Mousavi's wife leads fight against election defeat

[Turborama]

Reuters

25 June 2009

IRAN - Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of Mirhossein Mousavi, broke with convention to campaign by his side and she is now battling shoulder to shoulder with Iran’s opposition leader to overturn his presidential election defeat.

A striking figure in black chador and floral headscarf, Rahnavard promised to help ease restrictions on women and promote greater freedom in the conservative Islamic Republic. She was thrust further into the spotlight during the election campaign when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the middle of a bitter televised debate, waved what looked like a file on Rahnavard in front of the cameras and accused her of falsely obtaining academic qualifications.

The first woman to be chancellor of a university since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution accused Ahmadinejad of trying to hold back the progress of Iranian women and threatened to sue him unless he apologised.

She showed that same fighting spirit on Wednesday in a statement on her husband’s website, in which she called on authorities to release immediately Iranians detained at protests against the results of the June 12 election.

“It is my duty to continue legal protests to preserve the nation’s rights,” Rahnavard was quoted by the website as saying.

Continues: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/Displayarticle08.asp?section=newsmakers&xfile=data/newsmakers/2009/June/newsmakers_June36.xml

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Women in Iran's protests: head scarves and rocks

By REBECCA SANTANA

AP

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In 2006, a group of women launched a campaign to gather a million signatures in favor of equal rights for women. And, in the run-up to the presidential election, a coalition of women from diverse economic and social classes worked to ensure that the candidates focused their platforms on efforts to improve women's lives.

Mousavi's bid for the presidency further encouraged them, with women buoyed in no small part by his progressive stance on women's issues and his unorthodox — at least for Iran — campaign appearances alongside his wife, Zahra Rahnavard.

Rahnavard, who was forced out of the chancellor's position at Al-Zahra University by conservatives in 2006, campaigned by her husband's side, appeared in campaign videos and even drew political attacks from opponents.

"For the first time in a presidential campaign you could see a man campaigning with his wife," said the University of London's Mir-Hosseini. "At many of these meetings they were holding hands, and that was breaking a big taboo."

On Wednesday, Rahnavard made her voice heard again, saying on one of her husband's Web sites that his followers had the right to protest and the government should not deal with them harshly.

Full article: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkzosTgK3ner6HkyGtGYXjNNo9vQD9918E0G0

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Iranian women take key role in protests

By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY

Negar Mortazavi, who lives in Washington, D.C., stays in touch with Iranian friends who have been protesting in Tehran. On Saturday, a male student described on the phone violent clashes between protesters, police and plainclothes militia.

One scene stood out, and "he couldn't believe his eyes," said Mortazavi, 27, who came to the USA from Iran in 2002 and is helping to coordinate protests in the United States. "He decided it was time to start running when the police were coming. He turned back and saw some women still standing," she says. "These women are not afraid."

Iranian women have been on the front lines of anti-government protests challenging the official results of the June 12 election, in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the victor.

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On Wednesday, the wife of the main opposition candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, continued to speak out. Zahra Rahnavard said on one of her husband's websites that arrested protesters and activists should be released, the Associated Press reported. She added that government should not act "as if martial law has been imposed on the streets."

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Rahnavard is an academic, writer and artist who campaigned alongside her husband. "She was saying women are equal to men, that they need opportunities to participate," said Dokhi Fassihian, a board member of the National Iranian American Council. Rahnavard's campaigning inspired Iranian women to get active and vote, she said. "They are maybe even more active than the men are," Fassihian said. "They have the most to gain from changes, from seeing a new government in Iran."

Isobel Coleman, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said she is "not surprised at all" by the level of participation among Iranian women. Coleman is author of the forthcoming book Paradise Beneath Her Feet: Women and Reform in the Middle East.

Full article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-06-24-iranianwomen_N.htm