Hatred of Women on the March in Iran

iran_female_ninjasThe hatred, misogyny and injustice against Iranian women has continued to ratchet up under the office of the so-called moderate president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani.

After a series of acid attacks against young women in the city of Esfahan, the Iranian parliament (Majlis) has passed a new bill, which would allow Basij, the governmental volunteer militia, to go around in the streets and give verbal warning to those Iranian women who do not comply with the government’s Islamic dress code.

More recently, stabbing women has become another sign of increased violence. A suspect was recently arrested for stabbing six women in city of Fars in Iran, reportedly for wearing an improper hijab. One of the women was stabbed in the stomach. According to Saham News, the suspect is the son of a Basij Commander from the village of Ghotbabad.

The Basij, which is supervised by the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, intervenes in the day to day activities of ordinary people, spying on individuals, and attempting to impose the ideological and Islamist doctrine of the Iranian government.

When I used to live in Iran, I, like many Iranian people, witnessed how young girls would be dragged into police cars by the moral police for not complying with the government’s religious dress code. Showing some strands of hair or some part of the body in public can lead to arrest, imprisonment, and fines.

The Vigilante Law to Impose Hijab and Dress Code

Under the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian parliament has also introduced a bill referred to as the “Plan to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice.”  Apparently, all of these human rights abuses and discrimination against women are part of promoting virtue in the perception of the ruling clerics in power.

Nevertheless, what is crucial to point out is that discrimination against Iranian women and the egregious human rights abuses against them are at the core of the cleric political power. In other words, these human rights abuses — such as restricting women’s freedoms, imposing the hijab on them, encouraging them to stay at home and raise children, forbidding them from participating in sports or even watching some sports events such as volleyball — are cemented in the state’s institutional structure as well as in the Islamic Republic’s constitution.

Secondly, women are being utilized as a crucial tool and platform to define the country as Islamic. Imposing dress codes and the hijab on women gives the clerical political institution unique character ideologically.  Walking in public and watching millions of women across the country being forced to wear the hijab and cover their hair strengthens the image of the country as being Islamic.  It also makes it stands out immediately in comparison to other Muslim countries, and it significantly ratchets up the ideological foundation and Shiite agenda of the Islamic Republic.

Third, forcing women to comply with a dress code is the manifestation of the state’s power. Technically, this is referred to as biopower of the state, which is applied in order to homogenize the population, immediately find those who dissent, make women compliant, subservient, and remind women everyday that the state is in power of even their basic activities such as wearing clothes, listening to music, and watching sports. As Michel Foucault states, biopower is a political strategy. “By this I mean a number of phenomena that seem to me to be quite significant, namely, the set of mechanisms through which the basic biological features of the human species became the object of a political strategy, of a general strategy of power.”

Fourth, marginalization of Iranian women by the state and depriving them of their basic and fundamental rights is a method to treat almost half of the population as second-class citizens.  Subduing women, repressing them, and ensuring that women are controlled by their male guardians and state apparatuses, promotes the patriarchal character of the system.

Fifth, the increasing misogynistic laws and hatred against Iranian women will continue whether the president of the Islamic Republic is a reformist, moderate, hardliner, etc. This is due to the fact, all Iranian presidents believe in the fundamental institution of the Islamic Republic and they totally accept the superiority of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Nevertheless, misogyny and hatred against women has not halted courageous and brave Iranian women from fighting inequality and the repression against them. Several female leaders and formidable women’s movements in Iran continue to resist the repressive apparatuses even though they face imprisonment, execution, and torture. Their efforts have produced powerful women such as Shirin Ebadi, the Noble Prize Laureate, and Maryam Rajavi, the human rights and political activist, and the president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

As the repression against women continue in the Islamic Republic, their resistance grows deeper, and their stance firmer. Our responsibility is to chart efficient approaches in order to give a voice to these women and assist them in their struggle for combating extremism carried out under the name of religion, the ruling cleric’s version and the manipulation of Shia Islam.

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  • Alan

    Sounds like a crime against humanity. The UN was loud in condemning apartheid but is silent in condemning islamic sexism and racism.

    • Mohammad

      Women are treated much worse in the US and Western countries

      • http://www.twitter.com/changeirannow ChangeIranNow

        Your comment must surely be deemed laughable if it weren’t also so absurd. The lot of women in Iran is particularly appalling. The mullahs’ regime there enforces one of the most draconian versions of Islamic religious law. Iran’s laws regulate everything from how women are to dress to the myriad areas of their lives that are to be
        governed by their husband’s consent. And women in Iran have fallen victim in large numbers to Iran’s liberal use of the death penalty, executed unsparingly for crimes ranging from adultery to drug-related offenses.

      • iluvisrael

        what are you smoking in that hookah??

      • Debbie G

        I am a woman and I love my Christian America.

      • Harold Svenssen

        …because in Sharia-compliant countries, not allowing women to drive or to choose their husbands or their clothing or their hairstyles is equal treatment and the key to female happiness.

        /s

      • Nabukuduriuzhur

        Untrue.

      • Lea

        Muslims suffer from cognitive dissonance and have lost their ability to apply critical thinking to their beliefs and culture.

        You need to take a look at this, which comprises just a fraction of the ongoing abuse of women, and therefore includes the children.

        http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Images:Violence_Against_Women

    • Julie

      Women don’t count as much as men. I think that’s the point these Islamic yahoos are trying to make. How they would get more Islamic men without women escapes me. Perhaps they just feel threatened. They should. Women are more clever and can multitask.

    • Harold Svenssen

      The UN rarely condemns any government activity unless said government is led by white men. This is especially true these days when the most activist members of the UN are apologists for violent jihad.

      • Lea

        Iran sits on the UN’s human rights commissions for global and women’s human rights. This would be laughable if it were not that it was a .* OUTRAGE!

        http://freebeacon.com/national

    • Lea

      This is a total and utter complete OUTRAGE!
      http://freebeacon.com/national

  • http://gerardjackson.com/ gerard jackson

    This is all about nothing. The likes of Feinstein and Obama know who the real thugs are.

    • Lea

      Indeed, they must know, and they must know that we know too. So, what is the plan here? Is it that muslims are ripe fodder for the war machine to bring about a world war so that the one world government can be installed?

      • Harold Svenssen

        Been reading conspiracy novels lately?

      • Nabukuduriuzhur

        Ezekiel 35, written around 600 BC, predicts the demise of islam. It is worth reading and it reads like news that could happen tomorrow.

  • Hard Little Machine

    The upside is that women are refusing to have children and Iran’s birthrate crashed through the floor. In a generation or two there won’t BE any Iranians. Problem solved, unless the ayatollahs decide mass kidnapping and rape is also ok with Allah. And who knows, maybe it will be.

    • Lea

      This situation, if true, might give rise to babies in glass bubbles, feeding off a central machine, like me see in the horror science fiction movies. Muslim monsters do not give up and will do anything, no matter how depraved, to gain the victory. The fact that they have already lost, makes no difference. They resemble something I have encountered in the Holy Scriptures.

      • Nabukuduriuzhur

        The Genesis account of Sodom comes to mind. The sodomites were blinded and still were trying to rape the two angels, showing their complete depravity.

    • kiwi41

      The scum will start importing new POS from Englandistan…………..

  • Mohammad

    Women are treated much worse in the US and Western countries. At least in Iran, there are more women in government than the US. You yet to have a female president. ha.

    • http://www.twitter.com/changeirannow ChangeIranNow

      In Iran, a woman’s right to her body is heavily threatened by the government’s enforcement of the mandatory hijab, rampant sexual harassment, violence inside and outside the home, honor killings, and a range of other gender-based crimes.

      In Iran, marriage laws empower the husband so that he can have multiple wives, while the woman is forced into the subjugating role of raising children and little else.

      The Iranian legal and judicial system has established an unequal system of divorce that privileges men. It is extremely difficult for women in Iran to get a divorce, because they have to prove to a judge that they are in immediate danger or are subject to frequent domestic violence. In situations where women are granted a divorce, the Iranian court system automatically grants custody of boys and girls older than seven to the father, making the divorce process less than equal for women.

      In Iran Criminal Code, women’s rights are violated in different ways. The most significant areas in which women’s rights are violated are: age of criminal responsibility, blood money, punishments and evidence in the court.

      While the Iranian Constitution does not contain any laws barring women from holding top leadership posts in the government, the regime put into place a number of laws, practices and government bodies to reinforce traditional gender roles and bar women from entering positions of leadership, including the presidency and positions as judges. Learn about the different ways that the government excludes women from political and professional leadership roles while learning strategies that will promote women’s empowerment in the world of work.

    • Debbie G

      No female president? Is that criticism the best you can come up with? Hahahahahaha–you are a laughing stock here, Mo. Try HuffPo.

    • Nabukuduriuzhur

      I know the Q’uran endorses lying and deception, but you will find that it doesn’t work here.

      The Lord rebuke you in Jesus’ Name for lying.

    • Harold Svenssen

      Soraya M and Neda Soltan would beg to differ.

      Until Sharia is outlawed in Iran, freedom-seeking women will be outlaws in Iran.

      • Lea

        We call for complete sanctions against all muslim countries who are failing to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and follow sharia, whether explicitly or implicitly.

    • Atikva

      Stop clowning around, that kind of moronic comment is not even funny.

    • Lea

      Those women are just ornaments and they can do nothing without the permission of the men, therefore they are but elitists and no doubt shameless women who condone sharia law despite the suffering this brings to humanity, in particular women.

      Those women who are a threat to their evil islamic mindsets are targeted and raped by officials:

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shirin-sadeghi/rape-and-the-republic-ira_b_261047.html

      If I were you I would be too ashamed of islam and the false prophet whose fruit is so evil, to be a muslim. Reject islam and find salvation in the only provision from God in Jesus Christ.

      Matthew 7:15-20

      15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they areferocious wolves.

      16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

      17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

      18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

      19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

      20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

  • Harold Svenssen

    It is not a phobia of any kind to state the truth. That you stand as a voice of apology for one of the most repressive regimes on earth is shameful.

    Furthermore, the author never claimed to speaking on behalf of all Iranian women. That is an attempt at obfuscation on your part. He is, however, concerned as a HUMAN BEING at the egregious conduct of Iranian government officials towards half of its population. Your condemning him for this attempt unmasks you as nothing more than an apparatchik of the Iranian government or its sympathetic organizations. Either one is a blight on freedom loving people worldwide.

  • Nabukuduriuzhur

    Have to keep in mind that the stats in the U.S. measure something other than is claimed.

    Today, approximately 1 in 2000 women is raped. But in order to make it sould worse, the Clinton administration add in when women felt “guilty” after sleeping with someone.

    More than 90% of harassment, 90% of abuse, and 50% of rape claims are completely false.

    • Lea

      Interesting. I would have to look into that, because this kind of thinking may be the kind of thinking that underlines the islamic laws towards rape of women, that they are guilty and did something to deserve it and therefore deserve to be stoned or hanged or whipped. In muslim countries women do not have the recourse in law, as they do in the west, since should they report a rape it would lead to their own demise.

  • Ryan Osborn

    Believe Jesus Christ is your savior for your sins. Jesus Christ is God Almighty in the Flesh. This is the Gospel, believe Jesus Christ shed his precious blood and died for you and all of your sins on the cross, he was buried and he rose again from the dead three days later from God’s Power and you will be saved, you are a Born Again Christian and you will go to Heaven forever. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God to where we all deserve death, destruction and judgement in the Lake of Fire from the wrath of God to where we need a savior to save us for our sins forever. By receiving Jesus Christ’s blood sacrifice as full payment for your sins you will be saved forever. It matters not how much you have sinned in the past, in the present and in the future. Once you are saved you are saved forever no matter what. Good works will not ever save you and no one and nothing else will. That is the Gospel and if you believe in the Gospel you are now a Born Again Christian and you are now saved and you will go to Heaven forever and that is the whole truth. Spread the truth. All glory goes to God forever! Praise God! Amen! (John Ch. 3:16, Romans Ch. 3:25, 4:1-6, 5:9, 1 Corinthians Ch. 15:1-4, Ephesians Ch. 2:8-9) The Authorized King James Version Bible.

    • Lea

      Thank you, brother.

  • Lea

    Several human rights abuses? Just several? Human rights abuses are entrenched as a part of the legitimate governance of Iran, as it is in most muslim countries. Sharia is a violation of human rights.

    The attempt to equate iran’s condition is common however it is devoid of any critical thinking. In the West sexual harassment is a crime and the stats are openly and truthfully yielded unlike islamic countries. In islamic countries, woman do not have the privilege of recourse in the law due to sharia laws that pronounce them as complicit in the crime perpetrated upon them. You should know this. Therefore islam reduces women to animals without rights. Indeed, even animals suffer sexual abuse from muslims.

    Alot of the sexual crimes against women, and even men, in Europe are attributable to muslims who consider rape as a form of jihad on the kaffir women. In particular due to the islamic teaching that women who are uncovered are like pieces of meat left out for the cats to eat and therefore not only sanction, but encourage the rape of kaffir women and girls. The Rotherham exposure of the enormous crime perpetrated on so many, many kaffir girls, and this in only one area, should give us an idea of just how deeply prevalent this rape jihad is in europe.

    As for statistics in muslim majority and sharia ruled hellholes, that which we do have, and without a doubt just a tip of the iceberg, shows that Saudi Arabia has one of the highest statistics of rape in the world.

    https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/statistics-muslim-countries-obsessed-with-womens-honour-have-one-of-the-highest-rape-scales-in-the-world/

    Hijab and Burka in fact have the exact opposite effect on men, it seems. And the real but disguised “empowerment” that women feel, in particular in the freeworld is in fact nothing else but the false sense of supremacy over the kaffirs, that muslim women feel. Wearing this islamic clothing in the west says to everyone that: I hate this country. I am building an islamic caliphate and muslims will dominate the kaffirs.

    As for Iran, this is what is going down there, for women who are being ganged raped, an increasing crime in Iran:

    “If they had proper clothing and if the sound of their music was not so loud, the rapist would not have imagined it as a depraved get together.”

    Colonel Hossein
    Yardoosti Local police chief

    “Those who were raped were not praiseworthy,” said the imam of Khomeinishahr, Musa Salemi, in his Friday sermon.

    “Only two out of the 14 were related. They had come to our town to party and provoked the others [the rapists] by their wine drinking and dancing.”

    His sentiments were echoed in comments made by the town’s police commander, Revolutionary Guards Col Hossein Yardoosti.

    “I believe the raped women’s families are to blame, because if they had proper clothing and if the sound of their music was not so loud, the rapist would not have imagined it as a depraved get-together,” he was quoted as saying.

    Reports said that he was considering legal action against the rape victims for their behaviour.

    The response of the authorities has also been questioned in the university rape case. Fellow students pointed out that the campus is tightly-controlled by security services and suggested that the attack could not have escaped their notice.

    With 40% of muslims living in the west, it is no wonder that there is such high rates of rape and murders of women. No doubt, one day we will discover that it was the continual religious practise of muslims to rape and marry the kaffir women.

    Since we have our own criminals to take care of, we surely do not need to import people who think rape is a religious duty.

  • Lea

    The exceptionally bizaree issue at hand is the fact that iran sits on the UN’s Human Rights commissions, in particular the one calling itself “For the advancement of women”.

    The very fact that the UN is now dominated by islam, the OIC, is an immense loss of crediblity for this so called Human Rights protecting body. 3

    This is a total and utter complete OUTRAGE!
    http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-wins-top-spots-on-u-n-human-rights-committees/

    Iranian officials target women activists with rape in order to silence them. Is there no one with any kind of morality and courage enough to stand up to these depraved and awful muslims who are corrupting our western world?

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shirin-sadeghi/rape-and-the-republic-ira_b_261047.html

    The whole OIC should be ejected from the UN due to the fact that islamic countries practise sharia which is a depraved violation of human rights. We should, instead of placing sanctions on Russia, buy their oil and stop all trade with all muslim countries until they manage to enforce law and order according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and not have the option to follow their own sharia compliant one from Cairo.

    For God’s sake let us stand up and do something about this evil which is islam, for the sake of the muslims too, since they are the greatest victims of islam.

  • hrwolfe

    and the Shaw was a nightmare?

  • kiwi41

    The only answer to this problem is to start the systematic assinations of all western politicians and members of the UN who support Islam is any of it’s evil. Once they are running scared, then the problem of the more slimes can be attacked in a decisive manner.