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Jamshid Chalangi:
In tonight’s program of Behind the Headlines we look at the continued repression of Iranian women’s rights as well as President Trump’s repeated support for the Iranian people.
Our guests tonight are the lawyer and former Iranian MP Dr. Ghassem Shole Sadee and the oil markets consultant Dr. Sohrab Sobhani.
Jamshid Chalangi:
Has the regime achieved its aim of stifling Iranian women’s aspirations for freedom and equality?
Dr. Ghassem Shole Sadee:
No. The authorities have been repressing the Iranian women for 40 years but have failed to silence them. On the issue of the hijab they even tried to involve some academics and scholars to back up their attempt to keep the wearing of the hijab compulsory but their tactics did not work.
Iran’s feminist movement is a very strong movement and this is despite the very heavy sentences that the judiciary imposes on those who defy the hijab in public.
The regime has the same problem with women singers. We currently have a few women singers whose voices are excellent and they represent Iran’s national culture. But the regime’s problem is that it has been at war with our national culture since its inception and it has tried to uproot our national identity, by even attempting to destroy Persepolis.
Jamshid Chalangi:
You travel to many parts of the world and meet many other nationalities. Do youthink this type of repression of women exists in any other country?
Dr. Sohrab Sobhani:
In Baku for example, women sing and dance and the country is a major oil producer as well. Happiness is a human instinct and does not contradict with state affairs. In fact happier people are more productive and help a country progress. I have not seen such repression of women even in Saudi Arabia.
Jamshid Chalangi:
The problem seems to be the idea of “one of us” and “not one of us” that the regime advocates among the nation.
Dr. Ghassem Shole Sadee:
Most of the social problems in Iran are caused by the country’s defective justice system that is always busy issuing unjust rulings, some of which are in fact illegal. They easily arrest and imprison a petit burglar but people who have stolen billions of dollars of the nation’s wealth are free and no one knows where they are.
Dr. Sohrab Sobhani:
If the Islamic republic regime had not come to power in Iran by now our country would have had the sixth or seventh largest economy in the world.
It is precisely about this fact that President Trump speaks. He knows that theIranian people deserve to have a competent and accountable government to progress and prosper, as they are an ancient and proud nation whose culture is based on promoting peace among the mankind, not waging wars and destruction.
The day that the Islamic republic is gone, the Saudis and Emiratis will rush toinvest in Iran as they know the country is the number one in the region for its human and natural resources.
At the moment the Russians and Chinese are the enemies of our national interests for the way they manipulate our resources and put our country in the frontline of their ideological and economic wars with the US. Of course the number enemy of our people is the Islamic republic regime that relies on them to sustain its rule.
