Stand in Solidarity With Iran's Women
For those of you Fair Trade enthusiasts who make your homes under rocks, away from 24-hour cable news networks and BBC radio, we’re here with the skinny: serious change is underway in Iran. Following the June 12th elections, in which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad supposedly defeated opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousevi, severe rioting broke out in the capital city of Tehran. Mousevi’s allegations of fraudulent results led thousands of his supporters to take to the streets, calling for an annulment of election returns and a nation-wide recount. As journalists and pundits debate ceaselessly about what's coming next, there’s one thing they can agree on: Iran has changed for good.
Perhaps the most important manifestation of this change has been the role of women in this year’s election cycle. In a country where women are treated as second-class citizens in the eyes of the law and the men who make it, women are making their voices heard. Mousevi’s wife Zhara Rahnavard, an out-spoken and therefore controversial figure in Iranian public life, has called for “equality between men and women,” and the dialogue about women’s rights has appeared on the agenda like never before. Goosebump-inducing photos of brave women are surfacing all over the web from citizen journalists (most official journalists have been expelled), showing women in headscarves standing up to police and protesting passionately in the streets.
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