payvand.com - This amazing film, produced by Iranian director Rakhshan
Bani-Etemad, has documented how a wide coalition of women was formed in Iran,
prior to the June 2009 presidential elections, in order to make their demands
heard and to effectively influence the candidates. Among the the demands of the
women was for Iran to join the U.N.'s
Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
This documentary was prepared without taking
sides in the elections. And once it had been completed, the four presidential
candidates were invited to attend a special screening. All but Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad accepted the invitation. The other other candidates, Mehdi Karrubi,
Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Mohsen Rezaei, attended the screening along with their
wives.
The plan was to distribute this film
widely in Iran prior to the elections. However, since it was completed too close
to the elections, this didn't materialize. The director has now granted
permission for non-commercial screenings of the film in Iran in order to bring
awareness to the women issues.
Note: This film is in Persian. We hope
that a version with subtitles will be made available later.
More than a month has elapsed since Iran's fated
election and the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan, which stood out among countless
others as a symbol of her country's turmoil. But as the public protests
continue, something big is going on behind the scenes: Women far beyond Iran's
borders are taking cues from one another and learning to become their own
champions for change.
ForbesWoman sat down with Mahnaz Afkhami, a
leading advocate of women's rights in the Islamic world, to talk about what how
Iranian women have become a model for many and what it is that Muslim women
really want. (read the full article)
Born
in Kerman, Iran, Afkhami now lives in exile in the U.S. She is founder
and president of the
Women's
Learning Partnership, executive director of the Foundation for
Iranian Studies and former minister for women's affairs in Iran.
Born
in Kerman, Iran, Afkhami now lives in exile in the U.S. She is founder
and president of the