By Roja Bandari.
A few days ago we hit a new low in systematic filtering of women's rights websites in Iran. Along with the website Change for Equality, 11 other sites and blogs belonging to local branches of the One Million Signatures Campaign in several cities or regions in Iran (Arak, Rasht, Mashhad, Esfahan, Shiraz, Zahedan) were blocked simultaneously. The list of blocked blogs included Men for Equality, set up by male activists in the campaign and those of a few Iranian immigrant populations in other countries (Kuwait, Cyprus, Germany, and the US). Campaign websites in Kurdistan and Azerbaijan had been blocked in April 2008.
Change for Equality has had over 10 web addresses since early 2007. The state continuously blocks the site, and in response activists create a new web address and move to a new location. This happens despite the fact that the activists of the One Million Signatures Campaign work strictly legally and despite the fact that they do not oppose the government of Iran.
Other women's publications both online and in print have also been a target of censorship in the past few years; the popular women's rights e-zine Zanestan ("Woman's Land"), and the long-published and well-respected magazine Zanan ("Women") have both been shut down and are no longer published as of and November 2007 and January 2008 respectively.
Read the rest at openDemocracy.
Thanks to Roja for permission to reprint an excerpt of her piece!
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I love their slogan, "censorship is offensive, not women." I couldn't have said it any better myself. I would love to see a political blog with a running list of all the websites in the world that endure censorship. I wonder how long that list would be. Great post.
I think they ARE opposed to the Iranian govt -- any group that supports the equality of women IS implicitly opposed to the govt since this goes against the govt's foundations. Would that there were many more "opposed" to the govt in this way!
all this kind of reminds me of a book i recently read by khaled hossein, called a thousand splendid suns.
i LOVED the book soooo much! i'm not the type of person to easily cry with movies or books, but this book really got to me. it had me in tears, put a big smile on my face, and made me feel what i havent felt in a looong time. it's depressing to know that some events in the book really do happen in the middle east; iran, iraq, afghanistan, etc.
i really really recommend this book!!!
This is one of the times that I wish I knew Farsi and could read this stuff...