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We begin tonight’s edition of A Window to the Fatherland with Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh reading one of his poems from the book of his collected works.
Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh:
I believe the movement of groups of Iranians announcing their support for theopen letter of 14 civil rights activists that calls on Khamenei to step down and holding a referendum for a new system of governance for Iran, is in fact the continuation of the uprising that swept across more than 130 cities of our country in December 2017.
One of the reasons that the protestors themselves involved in those uprisings pointed out about why their movement died down was because it did not have any clear strategy or manifesto to rally the people around them.
That movement was not just about the increase in the price of bread or the fall in the value of Iran’s currency against the US dollar.
Iranian women have been at the forefront of all social upheavals in the last 40 years.
One of these freedom fighter women whom I have had the pleasure of knowing since she used to work with me in Omide Iran magazine has been the lawyer Giti Pourfazel.
I have now managed to find her after many years and she will now share her views and experiences about the role of Iranian women in freeing our country from its despotic rulers.
Giti Pourfazel:
I am sure you do remember the first act of the present regime in Iran after the revolution was to ban women lawyers from practice.
Ayatollah Mohammadi Gilani wrote an edict on a piece of scrap paper that the 57 womenlawyers in the previous justice department of Iran had no right to continuewith our jobs.
Some 14 years later we decided to appeal against this discriminatory act and renew our license.
However, while a number of our licenses were renewed, those lawyers who had dared challenge the regime by defending their clients still remained banned from practicing their offices.
I was asked by the mother and sister of the late Sattar Beheshti to seek justice for his murder while in detention on charges of insulting the regime’s rules.
You can imagine how they had felt when their son had been arrested on phony charges and the next thing they hear from the authorities after a few days is come and collect the dead body of Sattar.
These women have been very brave by insisting that Sattar has been killed unlawfully and those responsible must be brought to justice.
The interrogator of Sattar, a Mr Akbari, had himself confessed that he had beaten Sattar Beheshti during his detention.
It has now been medically established that sadly Sattar had died after receiving a heavy blow to his brain, which resulted in severe internal bleeding.
