CONTINUED SUCCESS OF IRANIAN WOMEN’S MOVEMENT
Southern California activists celebrate June 12, the Iranian Women's Solidarity Day
June 12th is the fifth anniversary of the historic gathering in 2005 near Tehran University organized by Iranian women demanding gender equality in the legal system. This peaceful demonstration was attended by more than six thousand women and men, and was supported by over ninety groups and NGOs in Iran with a broad range of concerns from women's rights to the environment and education. The following year, on June 12th 2006, a similar gathering for gender equality organized in 7th Tir square in Tehran was met with a harsh police reaction and the arrest of seventy participants. Undeterred by the backlash, this gathering grew over the following months into an extensive grassroots movement called the One Million Signatures Campaign, which has spread to most cities and provinces in Iran. Today, it is a worldwide movement, with branches in thirteen countries, and has received widespread acknowledgement and support. So far the Iranian women rights activists (Campaign specifically) have been awarded many prizes for their work from prominent international organizations such as the Simone de Beauvoir Foundation in France and the Feminist Majority Foundation in the USA.
June 12th 2010 is of special significance as it coincides with the first anniversary of voting in the Iranian presidential elections, and the result of Iranian women movement effort in spreading the discourse of equality in society have made the presidential candidates feel obligated to publish their program on actualizing women right in Iran, and protest the dismissal of female presidential candidates. The following pamphlet was created by some of the southern California campaign members in order to help educate the public and the organizers of demonstrations across the globe. Please read and distribute:
