Zahra Rahnavard joins a gathering of women activists who continue to fearlessly fight for human rights.

Dr. Zahra Rahnavard, wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi, in a message urged the authorities to not miss the opportunity and free all political prisoners. In this note Zahra Rahnavard by pointing out that the spring is the beginning of the new cycle of life in the nature and that freedom and blossom are the titles of this new chapter asked the authorities to give the nation the freedom it deserves and free all political prisoners in this new chapter of life

In this note Zahra Rahnavard stressed that the government ruling Iran, which claims to be Islamic, could and still can present freedom to the nation and the society.

She added that seeking freedom, demanding democracy, and following law are the three main branches of Iranian society over the past hundred years which still shine as part of Iranian demands and even if we only focus on these three-branched demands between the constitutional revolution and the 1978 revolution, we see that both of these revolutions are unfinished projects.

She emphasised that [We are in] a situation and in a historic-political stage of our country that the government and the people could, hand in hand, complete this unfinished projects and by releasing all [political] prisoners, finish this process.

Zahra Rahnavard added that with an overall look at these imprisoned free-souls, we can recognize and categorize them:

1. Unknown prisoners, from women and men, old, young and children: They are the body of the nation. They are neither the first moat nor the first trench that its conquest is cause for happiness and they are not a trench that reformists are hiding behind it.

Their demand is only one of many demands of the people. The free-souls that like the rest of Iranian nation have no one under than their God and their wishes. Just that. And for that reason keeping them in prison is a symbol of the ugliest oppressions and pains one can force on a nation. They have great mothers, children, wives and husbands, fathers and families who can’t tolerate their pains any more.

2. Imprisoned women: Iran’s history is full of praise and high stature for women who are the symbol of kindness and compassion. In the historic land of Iran, statues of goddesses and mothers, we not only the symbol of worship and fertility but also the symbol of deep historic respect of this ancient land to women.

3. Activists and well-known political figures: Reformists figures and their aids and colleagues who want nothing other than the prosperity of Iranian nation and achieving metrics of these unfinished projects.

4. Human rights activists and supporters: Before any other civilization or country, human rights have historic roots. The Cyrus the Great cylinder is one of them. The holy Quran also values the human rights so much that starts with the name of God and finishes with a chapter named “the people”. Isn’t this a shame for the Iranian nation that its government calls the governing of human rights an anti Iranian idea and with this false accusation calls human rights activist dependent on foreign governors, and menace to national security?

5. Different races and minorities. Iran is a land of multiculturalism and therefore has a great opportunity to flourish. These different cultures are not trying to separate and become independent. They want nothing other than respect for themselves and the nation. The constitution also puts no limit on their freedom and dignity while encourage their cultural development.

6. Journalists, artists, and media activists. In the modern world, journalists and artists are freedom-seeker, justice-fighters and independent people who are not tied to powers. The presence of journalists and artists are signs of democracy and the new world without them will vanish.

7. Hostages and others. I wonder how some with power create some groups in their minds and place innocent people in these groups and with all sorts of weird and strange names and accusations keep them in prisons or execute them. This is the worst kind of punishment or even some kind of old taking revenge on people to create an environment of fear and terror.

At the end she stressed: “So I swear to the spring that these prisoners are the free-souls” Go to original article.

Free Iran:  The Green leaders need to be much tougher on the economic issues.  This is not enough.  They need to say something like this: “Unemployment, inflation, poverty, and class differences are the direct result of this government’s corruption, incompetence and foreign policy adventurism.”  Keep it simple and brief.  It worked for Reagan, Clinton, Putin, Chinese leaders, etc. and it’ll work for the Green movement too.  Unless immediate national securities are at stake, almost always it’s the economy, stupid. Green leaders need to focus all their energies on creating economic boycotts, culminating into strikes by the oil workers.  That’s the only way this regime will be brought down – by cutting off their main source of funding.  To begin this road, the Green leaders need to constantly ask the Iranian people and especially the oil workers:

Are you better off today than you were before Ahmadinejad first took office?

.

WSJ:  Iran Opposition Leader Lashes Out at Regime

Iran’s top opposition leader said his protest movement would persevere despite a blistering crackdown, and he leveled fresh criticism at the regime’s handling of the economy and foreign policy.

The message, broadcast in a video release on the Internet to supporters marking the Iranian new year, appeared aimed at continuing Mir Hossein Mousavi’s strategy of broadening the appeal of his movement. He and other opposition leaders have recently moved beyond domestic political complaints to focus on, among other things, economic hardship it blames on the policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mr. Mousavi repeated that grievance and other political complaints he’s made against the regime: “We do not have a free media or the freedoms outlined in the constitution,” he said. “We lack free elections, where candidates are not cherry-picked, and fair competition.”

But he also broadened his criticism to what he suggested was economic-policy and foreign-policy incompetence by the government.

“Economic prospects for the future are not good,” he said. “I am not pleased with this situation. I wish that despite all our issues, we would have seen an outlook to solve these nonpolitical issues.”

Iran’s economy has been buoyed by recently high oil prices. But the country has long been plagued by high unemployment and high inflation, though price increases have moderated recently. Before the June election, Mr. Ahmadinejad suffered criticism, even from some of his allies, for his handling of the economy.

Carnegie:  Iran’s Economy in Turmoil

The Iranian economy is facing its bleakest prospects in nearly two decades, with an almost unanimous forecast of low growth, high inflation, and continued double-digit unemployment. These worsening economic conditions, in turn, are likely to place considerable stress on internal politics, leading to strikes, protests, and business bankruptcies, and encouraging further emigration and capital flight. Persistent structural weaknesses and the Ahmadinejad administration’s gross mismanagement of the economy are largely at fault for the economy’s dysfunction, but recent external developments—including Western banks and industrial companies’ reduced exposure to Iran, possible new sanctions, and increasing transaction costs—are also damaging the economic climate.

…The worsening economic conditions are likely to place considerable stress on internal politics: energizing the “greens” movement, provoking strikes by disgruntled and unpaid workers; giving rise to massive protests by university campus activists; and leading to further exodus of talent and capital, as well as a spate of business bankruptcies.

While the somber trend line and the economy’s poor prospects may still fail to fulfill the wishes of democracy advocates at home (and their supporters abroad), hoping for a “regime change,” such factors as reduced foreign exchange reserves, uncertain oil prices, an overvalued exchange rate, looming external pressures, and internal political exigencies are bound to drastically affect President Ahmadinejad’s major economic policies, if not his bombastic rhetoric, in the coming year.

FT:  Ahmadi-Nejad meets clergy to mend relations

Iran’s president tried to repair his relations with the religious establishment on Thursday by paying a rare visit to the holy city of Qom and meeting senior members of the clergy.

Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad held talks with about six senior clerics, who had previously been deeply reluctant even to meet him. “A massive lobby by the most influential authorities happened to convince the clergy to see the president,” said one analyst in Qom.

Mr Ahmadi-Nejad has probably had worse relations with Iran’s religious institutions than any other president since the Islamic revolution in 1979. Partly this is because he has publicly disagreed with the clerics on some social issues: he defied their wishes by trying to allow women to enter stadiums to watch football matches.

Another important cause of the breach is the clergy’s concern over Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s beliefs about the “hidden Imam” of the Shias, who is believed to have disappeared in 941. Shias believe that he will one day return to bring justice to the world. But Mr Ahmadi-Nejad has publicly predicted that the “hidden Imam’s” reappearance is imminent, causing suspicions that he feels personally connected.

Many in the senior clergy believe that Mr Ahmadi-Nejad and his loyalists have unorthodox beliefs about the “hidden Imam”, comparable to those of a “sect”.

The Qom seminary, with about 50,000 scholars and a dozen grand ayatollahs, is not as powerful as it was in the early years of the revolution. But it still holds a significant position in Iran’s Islamic establishment, able to give religious legitimacy to political factions. Consequently, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad wants to win its backing.

CS Monitor:  Iran protests: Is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei winning?

“[Khamenei] thinks, ‘If I can have even 20-30 percent of the people with me, and have systematic pressure on the other 70 percent, I can lead for a long time and there wouldn’t be a serious threat against me,’” says Mr. Khalaji, whose father, an ayatollah in the Iranian religious center of Qom, was arrested without charge and held in solitary confinement in Evin Prison for three weeks in January.

“[Khamenei] tries to keep as many people [as he can] inside the circle of the elite, [while] empowering the suppression machinery of the regime more than before,” adds Khalaji.

“What hurts him is that some people can reveal this division,” says Khalaji at WINEP. “The division itself is not important. He thinks, ‘I can manage it, I can deal with opposition, I can intimidate them, I can prevent them from coming to the streets.’

“What is damaging to him is media, is pictures – the image of opposition is damaging for him,” adds Khalaji. “That’s why he’s so tough on media, on intellectuals, artists, writers, professors at university – nobody should talk about it. Talking about this means questioning the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic.”

WP:  Iran jails former vice president, reform activist

Times:  Opposition couple demand ‘year of resistance’ against Iran’s rulers

Khordaad88:  Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s Norouz Message

Khordaad88:  Zahra Rahnavard’s Norouz Message

NYT:  First Couple of Iran’s Opposition Post Video Messages for Persian New Year

RFE:  Call To Release Iran’s ‘Blogfather’ For Norouz

Zamaaneh:  Families of Iranian detainees demand release of their kin

MediaLine: Iran Launches Anti-Sanctions Car Engine

Zamaaneh: Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of Iran’s Chairman of the Expediency Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told Bahar newspaper that the judiciary has failed to process their lawsuit against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Rooz: While a number of journalists and political prisoners were released yesterday, speaking to a group of families of political prisoners Tehran’s prosecutor general warned that he would not release individuals whose families had spoken about the matter to media networks.

Source: Kaleme
Date:  Thursday, March 11,  2010

Dr. Zahra Rahnavard, painter, sculptor and a professor at the University of Tehran, begins her talk by wishing the release of all political prisoners, especially the woman. She says: “I hope that all female prisoners will be released before the new year. Everybody, from women’s rights activists to journalists to human rights activists and child’s rights activists, to the nameless women who were arrested while protesting in the street, and the female students who have done nothing but to demand their rights.

Rahnavard did not forget the mourning mothers. “our hearts and prayers are with those mourning mothers whose flowers have withered. The mothers of Neda, Sohrab, Seyed Ali, Ashkan, Kianoush, Ramin Ramezani, Alireza Eftekhari, Mahram Cheghini and the mothers of innocent martyrs like Naser Amirnejad, Iman Namzai, Kaveh Sabzalipour and those whose names we don’t even know. And those mothers and families whose loved ones have endures great injuries after the election, some have been injured in the protests, some have been tortured while in custody, and some have been in prison for months now.

And then she takes the opportunity to wish a happy new year to all the freedom loving men and women: “I hope that the coming year will be year of freedom, democracy, justice and the end of discrimination, especially against women.

The Kalemeh website has conducted a lengthy interview with Dr. Rahnavard which follows:

It’s a good idea to start this interview with a question about women and the green movement. A while ago women’s rights activists released a statement writing that in none of the statements and discussions released after the day of the election, has there been any attention to their demands. These activists write that they believe the issue of women is a big part of the current crisis, and without attempting to solve these issues, no solutions would be sustainable. That is why a group of these activists wrote a critical letter to Karoubi and Mousavi. What do you think about this?  Do you believe that from the day after the election, the candidates were oblivious to women and their issues?

Truly, why do we women have to sit around and wait for someone to mother us? We have to be the ones who step forward. We can learn much from the story of great women in history. We have thousands of years of history to draw on. From the day time, which, according to the Koran, humanity was one unified nation, or the time when, according to some theorists, women were the prime decision makers, when, according to archeological findings, the gods were female and ruled the world. If not anything, the history of civilization tells us that the first industrialists, cloth weavers,  potters and farmers (if not hunters) were women. Of course, in those times, there were unwritten agreements which, according to the physical, economical, religious and traditional beliefs, men and women divided tasks. And since it has not been historically proven that there once was a society ruled solely by women, at least we know that there was a time when even if they were not the pinnacle of rule, they played a huge role in the laws and governance of their society.

Now what is stopping us from learning from them? In the third millennium,  during the recent  election women were maybe treated as first rate citizens but  right after the election that status was taken away from them with speed of light . Despite what happened,  we are in pursuit of our demands such as freedom , removing discrimination [against women] violence and stopping polygamy. Go to Khordad 88.

The wife of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi called the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “illegitimate,” the reformist Kaleme website reported Thursday.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the most powerful figure in the Islamic establishment, has criticized Iran’s opposition leaders for disputing the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad’s government and for refusing to “bow before the law.”

“I have said many times that this government is illegitimate … but because the government claims to be legitimate, it has to carry out its duties,” Zahra Rahnavard was quoted as saying on Kaleme, the website of her husband.

She also said the opposition movement would be present on March 17 when Iranians hold celebrations a few days before the country’s New Year (on March 21).

“We will be present that day… but will not take any extreme or violent action,” Rahnavard said.

Police officials have strongly warned the opposition against using the occasion to organize fresh protests and have said they will hold anyone arrested that day until the end of the Iranian new year holidays.

Rahnavard called on the authorities to release all pro-reform detainees and to respect “freedom of expression and thought.”

“Freedom, democracy and women’s rights is what we want to pursue,” she said.

Go to Reuters.

IND:  A comprehensive biography of Mr. Mousavi.

It is telling, therefore, that Mir Hossein Mousavi courted and eventually married Zahra Rahnavard. When they met, in 1969, Rahnavard was already an acclaimed pioneer in the field of Islamic feminism, as well as a sculptor and critic and all-around star of the intellectual scene that throbbed in Tehran at that time. But it was her political theories that vaulted her farthest: Rahnavard proffered the kind of critique of patriarchy percolating in the Western academy at the time. Yet she didn’t join her sisters in the West in launching an all-out assault on tradition. Yes, Islam has misogynistic elements, she argued in her speeches. But those misogynistic elements are not necessarily native to Islam. They only prevail because of the male domination of the faith.

Zahra Rahnavard’s husband, of course, has emerged as the towering figure of the Iranian democratic movement–the man whose campaign inspired so much hope and whose thwarted election has unleashed an unprecedented wave of protest. Yet, for all his centrality to these events, he remains essentially a fuzzy figure in most press accounts.

At first glance, his long career is a riddle: How could he possibly represent the forces for liberalism and democracy when he served as such a loyal foot soldier in Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution? During his eight years as prime minister, back in the 1980s, the regime committed terrible atrocities. It was involved in a brutal military conflict–an eight-year war that Iran prolonged needlessly. Go to New Republic.

Mir Hossein Mousavi’s statement #17 was interpreted by some as recognising Ahmadinejda’s administration and some even went as far as claiming that the Green leaders have compromised with the government behind the scene. Zahra Rahnavard, wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi, in an interview with RoozOnline strongly denied these claims and explicitly announced that:

We neither recognise Ahmadinejad’s administration [as legitimate government] nor compromise but we honestly are following on people’s rights and demands.

This interview was done while on one hand the pressure on Mir Hossein Mousavi has intensified by arresting his close allies and even the killing of his nephew on bloody Ashura and on the other hand there have been some rumours regarding the hidden compromise by him and other Green leaders in recognising Ahmadinejad’s administration as a legitimate government. But Zahra Rahnavard despite all these threats and pressures and even having his own brother, Shaour Kazemi, among the arrested, emphasised that:

We have put our hearts as shields and we are ready for any bullet, attack or assassination.

Full transcript of the interview with Zahra Rahnavard, university professor, author and Mir Hossein Mousavi’s wife is as follows: See More.

3. Zahra Rahnavard

for being the brains behind Iran’s Green Revolution and the campaign of her husband, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Political scientist and Reformer | Iran

Of all the critical moments in the Iranian presidential election that captured the world’s attention this year, one stands out: On June 3, incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly questioned the credentials of his opponent’s wife, wondering in a televised debate if her Ph.D. in political science was legitimate. Furious, the 64-year-old Rahnavard staged a blazing, 90-minute news conference in which she accused the president of lying, debasing her sex, and betraying the Islamic Revolution. The attack galvanized the opposition and rejuvenated the campaign of her husband, Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Ahmadinejad should have known better. During and after the Islamic Revolution, Rahnavard had been an ardent Islamist who worked to discredit secular feminist groups. But years later, when the revolution failed to yield dividends for women, she changed course and became a driving force behind the nascent feminist movement in Iran. After she was placed on the High Council of Cultural Revolution, the body issued its first declaration in 1992 advancing women’s rights. She was later fired as chancellor of Tehran’s exclusively female Al-Zahra University for inviting feminist lawyer and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi to speak.

This year, Rahnavard’s rage at Ahmadinejad drove her husband’s campaign. She began stumping with him and organizing supporters through rallies, Facebook, Twitter, and text messages. Campaign posters that depicted the couple holding hands subtly hinted at the liberal reforms Mousavi would make in office; she has more explicitly said these would involve greater democratization, a stronger role for women in the cabinet, and a relaxing of Iran’s notoriously discriminatory gender laws. Go to Foreign Policy.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The wife of the Iranian opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi spoke out forcefully on Thursday against the recent publication of accusations against her imprisoned brother, saying the accusations were false and amounted to a new effort by Iran’s hard-line leadership to discredit the opposition movement. Go to NY Times.

The main opposition leader in Iran, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has confirmed plans to form a new broad-based political front.  Writing on his website, he said the front would have a charter and would give the opposition a legal framework.  Mr Mousavi was the leading reformist candidate in the disputed presidential elections in Iran on 12 June. Go to BBC.

The wife of Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi says her 62-year-old brother was among those detained after last month’s disputed election in what she called a futile attempt to pressure her husband and herself.

Zahra Rahnavard’s comments, in an interview published by a pro-reform Iranian news agency Thursday, were the latest in a series of defiant statements by Mousavi and his allies, who insist the June 12 presidential poll was rigged. Go to Reuters.

Iran’s leading opposition figure and his wife emerged Tuesday night to pay their respects to the family of a 19-year-old man slain in the nation’s recent weeks of violence, according to witnesses and reports on news websites.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his popular wife, Zahra Rahnavard, visited the family of Sohrab Aarabi in Tehran, paying tribute to the teenager whose death and whose mother’s weeks-long quest to find him have emerged as symbols of the protest movement against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Go to la times.

A look at Mir Hossein Mousavi with his wife, Dr. Zahra Rahnavard, and former President Khatami during the ‘Green Wave’ campaign for the June 12th, 2009, Presidential elections in Iran. [In Persian with English Subtitles]