Subject: [fem-women2000 479] Iranian Women's Brief #27, Please Read and Pass on
From: AIWUSA <aiwusa@aiwusa.org>
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 09:51:45 -0400
Seq: 479


AIWUSA-ASSOCIATION OF IRANIAN WOMEN-USA
WEBSITE: http://www.aiwusa.org/
 Phone: 703-941-8584
Contact person: Behjat Dehghan

IRANIAN WOMEN BRIEF # 27


STONING TO DEATH OF A 30 =96YEAR-OLD WOMAN
IRAN ZAMIN NEWS AGENCY, JULY 17,2000

 Two young men aged 21 and 23 were hanged on Monday in Tehran's Qasr
Prison, according to state-run newspapers. This brings the number of
officially announced executions in the past week alone to eleven. The
death sentences include the stoning to death of a 30-year-old woman.

This is the thirteenth stoning to death being carried out during
Khatami's presidency. Six of the victims have been women.

 Monday's executions raise the number of officially announced executions
in the year 2000 to 127.
************************************************************

IRAN ACKNOWLEDGES PROSTITUTION
TEHRAN, IRAN =96 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS JULY 6,2000

In a report Wednesday that exposes Iran's hidden social vices for the
first time, an official acknowledged that prostitution and drug abuse
were widespread among Iran's predominantly young population.

``Five tons of narcotics are consumed in Tehran every day. Official
reports suggest that there are at least 2 million addicts. Some 100,000
addicts are in prison. Addiction to narcotics has even reached school
classes,'' Mohammad Ali Zam, a Tehran official in charge of cultural
affairs, said in  a report published in Wednesday's newspapers.

Shattering a taboo by admitting the existence of prostitution, the
report said that the average age of prostitutes in Iran had dropped to
20 from 27 a few years ago. The report did not give an estimate for the
number prostitutes.

Zam, who read his report to city council officials Monday, said that 90
percent of girls who run away from home fall into prostitution, and
warned that violence and theft among teen-agers was on the rise.

For years, the hard-line clergy that has ruled Iran since the 1979
revolution has painted a rosy picture of Iranian society, never
admitting to vices such as prostitution, which officially is punishable
by death.

Prostitutes are becoming more and more visible on the streets due to
economic hardships and new social freedoms granted since the 1997
election of the moderate President Mohammad Khatami. The Tehran
municipality is dominated by Khatami's pro-reform allies.

Economic hardship is the main problem confronting most Iranians. More
than half of the 62 million Iranians are below 19, meaning that every
year hundreds of thousands want jobs that don't exist.

The daily Hamshahri quoted Zam as saying that at least 12 million
Iranians were living below the poverty line, and 20 percent of the
population controlled 80 percent of the nation's wealth _ damning
statistics for a ruling clergy that overthrew the monarchy and came to
power in a revolution that promised greater equality and a more
equitable
distribution of wealth.

Islam and religious education has been forced on all Iranian students,
but Zam said there was increasing indifference to spirituality and moral
issues among the youth.

************************************************************

MULLAHS BAN SURGICAL OPERATIONS ON CHILDREN IN CUSTODY OF MOTHER
IRAN ZAMIN NEWS AGENCY JULY 4,2000

 The senior advisor to the Health Minister in Khatami's cabinet declared
in the state-run press "a letter of consent from women in custody of
children or managing single-parent families is legally worthless, even
in cases where a child may need an urgent surgical operation."

The mullahs' laws dictate that if a mother in custody of her child takes
him or her to a hospital for an urgent operation, she would be turned
back, as the mother is not legally recognized to be able to give the
parental consent needed for such an operation.

This criminal legislation exists in a country where, according to
official figures, women are breadwinners and responsible for 15 percent
of all Iranian households, numbering more than 10 million people.

Such anti-human laws and regulations, which deprive millions of children
>from urgently needed medical treatment or operation, are clear signs of
the intensely misogynous nature of the mullahs' religious dictatorship.
Even before this, the mullahs' regime had imposed double oppression on
the women in Iran by turning sex segregation in medical facilities into
a law.

Such laws have turned life into an inferno for millions of women and
children living under the mullahs' rule. They are also against the
letter and spirit of Islam and all universally recognized norms and
standards. Through such legislation, the mullahs open the way for women
to be subjected to the most savage forms of domestic violence and abuse.

Makarem Shirazi, a senior and influential mullah in the regime, has
recently declared that it would be blasphemous for Iran to sign the UN
document on women, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

The Women's Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
urges all personalities and organizations defending human rights and the
rights of women and children in particular to condemn the gender
apartheid ruling Iran and the savage suppression of women in Iran.











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