Iranian Women: A Force that Can't Be Silenced
November 14, 2009
ICJ News- At Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year awards ceremony, host Christian Amanpour asks, “Where did these women find the courage and the guts to speak out?” She was referring to Iranian women who have endured years of oppression. She answers the question by introducing the underground activist group One Million Signatures Campaign, a group determined to change Iranian laws that make Iranian women second class citizens.
Parvin Ardalan, a founding member of the organization says that she doesn’t think anything can stop the movement, “because when one road closes, we will find another one that’s opened.” It is this knowing mentality that has reached the One Million Signatures Campaign to new levels. Gaining international recognition on its own says a lot about the overall structure of the organization and how effective it has been. Judging by videos and images from recent protests, women are focal in the movement of the people.
The conditions of Iranian prisons are poor and the testimonials heard from those who have spent behind bars paints a horrifying picture. Stories of rape, torture, and planned executions fill up Facebook and Twitter feeds too often. The women who start organizations, who go to protests, who take pictures, who lead chants, who hurl stones, who fight back, who look at their oppressor in the eye, all of them are proof that Iranian women are champions and believers that there is no other way but the way to their rightful freedom.
These women are the strongest force that could exist- the kind that uses nothing but their honesty, strength, and intellectual capabilities to bring change. An Iranian woman is a force who withstands traps, even when the streets are empty. Iranian women live carefully and work in secret. Iranian women don’t give up, because they do not see any other way to be. Iranian women believe and because they are strong, the outcome will be what they want it to be.
In the video, One Million Signatures Member Esha Momeni asks, "How can we stay silent?" She answers the question by stating, "If we don’t fight, if we don’t resist, we won’t get what we deserve. And after a hundred years, the world is hearing Iranian women’s voice."
As long as there are Iranian women willing to risk their lives for freedom, there will be no silence.
