Behind the Headlines/March 8

Jamshid Chalangi:

In tonight’s program;

On the International Women’s Day we mark the occasion by looking at the plight of Iranian women under the Islamic republic regime;

Former president Mohammad Khatami has said the the Iranian people would not be convinced if they should take part in the next presidential or parliamentary elections as they have seen no positive change in their lives by voting;

Could the so-called reformists who have been sent abroad by the regime still ignore this reality and try to encourage our people to queue up at polling stations to help the regime continue with its rule?;

We will also look at the appointment of Ebrahim Raeesi as the head of judiciary;

Our guest tonight is Dr Alireza Nourizadeh.

Dr Alireza Nourizadeh:

The women of Iran have gone through several historic experiences since the revolution; taking part in it, supporting their families during the war with Iraq and fighting for their human and civil rights denied of them by the regime.

This regime has denied half of our population from their human rights as it just does not recognise human rights values at all for any citizen regardless of their gender.

We have never seen any of its presidents to appear in public alongside their wives.

We are astonished by the courage that our women, especially their younger generation, have shown in defying the regime in recent years.

The movement of removing their hijab in public shows that our women have not given up their struggle for their human and civil rights.

Women like Nasrin Sotoudeh are the pride of this struggle.

The regime’s refusal to ban under age marriage of our girls is an indication of its repressive and reactionary view of women and in the middle of all this we hear from people like Soroush that the rule of the clerics in Iran has been the brightest in our history!!