We— as members of the women’s movement in Iran and as civil rights activists from diverse areas such as NGOs, political parties, campaigns, press and trade unions— have realized that there are many ways in which to achieve women’s demands. When it is necessary, we have stepped in unison with one another. Today, we have decided to form another coalition in which to present the demands of women within our country through the pivotal period and space of the presidential election. The only goal of this coalition is to declare women’s demands. We neither support any specific candidate nor are we interfering in a citizen’s right and decision to participate or not in the election.

On December 15, 2008, the Islamic Association of Students for Democracy of Tehran University and Medical School published an open letter to former Iranian (Iran?) president Mohammad Khatami. Khatami, who was then about to declare his candidacy for reelection to the presidency of the Islamic Republic, went on to put his hat into the ring, only to withdraw it in March 2009 in favor of Mir Hossein Mussavi, the former Prime Minister of Iran, who had served from 1981 until 1988, at which time the position of Prime Minister was abolished in a newly revised constitution.Though Khatami is not a candidate anymore, the students’ letter opens a window onto the aspirations of those Iranian students who have declared “democracy” to be their ultimate goal. They use the coming elections to try to open a dialogue with their rulers, aware, as they are, of the unfair and non-free nature of those elections. The questions they pose reflect what they have learned from the failed reform policies of Khatami’s eight years in power, from 1997 to 2005. What the students seek to realize is a narrow space of safety and relative freedom, enough to be able to foster the democratic culture they desire. They call their demands “minimalist,” as they try to maneuver within the thin margins they believe they have a chance to secure. Their letter, which follows, illustrates the harsh conditions facing students in their struggle for democracy in Iran.

The Iran Democratic Front (IDF) was established in 2000 to promote a secular democratic regime for Iran. IDF is a loose coalition of several student organizations who, in the late 1990s, concluded that the Islamist reformist movement will fail in Iran because of major constitutional and structural obstacles. They gathered around Heshmatollah Tabarzadi its secretary general and a former Islamist militant who converted to democratic ideals in the late 1990s. Tabarzadi spent 10 years in detention as a prisoner of conscience.

The present statement was issued by Iranian women's rights advocates and their supporters on the occasion of June 12th Solidarity day with Iranian women. On June 12, 2005, several thousand women's rights activists, supported by students, organized a sit-in, at the entrance of Tehran University, to protest against the constitutional laws discriminating against women. A year later the same day, they gathered again to reiterate their demands. This time they were violently attacked and beaten by security forces and some of them were arrested. Being deprived of their right to free speech and free assembly, they continued their struggle in an innovative way: they launched the one million signatures campaign (August 19th, 2006), taking their demands to Iran's civil society and mustering popular support by collecting citizens' signatures against gender discrimination in the country. Since the beginning of the one million signatures campaign women rights campaigners have been harassed, arbitrarily arrested, and physically and psychologically tormented. The government denied their right to assemble in public places on June 12, 2007, so instead they issued the present statement which blames the government for its use of unbridled violence against civil society.

Source : weforchange

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The author of this article, Noushin Ahmadi, is one of the outstanding members of the new generation of women rights advocates in Iran. In this article, she reports on the violence and intimidation exerted by state agents on the members and advocates of the "One million signatures campaign for women's equal rights" in Iran.

The campaign's initiating statement was issued on August 19th, 2006, two months after a public gathering by women rights advocates was violently suppressed by security forces in Tehran (June 12th, 2006). The author concludes her report by asking :

"Yes, perhaps with your security planning and your modern technology, you may be able to isolate and paralyze the current generation of Iranian women's rights activists, and stop the progression of our Campaign, but what will you do with the love that we plant in the hearts of our children? Perhaps with your advanced technology, you will be able to attack the hearts of our personal computers, but what will you do with our dreams?"

Source: weforchange

The present text is the English version of the resolution, women rights activists were not given the opportunity to read and publicize. Women rights militants are at the forefront of Iran's nascent civil rights movement, which is gathering momentum and support among Iranian dissidents and the students movement.

On June 12th 2006, Iranian security forces disrupted a demonstration called for by Iranian women rights activists. According to the June 15th, Human Rights Watch report : " police and intelligence agents lined Haft Tir Square in downtown Tehran hours before the start of the planned demonstration on June 12. As the demonstrators assembled, the security forces immediately started to beat them with batons, sprayed them with pepper gas, marked the demonstrators with color spray, and took scores into custody... An eyewitness told Human Rights Watch that, for what is thought to be the first time, the government transported policewomen to the demonstration to arrest female demonstrators while policemen dealt with male protestors. Female police officers ruthlessly beat demonstrators with their batons and took many into police vans for detention," this witness said. 'Bystanders were shocked at how harshly the police reacted to demonstrators.'"

This aborted demonstration was the third of its kind in recent years. Similar demonstrations were held and violently suppressed by security forces on June 12th, 2005 and on March 8th, 2006. In each demonstration, women rights activists announced that they will peacefully pursue their demands until all discrimination against women are abolished.

Akbar Ganji is an Islamist militant who has become a leading Iranian pro-democracy dissident. The present text consists of extensive excerpts from Ganji's "Republican Manifesto II," which was written prior to Iran's 2005 presidential election. It was edited by and published in the October 2005 issue of the Journal of Democracy. A complete English translation of this work, which is more than twice as long as these excerpts, may be found at http://freeganji.blogspot.com. That translation has been amended in various places in the text.

On June 12, 2005, on the eve of the presidential elections, several women's rights groups organized a sit-in at the entrance of Tehran University to protest against the constitutional laws discriminating against women. Demonstrators were tightly circled by the security forces and metro buses so that they could not be seen by the passerbys. Those who wanted to join them were stopped by the security forces. Men were not allowed to join, and the doors of the University were closed. As they were assaulted by plain cloth agents, the participants sat on the ground chanting slogans in favor of women's rights. At the end of their gathering and before dispersion women voted a resolution whose content is posted here.

In November 2004, 8 Iranian dissidents, from various background, drafted an appeal in support of a referendum for a new constitution. The text was posted on the internet in the form of a petition and submitted to the public for signature. On October 2005 this appeal had gathered over 36000 signatures.

This is a statement disseminated by the Islamic Association of Amir Kabir University of Technology on the Anniversary of the Referendum for the Islamic Republic (held on April 1st, 1979): "We, as a part of the Student Movement of Iran, consider referendum as the only way to prevent crisis in Iran, because we would not like to see a day when our neighbors to the West and to the East, Iraq and Afghanistan, talk about a referendum in Iran that is held by a foreign government."

A statement by the Islamic Association of Amir Kabir University of Technology, entitled, "February 28, A Cry for the End of the State-Sponsored Reforms": "If we consider the June 2001 presidential elections as an alarm for the approaching end of the State-Sponsored Reforms, the February 28, 2003 elections were a void seal on the file of those reforms."

The present text is a statement by the Islamic Association of Sharif University of Technology (Tehran) about Municipal Elections, held on 28th of February 2003. Although these elections were partially free, the population responding to appeals by detained students and dissidents, massively boycotted the elections. The boycott was a reaction against the unfulfilled promises of the "reformist leadership" and resulted in their first major electoral defeat since 1997.