REGIONAL ACTIVISTS STRATEGIZE ON BOLSTERING THE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ISTANBUL 000615

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/17/2025
TAGS: PREL PHUM PINS IR TU AZ
SUBJECT: REGIONAL ACTIVISTS STRATEGIZE ON BOLSTERING THE
IRANIAN WOMEN'S RIGHTS MOVEMENT

REF: A) ISTANBUL 601 B) BAKU 1156

Classified By: Acting Pol/Ection Section Chief Geoff Odlum; Reason 1.4
(b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: Iranian, Azeri, and Turkish human rights
experts participated in a "regional women's rights
discussion" November 28-29 in Istanbul, co-hosted by Turkish
and Azeri human rights NGOs. Focusing primarily on the
beleaguered state of women's rights in Iran, the speakers
highlighted the need for the Iranian women's rights movement
to organize itself more effectively; develop closer contacts
with other elements of Iranian civil society (e.g., student
groups, labor unions); develop a network with Azeri and
Turkish counterparts; and work within the Iranian system to
challenge and change laws, set legal precedents, and raise
public awareness about the importance of respecting and
enforcing women's rights. The enthusiasm of most
participants over what one described as "a movement
coalescing" was tempered by a co-host's description of this
conference as only a "first step," underscoring the need for
effective follow-up (which the Azeri NGO pledged to
undertake). We will stay in contact with Turkish
participants, and encourage like-minded Turkish NGOs to
support efforts by Iranian women's rights activists to build
closer NGO-to-NGO networking links. End summary.

A lively Iranian women's rights conference in Istanbul
-------------- -


2. (C) ConGen Istanbul's NEA "Iran Watcher" attended the
November 29 session of a November 28-29 conference in
Istanbul examining women's rights in Iran, Azerbaijan, and
Turkey, co-hosted by Novella Jafaroglu, Director of the
Baku-based "Association for Protection of Women's Rights"
(ref B),and by Abdulla Buksur, Director of the "Turkish
World Research Foundation" in Ankara. (Comment: Istanbul's
Isik University had originally agreed to co-host with the
Azeri NGO but withdrew its participation in October because
of timing and resource constraints.) The conference was
attended by more than 50 activists from Iran, Azerbaijan, and
Turkey, though no reports of the event appeared in the
mainstream Turkish press. Despite the conference title, the
discussions focused primarily on the poor state of women's
rights in Iran. Jafaroglu told us that her NGO is preparing
a summary of the remarks of all participating speakers,
including from the November 28 session that we were unable to
attend (speakers that day included well-known German-based
Iranian human rights activist Hassan Shariat-Madari). ConGen
Istanbul and/or Embassy Baku will forward the conference
summary report to NEA and others upon receipt.


3. (C) The conference's November 29 session included
presentations by Iranian human rights activist and journalist
Ali Hamid Iman, who is also actively involved in the
Iranian-Azeri ethnic rights movement in northwest Iran (ref
A),by Iranian journalist Jilla Golanbar, and by the Azeri
NGO host, Novella Jafaroglu. Discussion was lively and
free-flowing, even during formal presentations, with speakers
appearing to tolerate frequent (polite) interruptions and
verbal give-and-take from the floor.

Iman: Networking, domestic outreach, and setting legal
precedents
--------------


4. (C) Must move on from Marxist origins: Iman gave a brief
recent history of the Iranian women's rights movement, noting
that before the 1979 revolution the movement was led by a
predominantly Marxist leadership, and even today still
carries the "residue" of that leftist past. As a result it
remains easy for the GOI to brand the current women's rights
movement as Marxist and anti-Islamic, even though current
leaders like Shirin Ebadi and Simin Behbahani are moderates,
Muslims, and clearly not Marxists. Almost by definition in
an Islamic society, Iman cautioned, women's rights groups are
seen as secular and anti-Islamic, a perception that puts such
groups immediately on the defensive. He urged that women's
rights groups be attentive to public attitudes towards their
activities, act as much as possible in an apolitical way,
work within the system, underscore their commitment to
Islamic values, and emphasize that the goal is promoting
basic human rights, not regime change. Iman's explanation
prompted a hejab-donned Iranian observer (who would not give
her name but identified herself as a dedicated Islamist) to
assert that the Iranian regime "has so corrupted Islam with
velyat-e-faqih (comment: rule of Islamic jurisprudence) that
it has taken all women's rights and dignity away from us, in
defiance of what the Koran commands. Genuine Islam would

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protect us more and give us higher status than what we have
ever had under this government."


5. (C) A no-win argument: In response, Turkish NGO director
Abdullah Buksur took the floor to argue, in the day's only
discordant debate, that Sunni Islam (as practiced in Turkey)
offers women far greater legal equality than Iranian Shiism.
Buksur claimed that Shiism confers on women only 50 percent
of the legal rights that men enjoy, a status enshrined in
Iran's constitution and Sharia-based penal code. Buksur
called that "an unacceptable inequality" which Iran's
neighbors and the international community must do more to
protest. To stem an increasingly divisive argument over
Sunnism vs. Shiism in a women's rights context, Jafaroglu
took the floor to underscore to participants that the UN's
Universal Declaration on Human Rights, to which Iran is a
signatory, rather than any single nation's religion or
constitution, should provide the legal basis for identifying
the rights that all Iranians may enjoy.


6. (C) An evolving organizational structure: Iman noted
that many successful civil rights movements in the West
evolved into a "pyramid" structure, starting with a solid
foundation based on broad civil society support for the
movement's goals, and working towards successful,
step-by-step changes in both the laws and the social mores of
the societies in which they operated. In contrast, he
characterized the Iranian women's rights movement as "leaves
in the wind" -- lacking a solid foundation, and neglecting to
focus on achieving incremental, concrete progress in passing
laws or changing social values. In Iran there are many
voices advocating women's rights, but no record of lasting
success at impacting GOI decision-making, or securing
official positions of responsibility for women serving in the
Majles or GOI. Unlike women's rights movements in the West
and some in Asia, the women's movement in Iran remains too
disorganized to start effecting lasting reform. He urged
Iranian women's rights advocates to organize themselves more
cohesively. Creating "many more, and more active, NGOs" is
part of the solution. "We need to build civil society
pressure on the regime; we need to start to change public
perceptions." He suggested that positive change is never
going to come from the government, but rather "must come from
outside forces" (comment: emphasizing that he meant outside
forces inside Iran). Iman urged the participants to "use
globalization as a tool to help us", explaining that as a
result of the global information revolution, the goals that
Iranian women's rights advocates want to achieve are already
"accepted and understood and practiced almost everywhere else
the world."


7. (C) Global networking as one key: Iman called on the
Iranian women's rights movement to place higher priority on
connecting to other women's rights groups in other countries,
so as to benefit from their experiences. He cited the "One
Million Signatures" march in Iran in 2006, which he called a
rare case of the Iranian women's rights movement mobilizing
the population and getting global attention, as an example
successfully borrowed from another national women's rights
movement, in that case having been suggested by a Moroccan
women's rights group. Iman called on the international
community -- not just the UN and its member states, but also
the international business community, multinational
corporations, and international financial institutions, to
pressure the regime to respect women's rights or risk losing
international business and development assistance.


8. (C) Domestic outreach as another: The Iranian women's
rights movement must also widen its base of support within
Iran, Iman added. The movement's leaders must do more to
build cooperative relationships inside Iran with other human
and ethnic rights groups, and not allow the regime to "create
wedges between students, women, labor leaders, intellectuals,
and Iranian ethnic groups." All of these groups, he noted,
are pushing for the same basic human rights; it is in their
mutual interest to band together to protect and reinforce
each other.


9. (C) Working within the system: Iman cautioned that the
regime may increase its repression of such civil society
groups as regime leaders feel increasingly vulnerable to
economic and diplomatic isolation. "We will face more
oppression. We need to be able to fight back within the
legal system, and defend our actions in court." He
recommended seeking out specific legal cases where the
women's rights movement could win concrete legal victories
and set legal precedents, which he suggested would help
enshrine step-by-step legal reform.


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Golanbar: Use the courts to challenge honor killings
--------------


10. (C) Jilla Golanbar, a freelance Iranian journalist,
supported Iman's proposal to seek out "winnable" legal cases,
urging Iranian women's rights advocates to focus on
challenging "honor killings" in Iranian courts. She
described honor killings -- typically, extrajudicial
punishment, including murder, by fathers or brothers against
a woman thought to have engaged in relations with a man
outside of marriage -- as pervasive among less-educated,
rural, and traditional Iranian families. Golanbar said that
honor killings are rarely prosecuted or even investigated in
Iran, as courts consider it an internal family matter.


11. (C) Golanbar highlighted examples of recent honor
killings in Iran, including cases in which a teenage girl was
killed by her father for talking romantically on the
telephone with a boy; another teenage girl was strangled by
her father for acting "suspiciously" and complaining of
abdominal cramps (which the father wrongly assumed was
pregnancy); and a case where an 11 year-old girl was raped by
her uncle, then beaten severely by her father for "seducing"
the uncle. In these cases, the fathers were not prosecuted.
Golanbar called on women's rights advocates to build a legal
challenge against such honor killings and raise more
international awareness about the problem. She acknowledged
that because the practice is based on long-standing
tradition, communities and courts that tolerate honor
killings will be slow to change, especially in rural areas
and among less educated Iranians, "but for humanitarian
reasons we must do more, and for practical reasons this would
be an area to raise legal challenges." Golanbar endorsed
Iman's recommendation on networking with outside NGOs,
calling for the establishment of a regional network --
starting with Iran, Turkey, and Azerbaijan -- of women's
rights NGOs that would include legal assistance to challenge
such laws in court.


12. (C) Turning to the need for sustained focus on
legislative issues, Golanbar recounted the campaign launched
by Iranian women's rights advocates in August and September
to protest against the Majles's consideration of a "Family
Protection Bill" that would have legalized polygamy and set
penalties against women who marry foreigners without GOI
permission, among other archaic measures. The pressure that
leaders like Shirin Ebadi were able to bring to bear on the
Majles forced the bill to be sent back to the Majles's
Judicial Committee for review. But Golanbar cautioned that
the bill would likely be returned to the Majles floor for
reconsideration in coming months, with "conservatives and
traditionalists better prepared next time to ignore our
concerns and pass the bill, so we need to be prepared as
well."

13. (C) Women and divorce: Golanbar bemoaned that in the
Iranian legal system, "almost all the legal rights in divorce
cases rest with men, including custody rights, and right to
even petition the court for a divorce." Women only have the
right to seek divorce if the husband is a drug addict or
impotent, she claimed, while men may seek a divorce for
almost any reason, and the testimony of male witnesses to
support the husband's claim are accepted without question as
evidence. Golanbar also noted the intense social pressure on
wives to keep a family together, even in the face of spousal
abuse. Extended family, neighbors, and co-workers will often
pressure an abused wife to stay in a marriage. Golanbar
urged women's rights groups in Iran to offer legal and
logistical support to wives who are trying to seek divorces
from abusive husbands.

Jafaroglu: Keep up the momentum
--------------


14. (C) Novella Jafaroglu closed the November 29 session by
pointing out that women make up the majority of the Iranian
population, and over 60% of current university-level
students. "Women represent the future of Iran, whether or
not the government wants to admit it." She counseled
patience and moderation, however, as the Iranian women's
movement evolves into a more cohesive and organized factor
within Iranian civil society. "Improving women's rights in
Iran will not happen overnight. It will be a long and slow
step-by-step process." She reaffirmed the remarks from the
other speakers on the need to work within the system to
effect change, specifically endorsing the calls to work
within the current legal and legislative systems, and with
the Iranian media, to methodically change laws, regulations,
legal precedents, and public opinion.


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15. (C) Jafaroglu also reinforced Iman's and Golanbar's
appeals to women's rights advocates to seek cooperation with
regional NGOs and create a regional women's rights network.
Jafaroglu warned that reaching out too explicitly to western
(US and EU) human rights NGOs would raise red flags within
the regime, while women's rights groups in most Arab states
were no more advanced in their organization or practices than
Iranian counterparts, so Iranian women's rights groups should
first focus on creating a regional network with Turkish and
Azeri counterparts. At the same time, the Iranian women's
movement should quietly solicit statements of support from
the UN and international human rights NGOs like Amnesty
International, to make clear to the regime that "the world is
watching." Jafaroglu pledged to organize a follow-up
conference soon in Azerbaijan, to move the discussion towards
more concrete, organizational planning.

Comment: Early stages of coalescing movement?
--------------


16. (C) This appeared to be a well-run conference attended
by a broad range of pragmatic participants, most of whom
seemed to agree with the main themes that emerged from the
discussions (which Jafaroglu suggested to us could serve as a
"road map" to guide their next steps): that the Iranian
women's rights movement needs to organize itself more
effectively while maintaining an apolitical focus on
promoting fundamental human rights; that it should develop
closer links to other aspects of Iranian civil society; that
it should build networks with Azeri and Turkish counterparts;
and that it should work within the Iranian system to
challenge and change laws, set legal precedents, and raise
public awareness about the importance of respecting and
enforcing women's rights.


17. (C) The enthusiasm on the part of most participants over
what one described as "a movement that is finally coalescing"
was tempered, prudently, by Jafaroglu's characterization of
this conference as a "first step." Her recognition that
progress will likely only come incrementally underscores the
need for effective follow-up not only in Iran but also in
Turkey and Azerbaijan, especially in the event Iranian
authorities target Iranian participants in the conference or
raise further pressure on the Iranian women's rights
advocates to undercut their organizational efforts. As
Jafaroglu's Baku-based NGO proceeds with planning for a
follow-up meeting or event, Mission Turkey will stay in
contact with Turkish participants, and encourage like-minded
Turkish NGOs to support efforts by Iranian women's rights
activists to build closer NGO-to-NGO networking links.
WIENER