Delaram Ali, women’s rights activist, soon to go to prison for 2 years and six months + 10 lashes, she’s just the first…
Monday, November 5, 2007 by Sanam
Do you remember the rally by women’s rights activists in Tehran on June 12, 2006? Do you remember the pictures of policemen and policewomen beating the participants? Do you remember the pictures of a girl being dragged on the asphalt pavement of the streets whose hand was broken by the police? She was Delaram Ali, a young student in her early 20s. She is a young children’s rights activist who voluntarily teaches street children in the most impoverished areas of Tehran and who has traveled to Bam several times and lived in Bam for months (the city that was destroyed in an earthquake a few years ago) to teach and play with the tormented children who still live in camps. She is also a member of One Million Signature Campaign, a peaceful campaign that aims at educating and collecting signatures from one million Iranians about the gender discriminatory laws and the need to change them.
On June 12, 2006, more than 70 people were arrested. Some of them were released, some of them were sent to court. From those who had a trial, a few of them were sentenced to prison terms and lashing. Delaram was one of them.
Delaram got married two months ago. She has spent a big time of her life teaching poor children. Delaram’s hand was broken while being humiliated and dragged on the streets by the police on June 12, 2006, because she was exercising her constitutional rights to stand up in a square in town to peacefully show her dissatisfaction with discrimination and opression. Delaram is 24, but in a few days she should bear 10 lashes and spend the next 2 years and 6 months of her life in prison.
And guess what? She is just the first among many women’s rights activists who are sentenced to prison terms and lashing. You will hear about the rest of them soon. They will go to prison one by one, because the Iranian regime is deadly afraid of women’s rights activists in Iran. Because the stupid Iranian government think the women’s movement in Iran wants to overthrow the regime or is being led by the American government! The Iranian government is afraid of the women’s movement in Iran, because this movement is raising consciousness among at least half of the population. Well, of course the Iranian regime doesn’t like that! Awareness is dangerous. Awareness stops people from following stupid authorities like sheeps. Awareness raises questions. Awareness might cause people see that the emperor of religion is not actually wearing any clothes!
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I had never ever seen the government of Iran this much vulnerable and stupid. And of course I have never ever been this much disappointed in my life. Seriously, we are stuck in a rock and hard place. By we I’m talking about members of Iranian social movements. We have no place in this world. On one hand there is the threat of war and the US administration who is waiting like vultures to see discriminations in Iran to add to its alibis for attacking Iran (and yet add much more to the oppression of Iranian people). And on the other hand there is the dictatorship in Iran that is suffocating the activists and ordinary people. There is nowhere to refer to to seek help. There is no option that can help us get rid of this dictatorship peacefully. We are just stuck with this government forever. Any dissent is treated harshly. Students are imprisoned and tortured. Women’s rights activists are getting imprisoned. Bus drivers who strike for a raise in their salary end up with being beaten and imprisoned. I can go on and on. And yet there is no hope, no way, to get rid of this oppression…
For the first time I’m happy that I’m not in Iran anymore. I seriously am! Of course whenever I see an American police car I shiver, because I know being an Iranian can be enough for being considered as a terrorist, but still I feel safer here. It certainly feels bitter that I feel safer in a country which is not my homeland, but that’s a reality that I should eventually swallow.
Life is full of these bitter realities to swallow. There is desire (arezoo) , then there is dream (roya), and eventually comes regret (hasrat). You can do your best to get to whatever you desire. You can work hard and pray and have some luck to make your dreams come true. But then, no matter how bad you want it or how hard you try or how natural it may sound , you may never reach some of them. Those dreams turn to regrets…and they just stay there, staring at you, every moment of your every daylife. You just learn to live with them. We all have them, the regrets I mean.
PS: For “Hasrat” in persian, I can’t think of a better word than regret. If you find it, pls fill in the blank.
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Lady Sun: Thanks Nava jan for the nice words. I agree, regret is a good word for hasrat.
Thanks for this post, Lady Sun, I’ll link to it on my blog, I wish everyone could read it. This is an unbelievable OUTRAGE and I can barely allow myself to think about the fact that Delaram might be the first of many feminists to be terrorized in this way.
Heart
[...] Read more here, and here. [...]
Open Letter from Delaram Ali: “The Seeds Have Been Sown and No Doubt They Will Bear Fruit”
Here is an Open Letter Delaram has written, published on the One Million Signatures Campaign website
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Delaram Ali sounds like a wonderful human being! Her love and care for poor and homeless children demonstrates her very high moral character. The Iranian leaders, comfortably wrapped in their finely tailored Mullah’s robes, who can order her beaten, lashed, and imprisoned, are immoral hypocrites! As always Sanam, I will be happy to help if there is something I can do.
Here in America, history provides many examples of gender discrimination, although I don’t think that women here were punished as severely as women in Iran. In the generation of my great grandparents, women in America finally gained the right to vote. However, it was a difficult struggle, and many protesting suffragettes were arrested and jailed. However, even after women gained the right to vote, they still faced a great deal of discrimination. For example, the jobs that women could fill were very limited for decades.
Some members of my family have been touched by gender discrimination. I remember my grandmother telling me stories from her youth. She wanted to teach, but the schools only allowed never married women to be teachers. Apparently, they believed that married women had been tainted with immorality, or something like that. Not surprisingly, in a society of sexual inequities, most of the teachers were married men. My grandmother did eventually teach during WWII. At that time, there was a severe shortage of male teachers, so they started allowing married women to teach. My grandmother was a very strong and intellectually curious woman. She continued her education and eventually earned a Ph.D. in psychology. Even my mother faced some gender discrimination. She had difficulty in gaining acceptance to medical school. One school turned her down only because she was a woman.
I truly hope that Iran will make changes to improve the rights of its women soon. I hope these changes can come peacefully.
Since 9/11, Iranians in the US have gotten increasingly excited by the social movements you mentioned. They saw a lot of hope. Of course, they were expecting change to come quickly. I think it’s a terrible reality that it will be painful for Iran to change.
But what I appreciate about you is that you write these thoughtful things about females. I have to say it upsets me that during these tough times (tough is an understatement), a lot of Iranians in the West are pointing to men from the past (shah et al)!!!! The heroes are in the pictures you’ve posted. They are brave and they are Iran lovers.
As a woman, thank you. As an Iranian. Thank you. Iranian women are heroes too. They are fighters too.
Dear Ladysun,
This post made me one step closer to hate Islam as well as strengthening my prospective that I should hate Islam. I have recently wrote a paper titled: “From Parsi to Farsi.” Let me know if you are a non-religious person and I will e-mail it to you, however I am not as brave as you to appear or express my naked ideas under my real name since I believe the below quote implicitly.
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” Blaise Pascal( 1623-,1662)
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Lady Sun: Dear Lonely Eagle. I’m not a religious person at all. I kissed religion goodbye years ago and I’m an atheist now. So feel free to send your paper. But at the same time, I don’t hate religion and don’t think all of our problems are because of religion. I look at religion as a cultural issue. I think we should criticize the way religion or culture are being abused to oppress people (by power mongers), rather than generally dismissing religion or use hate speech. Because then we will not be able to respect people’s freedom of choosing their religion and will become the oppressor ourselves.
Your last sentence reminded of Azar Nafisi’s statement that she said when she went back to Iran she felt she lived in exile in her own home country.
OMG