Subject: [fem-women2000 563] Iranian Women's Brief #33, Please Read and Pass on
From: AIWUSA <aiwusa@aiwusa.org>
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2000 15:45:07 -0500
Seq: 563

AIWUSA-ASSOCIATION OF IRANIAN WOMEN-USA

WEBSITE: http://www.aiwusa.org/
E-mail: aiwusa@aiwusa.org
TEL: 703-941-8485
CONTACT PERSON: BEHJAT DEHGHAN

IRANIAN WOMEN BRIEF (IWB) #33

DECEMBER 2000

-U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY RAPS IRAN ON RIGHTS ABUSES,
REUTERS, DECEMBER 4
-NCR'S PRESIDENT: HALT IN RIGHTS ABUSE ONLY WITH MULLAHS'
OVERTHROW, IRAN ZAMIN NEWS AGENCY, DECEMBER 4
-GUARDIAN COUNCIL VETO BID TO CUT TEENAGE MARRIAGES,
REUTERS, NOVEMBER 11
-THE TEENAGE RUNAWAYS OF TEHRAN, THE INDEPENDENT,
NOVEMBER 13
-HONOR KILLING, AFP, NOVEMBER 18
-85% OF SUICIDE VICTIMS WOMEN
-SPECIAL SUBWAY CARES FOR WOMEN
-GIRLS NEED PARENTAL CONSENT TO LEAVE COUNTRY
-IRANIAN WOMEN FORCED TO WEAR THE VEIL IN GERMANY


U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY RAPS IRAN ON RIGHTS ABUSES,
REUTERS, DECEMBER 4

UNITED NATIONS - Rebuking Iran on a series of human
rights abuses, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a
resolution on Monday calling to Tehran to end torture,
particularly amputations.
The resolution chastised Iran for executions, a rackdown
on freedom of speech and press, and discrimination
against religious minorities, such as the Bahais.

The resolution called on the Iranian government "to take
all necessary steps to end the use of torture and other
forms of cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment, in
particular the practice of amputation."

It expressed concern about "the deterioration of the
situation with regard to freedom of opinion and
expression, in particular at restrictions on the freedom
of the press."

The resolution also criticized the judiciary for
suspending newspapers and arresting journalists,
political activists and intellectuals in the interests of
national security, which the General Assembly called "a
pretext to deny or restrict freedom of expression,
opinion and thought."

The document was based on a report from Canadian jurist
Maurice Copithorne on developments in the first six
months of this year. He found executions continued at a
high rate.
"That torture continues in the Islamic Republic of Iran
and in its most primitive form -- was confirmed in the
period under review," said Copithorne, who has not been
allow into Iran since 1996.

"Eleven executions were held in public. In three other
cases, individuals sentenced to death were pardoned from
execution by the family of the victim at the execution
site," Copithorne said in the report.
*********************************************************

NCR'S PRESIDENT: HALT IN RIGHTS ABUSE ONLY WITH MULLAHS'
OVERTHROW, IRAN ZAMIN NEWS AGENCY, DECEMBER 4
Subsequent to the United Nations General Assembly's
resolution condemning the violations of rights in Iran,
Mr. Massoud Rajavi, President of the National Council of
Resistance of Iran, said: "The document, the
forty-seventh resolution by the U.N. General Assembly and
the Human Rights Commission censuring mullahs' rights
abuses, is a clear international acknowledgment of the
reality that three-and-a-half years after Khatami took
office, there has been no improvement in the situation of
human rights in Iran and that any reform in the ruling
regime is but a mirage."
*********************************************************

GUARDIAN COUNCIL VETO BID TO CUT TEENAGE MARRIAGES,
REUTERS, NOVEMBER 11

TEHRAN - Iran's Guardian Council has quashed a
parliamentary attempt to cut the number of teenage
marriages, ruling such a move would break Islamic law,
Hambastegi newspaper said on Saturday.  MPs voted last
month to make it compulsory for girls under the age of 15
and boys under 18 to have court approval to get married.
Currently Iran's law sets the minimum marriage age at
nine for girls and 14 for boys.


THE TEENAGE RUNAWAYS OF TEHRAN, THE INDEPENDENT,
NOVEMBER 13

... Each day, an average of 45 Iranian girls run away
>from home, fugitives from poverty, cruelty and social
imprisonment. Too often, the fate that awaits them is
worse than the misery they left behind.
The pattern is well known, especially to police,
social workers and the gangland dons. If they are from
small-town Iran, the fugitives often get on the first
train to Tehran. "When these provincial girls reach the
capital," says Dr. Shokouh Navabinejad, a psychologist,
"it's a question of who gets to them first - the police
or the gangs."

Girls picked up by the police are passed on to state
welfare organizations. Others, tempted by promises of
money and legal employment, drift into crime and the sex
trade. Some simply disappear. Of the 30 women raped and
killed in Tehran in the first six months of this year,
most are believed to have been runaways....

... In the third decade of the Islamic regime set up
after the 1979 revolution, young Iranians are being
tugged in different directions - towards greater
religiosity by ruling clerics, towards globalization by
increasing contact with Western culture, towards social
dislocation by a stagnant economy. All of which may
explain why teenage suicide is a rising scourge....
*********************************************************

"Honor killings"
AFP, November 18 - A young woman suspected of "loose
morals" was beaten and then burned alive by her father
and brother, press reports said.
The pair tied her down, beat her and then immolated her
at the family home in the western city of Kermanshah
because they suspected her of corruption and loose
morals, the Hambastegi paper said. She died before
friends and neighbours could save her.
*********************************************************

85% of suicide victims women
November 8: In a gathering of managers and instructors of
the four districts of Ahwaz, Shahla Boroujerdi, deputy
Interior Minister for women's affairs, said 85% of
persons who commit suicide by setting fire to themselves
are women. 89% of these women are housewives..
*********************************************************

Special subway cars for women
Jomhouri Islami, October 30 - The managing director of
Tehran's subway said: Tehran's Metro Company has
allocated special cars to women. Mohammad Reza Barari
said: Those women who are traveling with male members of
their own family may use the other cars as well.
*********************************************************

Girls need parental consent to leave country
IRNA, October 28: Female University students who want to
leave the country to continue their education, need their
father or foster parent's permission.  The decision was
announced by the Education and Research Committee of the
Majlis.
*********************************************************

Iranian women forced to wear the veil in Germany
Voice of America, November 21 - Two Iranian women filed a
complaint with German judicial authorities against agents
of the Immigration Service who forced them to wear the
head scarf and take pictures needed for deportation
papers.
The highest court in Germany will examine this case. The
Supreme Court in the city of Karlsruhe is examining this
case to find out whether the religious rights of this
36-year-old woman and her 14-year-old daughter were
violated in Nurnberg. By forcing these two women to take
pictures as required by officials of the Islamic
Republic, the agents of the Immigration Service wanted
to facilitate the deportation of these women to Iran.
The Iranian authorities would not allow the women to
enter the country if their passport photos were taken
without the headscarves.
The lawyers of the two Iranians said forcing the women to
wear the veil was a violation of their religious rights.
The Court of Karlsruhe will announce its decision in
several weeks.







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