Iran

Women political prisoners in quarantined section of Evin prison, protesting against violent and invasive body cavity searches and sexual abuse have gone on hunger strike since Tuesday 30^th October 2012. According to the relatives of these prisoners, they were brutally searched by the hands of three female guards after the ward being raided by Evin security forces.

News that Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has won the Sakharov Prize – an award from the European Parliament for human rights and freedom of thought - came as her health deteriorated due to a hunger strike in protest at the Iranian authorities’ refusal to allow her face-to-face visits with her 13-year-old daughter and five-year-old son.

Soheila Vahdati Bana, a scholar, writer and human rights activist focusing on Iranian women's and children's issues, has written numerous articles against the death penalty and state violence against women, children and ethnic and religious minorities. Her areas of research include the effects of mandatory hijab on the image of Iranian women and their role in society, the recent history of state oppression of followers of the Bahai Faith and child soldiers in Iran. She has also written extensively on the current Islamic Penal Code’s encroachment on women’s rights, the treatment of women as second class citizens and the deprivation of their sexual rights.

-Pourquoi cette approbation ? Pourquoi ce silence?

Lorsqu’en 1979 Khomeiny obligea les iraniennes à se voiler, elles sont descendues dans la rue pour manifester leur opposition à cette mesure discriminatoire et profondément misogyne.Dès cette époque Khomeiny proclama sa volonté d’exporter dans le monde entier ce modèle islamiste de stigmatisation du corps des femmes.