Iran's Women a Year after Mahsa Amini's Death - BBC News

Sep 16, 2023 | One year on from Masha Amini's death, Iran’s protests may have subsided, but women have found new ways to defy the country’s regime.

Last year, the death of 22-year-old Mahsa after being detained by Iran’s morality police sparked unprecedented protests across the country. Today, several people in Tehran have described bold acts of rebellion that would have been almost unthinkable to Iranians this time last year.

But Iran’s regime is not backing down. A draft law, currently before parliament - the so-called Hijab and Chastity Bill, would impose new punishments on women who go unveiled.


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It is so sad and tragic that this beautiful young Iranian lady has lost an eye whilst demonstrating for women’s rights to walk around in public without having to cover themselves in rags. Furthermore, it is incomprehensible that young women who attend school in France are fighting for their rights to cover themselves up with them. It really is a topsy-turvy world that we are now living in. – Mark

Mexico’s Supreme Court Decriminalizes Abortion Nationwide

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The decision builds on an earlier high court ruling and reflects how Latin American countries are expanding women’s rights.

Women marching last year in Mexico City during a demonstration on International Safe Abortion Day. | Marco Ugarte/Associated Press
Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion nationwide on Wednesday in a sweeping decision that builds on an earlier ruling giving officials the authority to allow the procedure on a state-by-state basis.

The court struck down the federal penal code that criminalized abortion, deeming it “unconstitutional” and making abortion legally accessible in all federal health institutions across the country. It also ruled against bans on medical providers, including midwives, who perform the procedure.

The ruling in Mexico, a predominantly Catholic country of 130 million people, points to how nations in Latin America are taking a leading role in broadening abortion rights.

“I’m very moved and very proud,” said Rebeca Ramos, executive director of GIRE, a leading abortion rights group that filed an injunction last year against the Mexican regulation from 1931 that criminalized the procedure. “This makes possible what we had not achieved in many years, which is that at least in certain institutions all across the country legal and safe abortion services can be provided.” » | Simon Romero and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, Reporting from Mexico City | Wednesday, September 6, 2023

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Growing Segregation by Sex in Israel Raises Fears for Women’s Rights

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Ultra-Orthodox members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition want to expand the powers of all-male rabbinical courts, and to bar women and men from mixing in many public arenas.

An ultra-Orthodox man walking past a sign in Bnei Brak, Israel, that urges men to not look at women in the street. | Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
The trains from Tel Aviv were packed one evening last month when Inbal Boxerman, a 40-year-old mother of two, was blocked by a wall of men as she tried to board. One of them told her that women were not allowed on — the car was for men only.

Ms. Boxerman was stunned. It was a public train operated by Israel Railways, and segregated seating is illegal in the country. The men stopping her appeared to be protesters going home from a rally supporting the governing coalition, which includes extremist religious and far-right parties pushing for more sex segregation and a return to more traditional gender roles.

“I said, ‘For real?’” said Ms. Boxerman, who works in marketing. “And my friend came up and she also said, ‘Are you for real?’ But they just laughed and said, ‘Wait for the next train — you can sit in the way back.’ And then the doors slammed shut.”

Public transportation is the latest front of a culture war in Israel over the status of women in a society that is sharply divided between a secular majority and politically powerful minority of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who frown on the mixing of women and men in public.

Although the Supreme Court has ruled that it is against the law to force women to sit in separate sections on buses and trains, ultra-Orthodox women customarily board buses in their neighborhoods through the rear door and sit in the back. Now, the practice seems to be spreading to other parts of Israel. » | Roni Caryn Rabin, Reporting from Tel Aviv | Saturday, August 12, 2023

Women Employees of Beauty Salons in Kabul Protest Taliban’s Ban

Jul 20, 2023 | Employees of beauty salons in Kabul, Afghanistan, staged a protest following a recent Taliban order that will close all women’s beauty salons in less than a month. Thousands of women will lose their jobs if the order is implemented. Waheed Faizi has the story. Contributor: Roshan Noorzai.

Male Guardianship Rules Restrict Women's Mobility | DW News

Jul 18, 2023 | Many women across the Middle East and North Africa are not free to go where they want. A new report from Human Rights Watch looks at 20 countries where women's movement is restricted. In some countries, women need their husband's permission to get a passport, or to travel with her own children, in others even leaving the home requires the a man's consent. In Yemen, authorities don't allow women to travel abroad without a man.

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‘I Am a Prisoner’: Women Fight Middle Eastern Laws That Keep Them Trapped at Home

THE GUARDIAN: Rules restricting a woman’s freedom to live, work and study persist in countries including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, says a Human Rights Watch report

She may be nearly 30, but Aya* is forbidden from leaving her home in Amman, Jordan. She can’t go for lunch with her friends and has no legal right to decide where to live, work or study

. Aya’s story is common across the Middle East and north Africa, where countries including Jordan, Iran and Saudi Arabia still have laws requiring women to either “obey” their husbands, live with them or seek their permission to leave the marital home, work or travel.

“I am a prisoner at home,” says Aya. “If I go out without my family’s knowledge, they’ll lock me in my room and beat me so hard that I’ll feel pain for months. I’m threatened with death. There are so many girls like me.”

While most governments in the region say they allow women to obtain passports and travel abroad without requiring guardian permission, legislation regarding married women offers sanctions if they do so. » | Sarah Little and Tom Levitt | Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Erdoğan and His Hardline Allies Have Won Turkey – Women and LGBTQ+ People Will Pay the Price

THE GUARDIAN: For civil society and rights defenders, five more years of the Turkish president and his radical backers are a daunting prospect

Supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan celebrating his election victory in Istanbul, 28 May 2023. Photograph: Yasin Akgül/AFP/Getty Images
On Sunday, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was declared the winner of Turkey’s presidential runoff elections. According to numbers reported by the state-owned Anadolu news agency, more than 27 million voters cast their ballots in favour of Erdoğan, who has been at the country’s helm for more than two decades. He entered the second round in the lead in the polls, and was expected by most to emerge victorious. Although Erdoğan captured slightly more than half of the vote, more than 25 million people also mobilised to vote against him.

The elections were being held under deeply unfair conditions, with an opposition set up to fail. Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, was recently sentenced to more than two years in prison and banned from holding public office for insulting members of the supreme election council. This left the opposition unable to nominate its maybe most promising candidate. This was all amid biased media coverage, relentless smear campaigns against the eventual opposition candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, threats, manipulation and a crackdown on civil society, such as the arrest of 126 Kurdish lawyers, activists and politicians at the end of April in Diyarbakır. » | Constanze Letsch | Monday, May 29, 2023

UN Expels Iran from Women's Rights Panel

Dec 15, 2022 | Iran was ousted from a United Nations Commission on the Status of Women on Wednesday. 'It's a technical move,' said Damon Golriz, lecturer at the Hague University, as he joined Power & Politics to discuss the protests in Iran.

Taliban Further Restricts Rights of Afghanistan Women - BBC News

Nov 30, 2022 | In Afghanistan, an increasing number of restrictions have been imposed on women by the Taliban government. In the past month, women have been banned from parks, gyms and swimming pools. Girls have been barred from secondary schools in most parts of the country and women are restricted from working in some sectors. A Taliban spokesman defended the restrictions, saying Islamic laws were not being followed.

This man is clearly a product of the Enlightenment! Islam is such a beacon of light and hope! Wherever Islam rules, we see enlightened and progressive thinking! – © Mark Alexander

Iran's Protests and Activism Four Weeks on from Mahsa Amini's Death - BBC News

Topple the reactionary bastards! Throw the concept of a ‘mullocracy’ into the dustbin of history, where it belongs; and put the mullahs out to graze! – © Mark Alexander

Authorities in Iran Forced to Remove Poster of Women in Hijabs after PR Fiasco

THE GUARDIAN: Montage in Tehran taken down within 24 hours after prominent women and relatives denounce use of their photos

At least three of the women pictured in the Tehran billboard objected to their image being misused, including the actor Fatemeh Motamed-Arya. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
The Iranian authorities suffered a PR fiasco after being forced to take down a giant billboard in a central square in Tehran when women in the poster, or their relatives, objected to being depicted as supporters of the government and the compulsory-wearing of the hijab.

The billboard controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was a montage of about 50 Iranian women wearing the hijab under the slogan “Women of my Land”. It was taken down within 24 hours after at least three of the women pictured said they objected to their image being misused.

Fatemeh Motamed-Arya, a multiaward-winning actor was the first to protest, releasing a video. Not wearing the hijab, she said: “I am not considered a woman in a land where young children, little girls and freedom-loving youths are killed in its fields.” » | Patrick Wintour, Diplomatic editor | Friday, October 14, 2022

Ladies: Have courage! Take those hijabs, those unsightly, mediaeval rags, to the public square and set fire to them. The damn lot of them! Liberate yourselves from the oppression of those reactionary old fogies. Choose vitamin D over darkness and shade! Your health will thank you for it. And, whilst you're at it, restore the Peacosk Throne and bring back the Shah. Reject mediaeval thinking! Choose modernity! – © Mark Alexander

Women around the World Cut Their Hair in Solidarity with Iranian Protesters | DW News

In Iran, there has been no let-up in the anti-government protests that have been sweeping the country. The unrest was triggered by death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died last month in the custody of the country's so-called morality police. She was arrested for allegedly violating Iran's strict Islamic dress code. Her death has drawn international condemnation and demonstrations of solidarity – including by female celebrities and politicians who cut off locks of their hair in a symbolic act.

Death to the Islamic Republic of Iran! Say yes to women’s rights! Say yes to gays’ rights! Say yes to freedom! Down with the Mullahs! Down with those damn stupid hijabs! Liberate the people! Let the people taste freedom! It looks increasingly as if the Mullahs’ days are numbered anyway. Alhamdulillah! – © Mark Alexander

Democracy Now! After a Year of Taliban Control, "Women and Girls of Afghanistan Have Lost Their Right to Be Human"

Aug 15, 2022 One year ago today, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, promising to bring stability after two decades of war and U.S. occupation. But the country now faces a grave humanitarian crisis and a severe rollback of women's rights. We speak with Afghan journalist Zahra Nader, editor-in-chief of Zan Times, a new women-led outlet documenting human rights issues in Afghanistan. "The people of Afghanistan did not make this decision, and they did not choose the Taliban," says Nader, who explains how imperial occupations of her home country led to the political instability today. Nader also describes the hunger crisis as 95% of Afghans face hunger, and calls for more international attention on Afghanistan.

The Long Path to Reclaim Abortion Rights

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The Supreme Court decision to reverse Roe, far from settling the matter, instead has launched court and political battles across the states likely to go on for years.

In the week since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, litigators for abortion rights groups have rolled out a wave of lawsuits in nearly a dozen states to hold off bans triggered by the decision. | Shuran Huang for The New York Times
Attempting to recover from their staggering loss in the Supreme Court, abortion rights groups have mounted a multilevel legal and political attack aimed at blocking and reversing abortion bans in courts and at ballot boxes across the country.

In the week since the court overturned Roe v. Wade, litigators for abortion rights groups have rolled out a wave of lawsuits in nearly a dozen states to hold off bans triggered by the court’s decision, with the promise of more suits to come. They are aiming to prove that provisions in state constitutions establish a right to abortion that the Supreme Court’s decision said did not exist in the U.S. Constitution.

Advocates of abortion rights are also working to defeat ballot initiatives that would strip away a constitutional right to abortion, and to pass those that would establish one, in states where abortion access is contingent on who controls the governor’s mansion or the state house.

And after years of complaints that Democrats neglected state and local elections, Democratic-aligned groups are campaigning to reverse slim Republican majorities in some state legislatures, and to elect abortion rights supporters to positions from county commissioner to state supreme court justices that can have influence over the enforcement of abortion restrictions. » | Kate Zernike | Saturday, July 2, 2022

Kamala Harris Calls Supreme Court Ruling on Abortion 'Outrageous'

Jul 3, 2022 Kamala Harris said the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe vs Wade was "outrageous".

The US Vice President made the comments during a conversation with actress Keke Palmer at the 28th Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans.

"What essentially has happened is the statement has been made that the government has a right to come in your home and tell you as a woman... what you should do with your body," she said.

Taliban Plan New Restrictions for Women, Demanding Full Covering from Head to Toe | DW News

May 14, 2022 • Women and girls in Afghanistan face an onslaught of decrees from the Taliban designed to erase women from public life. The latest of these requires women to cover themselves from head to toe. The UN Security Council has held an emergency session to discuss the Taliban's restrictive policies on women in Afghanistan. The UK envoy said it was 'wrong and regressive' that the hardline group had banished women to the sidelines of life. The Taliban's curbs range from prohibiting women from traveling without a male chaperone, cutting them off from most employment and banning older girls from going to school. Measures designed to erase women from public life. The latest of these diktats requires women to cover themselves from head to toe.

The Arguments about Abortion in the US Are about One Thing: Controlling Women

THE GUARDIAN: Anti-abortionists are intent on enhancing men’s privileges, while women cannot even have rights over their own bodies

Pro-choice protests outside the supreme court, Washington DC, 1 December 2021. Photograph: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
Alot of people with a lot of power don’t see why women should have jurisdiction over their own bodies. That’s the anti-abortion argument in a nutshell, in that they claim a foetus, or even an embryo, or in some cases even a fertilised egg too small for the human eye to see, has rights that supersede those of the person inside whose body that egg, embryo or foetus might be.

What was clear from the rightwing pundits and conservative supreme court justices who have piped up over the last month as arguments were being heard in the most significant abortion rights case since Roe v Wade, is that in a country whose constitution is supposed to grant us all a lot of rights, they are happy to strip away a right so fundamental it’s unimaginable in other circumstances – or that it would be stripped from other people, namely men. In the case, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the state of Mississippi is asking the court to rule on whether it can outlaw abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation. They are asking, in other words, for the right to punish women for being women.

The goal of the anti-abortionists seems to be to enhance men’s privileges by undermining women’s rights, by making us separate and unequal. (People who do not identify as female also get pregnant and bear children, but the animosity is directed at women and girls, so I’m going to talk about women and girls here.) Since acknowledging this would undermine the anti-abortion case, the emphasis is instead shifted to someone else whose rights are claimed to trump those of pregnant people, the unborn. The unborn are a convenient constituency to advocate for, since they have no voice or vote and anyone can claim to speak for them. » | Rebecca Solnit | Friday, December 10, 2021

Poland's Battle for Abortion Rights

Nov 4, 2021 • When Poland introduced a near-total ban on abortion it divided the nation, sparking mass protests. Dateline explores how church and state are impacting women's rights.

Poland has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe, and in January those laws became even tougher. Doctors now face three years in prison for ending a pregnancy in the case of foetal abnormalities.

Women Are Trying to Escape Saudi Arabia, But Not All of Them Make It | Four Corners

Feb 4, 2019 • Many Saudi women are wealthy, well-educated and told they have everything, but when they disobey their male guardians, life can be more like a Handmaid’s Tale dystopia.
Watch the documentary here.

Taliban Threaten Women Who Defy Working Bans | DW News

Oct 3, 2021 • When the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, women were shut out of education and could only leave their homes in the company of a male relative – this time around, 40 million Afghans are waiting to see if the new Taliban government will now try to turn back the clock on twenty years of advances for the country’s women. For Afghan women in the media, the signs aren’t looking good – the country’s state broadcaster has already taken all its female journalists off air. DW’s Nick Connolly has been to meet a radio journalist who’s in no mood to give up.