violate the rights of people and more specifically women, non-Muslims, opponents and critics. Considering the silence of those years, we needed at least a few professionals to stand up and talk publicly about the limitations of these laws. You might ask “how”. Well, my answer for you would be that media was the only venue that could really raise awareness among the people in regards to the laws. Since there were also many ways to restrict the media and regulate their programs and articles, utilizing that venue by itself was considered redline. Thus, the methods of utilizing the media were chosen and designed as gradual and in tuned with the circumstances of the country. In my memoirs, I describe some of these methods and ways that the women of my generation, my colleagues and fellow writers have utilized one way or another in order to proceed through their working lives and ideals. I believe that the women of my generation were the ones who took much risk and planted what we see today as Iranian women’s movement. Our struggle was slow, peaceful and consistent.
Now that I am sitting here with you, many years have passed since those days. It is now 6 years that life in exile has been imposed on me and has deprived me of the courageous activism that is currently taking place in Iran. I have become a distant observer. Today our minor and small activism has become much more public and mainstream. Now, we see women from many different layers of the society who daily join the members of Iran’s women’s rights movement and demand their stolen rights from the authorities. These women are being treated like criminals. The police, intelligence services, and the judiciary system do not cease to oppress their attempts. In other words the obstacles are increasing for women’s rights activists in Iran. This redline is only becoming harder to cross.
In today’s Iran, in addition to fighting for having the freedom to choose their own clothes or to at least gaining the freedom to choose among different types of Hijab (prescribed Islamic veil), Iranian women have started two women’s rights campaign: One Million Signature Campaign and Stop Stoning Forever Campaign. The members of these campaigns and especially their founders are constantly called summoned to different branches of the Judiciary system. They are often sentenced to financial fine, imprisonment, lashes and other forms of punishment. These women, however, are not giving up the fight. Mrs. Fariba Davoudi Mohajer, one of the founders of the One Million Signatures Campaign, is here with us today. She is indeed the symbol of the increasing activities of women in today’s Iran with the goal of changing the laws against women. I am honored to ask her to kindly come and answer your questions and wonders about the campaign and in general about today’s women’s rights movements in Iran.
I hope that Iranian women from all layers and parts of our society commit to writing their memoirs and to end the ongoing version of Iranian history that has always been determined and written by men throughout the centuries.
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