"Any Attack on Iran Will Be Good for the Government": INTERVIEW WITH NOBEL LAUREATE SHIRIN EBADI
May 15, 2006 - (Spiegel) Nobel laureate and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi discusses the plight of women in Iran, Bush's similarity to Ahmadinejad and why direct negotiations are the only solution. Shirin Ebadi's new book, "Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope," opens with a chilling scene that underlines just how hazardous her human rights activism has been. In the fall of 2000, Ebadi, one of Iran's leading reformist lawyers, represented Parastou Forouhar, whose parents, dissident intellectuals, were butchered by government assassins. Their killings, part of a string of murders of regime critics carried out by the Ministry of Intelligence in the late '90s, were perpetrated with particular sadism -- the aging couple were stabbed repeatedly and then hacked to pieces.
In 2000, some of those involved in the murders were finally brought to trial. "The stakes could not be higher," writes Ebadi. "It was the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic that the state had acknowledged that it had murdered its critics, and the first time a trial would be convened to hold the perpetrators accountable."

Postcards from Iran: Maheen
April 28, 2006 -(BBC NEWS) As part of a week of special coverage on Iran, the BBC World Service has spoken to a number of Iranians about the situation in their country and their fears of possible conflict over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Police Used Extreme Brutality Against Hundreds of Iranian Women
March 10, 2006 - Iran Press Service.“The International Women’s Day is being held at a time when the women of our country still have a long way to go to attain their full rights as citizens. While women in Iran comprise some 60 percent of new university students in the country, they continue to be denied some of their basic rights”, Mrs. Shirin Ebadi, Iranian lawyer, human rights campaigner and the 2004 Noble Peace Prize winner said.

Iranian Women Rally for Freedom on International Women's Day
March 8, 2006 - (WFAFI) - Hundreds of women, from all walks of life, took part in a rally to commemorate international women'sday in Iran. Although an hour-long rally was to take place at 4 PM, women began to form large gatherings at 3 p.m. (local time) in Park-e Laleh and Park-e Daneshjoo both in central Tehran, north of Tehran University. Female university students joined the crowd with prepared banners and signs. Eyewitnesses report that as the crowd grew presence of security forces in plain clothing and official uniforms became more noticeable.

Iran: Self-Immolation Of Kurdish Women Brings Concern
February 8, 2006.- (Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty). The Kurdistan Human Rights Organization is expressing concern over the self-immolation of Kurdish women in Iran's Western Azerbaijan Province. The organization has published the name of more than 150 Kurdish women who have committed suicide in the past nine months, the majority of them by setting themselves on fire. Observers and activists say self-immolation of women is also happening in some other Western provinces of Iran that have large Kurdish populations, such as Ilam, Kermanshah, and Kurdistan. Domestic violence, social injustice, and discrimination are cited as the main reasons for self-immolation among women.

iran: Kurdish Women's Rights Activist Claims She Was Tortured In Prison
February 1, 2006- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Roya Toloui, a prominent Iranian Kurdish women's rights activist, who was recently released from prison on bail, says she was tortured and forced to make confessions while confined. Toloui, the editor in chief of the monthly "Rasan" magazine and the founder of the Association of the Kurdish Women Supporting Peace in Kurdistan, was arrested last August following unrest in several Iranian Kurdish cities. The charges against her include "acting against national security" and "disturbing public order." Toloui told Radio Farda that Iran's Islamic establishment should be condemned because of serious human-rights abuses.

2005

Exiled Iranians Try to Foment Revolution From France
September 24, 2005 – (NYT) MARYAM RAJAVI, a wide-eyed woman who goes by the title president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is eager to talk about the latest discovery by her spies: mile-long tunnels, large enough to drive trucks into, dug into the mountains outside of Tehran.

Iranian Women Protest Sex Discrimination
June 13, 2005 - (Feminist Daily News Wire) Approximately 250 women gathered in front of Tehran University yesterday and 200 others gathered nearby to protest sex discrimination imposed on them through Islamic or sharia law. Women demanded that in the upcoming June 17 election, candidates must define how they will change women¦s status and the current laws which value women as subordinate to men, according to the New York Times.

IRANIAN WOMEN FEAR LOSS OF NEW SOCIAL FREEDOMS AS PRESIDENTIAL VOTE NEARS
June 10, 2005 - (Middle Eastern Times) Their coats are tight-fitting, their hair tumbles out from flimsy headscarves and their opinions are uninhibited - these two Iranian women know they have gained much under outgoing Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.

Ebadi anger at women election ban
April 25, 2005 - (BBC) Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi's human rights group has criticised the fact that women will not be allowed to run in Iran's June presidential elections. She objected to the interpretation of the constitution that prevents women from standing for the presidency.

Iran eases its social strictures
April 15, 2005 - (CSMonitor) Stuck in traffic, the young driver with goatee, shades, and a roving eye spots his targets - two lanes over. Oozing self-confidence, he rolls down his window and motions to the passenger in the next car to roll down both his windows, so he can deliver his pickup line directly.

220 women in Iran province committed suicide
February 16, 2005 - (Iran Focus) Women and teenage girls comprise the majority of people in Iran's Ilam province (western Iran) who committed suicide throughout this year, according to the province's Councillor for Women's Affairs.

Iran mosque fire casualties mostly women
February 15, 2005 - (Sydney Morning Herald) A fire in an Iran mosque that killed 59 people, most of them women, began in the segregated women's section, emergency officials said. More than 250 people were injured in the blaze that raged through the Tehran mosque after a female worshipper's veil caught fire from a kerosene heater, Iran's official IRNA news agency said.

Yakin Ertürk's statement of her official visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran
February 8, 2005 - (UNHCR) The Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights issued the following statement at the end of her official visit.

Women's rights: Iran's bitter lessons for Iraq
February 7, 2005 - (IHT) Before the recent elections, leading Iraqi politicians did their best to assuage concerns of their more secular compatriots by promising moderation and inclusion. But election rhetoric is not reality. An important test will be how these leaders address women's rights in the face of pressure from religious extremists. While political leaders may profess moderation on many issues, if they do not adhere to basic principles of human rights - including the equal rights of women - their moderation is an illusion. We need look no further than across the border to Iran to see how compromising women's rights compromises democracy and freedom.

U.N. Sharply Rebukes Iran Over Women's Rights
February 6, 2005 - (Reuters) The United Nations on Sunday painted a damning portrait of women's rights in Iran, saying they had insufficient right of appeal against violence and were being sentenced to death on flimsy evidence. Drawing upon her own status as a Muslim woman, Yakin Erturk, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, summed up with a cautionary note from the Koran.

State sponsored violence against women in Iran
January 6, 2004 - (WFAFI) 2004 marked the year of gross human rights violations in Iran. According to the Iranian media and sources inside the country, as of the end of the year 14 women were facing execution or stoning in Iran, four women were executed, and information has come to light of mass stonings of 16 women in the past. Women's Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran condemns these barbaric acts and calls on all governments and organizations to take action. The oppressed women of Iran hold those governments that appease Iran's fundamentalist regime responsible for the ongoing sufferings and violence.

2004

Iran to Execute Two Women for "Morality" Crimes
December 21, 2004 - (Feminist Daily News) The fundamentalist regime of Iran has sentenced two women to death for so-called "crimes against morality," according to Amnesty International UK. Leyla M., a mentally disabled 19-year-old, has been sentenced to be flogged and then executed. Leyla, who was forced into prostitution at the age of eight by her mother, received 100 lashes for prostitution at the age of nine when she gave birth to her first child.

Two Female Journalists and Women's Rights Activists Arrested in Iran
November 9, 2004 - (Feminist Daily News) Two leading female journalists were arrested this past week as part of the Iranian government's crackdown on pro-democracy journalists and websites. According to the New York Times, Mahboubeh Abbas-Gholizadeh, the editor of the Farzaneh magazine and an outspoken women’s rights activist, was arrested on November 1. Fereshteh Ghazi, who writes about women’s rights issues in a daily newspaper, was also arrested last week.

Funding for women heads of households should be increased in next national budget
October 19, 2004 – (Tehran Times) President Mohammad Khatami on Monday called for an increase in funding for women heads of households and unattended children in next year’s national budget

Iranian MPs call for international support for women and children
October 19, 2004 (Tehran Times) Two Iranian MPs on Monday called on the international community to support the rights of children and women and urged universal attempts to liberate women and children in the occupied countries

Iran Moves to Roll Back Rights Won by Women
September 19, 2004 - (NYT) The hard-liners who won Iran's parliamentary elections last February have focused on women's rights in their efforts to reverse some of the reforms carried out under the moderate president, Mohammad Khatami.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL OUTRAGED AT REPORTED EXECUTION OF A 16 YEAR OLD GIRL
August 23, 2004 - (Amnesty International) Amnesty International today expressed its outrage at the reported execution of a girl who is believed to be 16 years old, Ateqeh Rajabi, in Neka in the northern Iranian province of Mazandaran, on 15 August, for "acts incompatible with chastity" (amal-e manafe-ye ‘ofat). Ateqeh Rajabi was reportedly publicly hanged on a street in the city centre of Neka.

VIOLENCE AGAINST KURDISH WOMEN IN IRAN
August 19, 2004 – (KurdishMedia.com) We know that about approximately 9 million Kurds live in Iran. They are the third most important ethnic group in the country. The Kurds in Iran are not recognised as an ethnic minority in the constitution. Today they suffer from multiple oppressions, with Kurdish culture still only partially recognised. Kurds belonging to the minority Sunni sect are subordinated by the Iranian Shiia Government. Economically, the region suffers from underdevelopment and a growing drugs problem, now devastating a new generation.

IRAN 'KILLER OF RAPIST' REPRIEVED
July 27, 2004 - (BBC) Iran's Supreme Court has quashed the death sentence passed on a woman who killed an intelligence officer she claims tried to rape her.

IRANIAN WOMEN NOW INHERIT ALL--NOT PART--OF HUSBANDS' ASSETS
June 2004 – (ISIS) Outgoing members of the Majlis (Parliament or Assembly) of Iran passed a bill on 10 May 2004 giving women equal inheritance rights.

WOMEN'S GAINS AT RISK IN IRAN'S NEW PARLIAMENT
June 8, 2004 - (Womens eNews) "Well, the ladies agree; the gentlemen agree out of fear of their wives. Therefore, this bill has passed!" For almost four years this was how Mehdi Karrubi, president of the Iranian parliament, would announce the passage of a bill related to women's rights by the reformist legislature.

IRANIANS FACE CRACKDOWN ON IMMORAL BEHAVIOR
June 1, 2004 – (Reuters) Iran's feared morals police have launched a crackdown on "social corruption" such as women flouting Islamic dress codes, newspapers reported Tuesday, in what analysts said may reflect a changing political climate.

IRAN MPS'S PUSH FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS
May 10, 2004 – (BBC News) Iran's outgoing reformist parliament has approved a bill which would grant women equal inheritance rights to men. The bill must also be backed by a hardline vetting body which has vetoed equal rights legislation in the past. Under the proposed law, a woman would take all her husband's estate in the absence of other heirs, instead of only half the estate as at present. The law is one of several, including blood money and sworn testimony, which give women half the legal value of men.
'Step forward' Currently, the state takes half the couple's estate if a husband dies in the absence of other heirs.

IRAN GIRL'S MURDER SPURS DEBATE OVER BLOOD MONEY
March 18, 2004 – (WeNews) The case of a murdered 11-year-old-girl has focused attention on "blood money" provisions in Iranian law that value a woman's life at half that of a man's. Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi is arguing the case for the victim's family.

AUTHORITIES REFUSED IRANIAN WOMEN DEMONSTRATIONS
March 8, 2004 - (IPS) Iranian Police and security forces, acting on orders from the government of President Mohammad Khatami, prevented Monday violently a meeting of Iranian women that was to celebrate the International Women’s Day.

VIGILANTES STOP IRAN WOMEN'S DEMO
March 8, 2004 – (BBC) A gathering to celebrate International Women's Day in Tehran turned ugly as militia groups broke up what had started as a peaceful demonstration.

WOMEN IN IRAN TO BOYCOTT ELECTIONS, SEEK OPTIONS
February 20, 2004- (WeNews) With Iran's reformists barred from standing in parliamentary elections today, female leaders are taking stock and looking for options beyond electoral politics to carry on their cause for equality.

IRAN'S DISAPPOINTED WOMEN
February 19, 2004 – (BBC) Many women in Iran say they will stay away from the polls, disappointed with the reform movement they played a key role in launching.

SEX SLAVERY NEW FACE OF OPPRESSION OF WOMEN IN IRAN
February 11, 2004 – (WeNews commentary) Twenty-five years after the overthrow of the Shah, sex trafficking is flourishing in Iran under a tyrannical system of gender apartheid. The authors believe that only the end of the fundamentalist Islamic regime will free women and girls.

HOW IRAN VOTES
February 3, 2004 – (BBC) Iranians go to the polls on 20 February to elect a new parliament. Like previous elections, the battle is expected to be an ideological one between the elected reformists and the largely unelected hardliners who dominate the important institutions of the state.

2003

IRAN'S NOBEL WINNER DOESN'T MAKE THE NEWS AT HOME
December 12, 2003 –(Christian Science Monitor) Shirin Ebadi accepted her Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo Wednesday to standing ovations and blanket media coverage of her mission to improve democracy and human rights in Iran.

FROM THE NOBEL PRIZE ACCEPTANCE SPEECH: SHIRIN EBADI
December 11, 2003 – (The Globe and Mail – Canada) This year, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to a woman from Iran, a Muslim country in the Middle East. My selection will make women in Iran, and much farther afield, believe in themselves. Women constitute half of the population of every country. To disregard women and bar them from active participation in political, social, economic and cultural life is tantamount to depriving the entire population of every society of half its capability. The patriarchal culture and the discrimination against women, particularly in the Islamic countries, cannot continue.

IN SPEECH, NOBEL WINNER REBUKES THE U.S.
December 11, 2003 – (NYT) Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer, received the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize here Wednesday, declaring that the prize would inspire women across the Muslim world to fight for equality in oppressive, patriarchal societies.

IRANIAN ACTIVIST ACCEPTS NOBEL PRIZE
December 10, 2003 – (AP) Iranian democracy activist Shirin Ebadi received the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize on Wednesday, saying it would inspire Iranians and women around the Muslim world to seek their rights and denouncing leaders who use Islam as a pretext for dictatorship.

IRAN'S EBADI COLLECTS NOBEL, SWIPES AT WEST
December 10, 2003 – (Reuters) Iran's Shirin Ebadi became the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize Wednesday and sent a bold anti-war message to the West, accusing it of hiding behind the September 11 attacks to violate human rights.

IRANIAN LAUREATE PRAISED IN OSLO AS KEY TO REFORM
December 8, 2003 – (Reuters) Norwegian politicians joined Iranian reformists in hailing Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi on her arrival in Oslo Monday to pick up the award, urging the world to open its eyes to human rights violations by Tehran.

SHIRIN EBADI TO CLAIM PLACE IN THE ILLUSTRIOUS HISTORY OF THE NOBEL PRIZE
December 5, 2003 – (Washington File) When Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi receives the Nobel Peace Prize December 10 in Oslo, she will join a truly select group of individuals. The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the most widely acclaimed awards in the world, and past recipients have included some of the most highly respected and influential individuals of the past century.

IRAN GIRL'S MURDER SPURS DEBATE OVER BLOOD MONEY
December 1, 2003 – (WeNews) The case of a murdered 11-year-old-girl has focused attention on "blood money" provisions in Iranian law that value a woman's life at half that of a man's. Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi is arguing the case for the victim's family.

IRAN APPOINTS BODYGUARD FOR NOBEL PRIZE WINNER
November 6, 2003 - (Reuters) Iran has provided a bodyguard for 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, who has received death threats since her return last month to the Islamic Republic, a colleague said Thursday.

IRANIAN NOBEL LAUREATE GIVEN BODYGUARDS
November 5, 2003 - (AP) Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has been given bodyguards by police following a number of death threats since she returned to Iran last month, a close associate said Wednesday.

INTERVIEW WITH NOBEL LAUREATE SHIRIN EBADI
October 21, 2003 – (IRIN) Shirin Ebadi arrived back in Iran a week ago to a rapturous welcome after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and immediately called for the release of all political prisoners. The country's first female judge, she has campaigned for women's and children's rights for over 20 years and has been responsible for reform in family laws. In an interview with IRIN in Tehran, Ebadi said the prize belonged to all those working for peaceful change and that there is no contradiction between Islam and human rights.

CITY TALK: NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR EBADI IS SPECIAL HONOUR FOR WOMEN, SAY RESIDENTS
October 18, 2003 – (Gulf News) Iranians in the UAE are beaming with pride at this year's Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to one-time lawyer and human rights activist Shireen Ebadi.

IRAN SENTENCES SIX VIGILANTES TO DEATH
October 18, 2003 - (AP) Six Islamic vigilantes were sentenced to death Saturday for killing five people for allegedly having illicit sexual relationships.

SHORN OF DIGNITY AND EQUALITY
October 16, 2003 – (The Economist) Iranian women are proud of the lawyer (above, at the centre) who has won the Nobel prize. But her reformist approach has not done much to improve their lot.

NOBEL INTENTIONS
October 13, 2003 – (The Guardian) In Tehran a few years ago I met Shirin Ebadi, the lawyer who has just won the Nobel Peace prize. Her integrity and bravery, even in the face of frequent threats and arrests, certainly make her an outstanding figure in her country and beyond - and of course a great recipient of the prize.

NOBEL WINNER EBADI TALKS OF HER DECADES-LONG FIGHT
October 12, 2003 - (WeNews) Legal warrior for Iran's women and a brilliant interpreter of Islamic law, Shirin Ebadi became the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. She spoke to Women's eNews in an exclusive interview two weeks before her award was announced.

IRANIAN ACTIVIST WINS NOBEL PRIZE
October 10, 2003 – (BBC) The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian campaigner for human rights, noted for her work in promoting the rights of women and children.

IRANIAN LAWYER IS AWARDED PEACE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WORK
October 10, 2003 - (AP) Human rights activist Shirin Ebadi won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her work fighting for democracy and the rights of women and children, the first Muslim woman and the first Iranian to receive the accolade.

IRANIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
October 10, 2003 – (UN Wire) Shirin Ebadi, a human rights activist and one of Iran's first female judges, on Friday was awarded the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her work on children's and women's rights, becoming the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize.

IRANIAN WOMAN FACES EXECUTION IN OFFICIAL'S DEATH
October 5, 2003 – (NYT) An Iranian woman accused of killing a police chief in southern Iran who she said tried to rape her has been convicted and is to be executed, the Shargh newspaper reported Saturday.

IMF DELEGATES DISCUSS WOMEN'S STATUS IN ISLAMIC WORLD
September 23, 2003 – (Daily Trust - Abuja) Under Iranian law, women can demand wages for housework from their husbands. A female law professor, Elaheh Koulaei, from Teheran University gave the information while addressing delegates in Dubai in a meeting on women's role in economic development.

WOMEN'S RIGHTS CENTRAL BATTLE IN IRANIAN POLITICS
August 17, 2003 – (WeNews) Iran's conservative Guardian Council just vetoed the U.N. convention on women's rights but discriminatory laws and attitudes are coming under increasing scrutiny amid a political debate over how to balance Islam with modernity.

IRANIAN CLERICS REJECT WOMEN'S RIGHTS TREATY
August 13, 2003 – (UN Wire) As expected, Iran's Guardian Council has rejected Iranian participation in an international treaty guaranteeing equal rights for women, overriding a vote by the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the country's parliament, in the process, BBC reported yesterday.

IRAN PARLIAMENT'S VOTE FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS PROVOKES CLERICS' IRE
August 5, 2003 – (UN Wire) A vote last month by Iran's reformist-majority Parliament to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women fueled weekend protests by hard-line clerics, Associated Press reported yesterday.

THE CULT OF RAJAVI
July 13, 2003 – (NYTimes) For more than 30 years, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People's Mujahedeen, has survived and operated on the margins of history and the slivers of land that Saddam Hussein and French governments have proffered it. During the 1970's, while it was still an underground Iranian political movement, you could encounter some of its members on the streets of New York, waving pictures of torture victims of the shah's regime. In the 80's and 90's, after its leaders fled Iran, you could see them raising money and petitioning on university campuses around the United States, pumping photographs in the air of women mangled and tortured by the Islamic regime in Tehran. By then, they were also showing off other photographs, photographs that were in some ways more attention-grabbing: Iranian women in military uniforms who brandished guns, drove tanks and were ready to overthrow the Iranian government. Led by a charismatic husband-and-wife duo, Maryam and Massoud Rajavi, the Mujahedeen had transformed itself into the only army in the world with a commander corps composed mostly of women.

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