Women in Iran
Shorn of dignity and equality
"...It has been a bad summer for assertive women. A female journalist was slain in custody (true to form, Ms Ebadi has let it be known that she will represent the dead woman's Canadian-Iranian family). A young mother was sentenced to death for killing her would-be rapist; her mode of dress had, the judge believed, “prepared the ground for her rape”. Four women were given suspended prison sentences for disseminating contentious ideas about women in Islam. Iran's appointed upper house, the Council of Guardians, vetoed the country's adherence to the UN's 1981 convention against sex discrimination. Worse still, the mass of Iranian women reacted to all this with indifference....."