Iran & The Arrest of Majid Tavakoli: "To Men Who Are Not Ashamed of Being a Woman" (Shirin Ebadi)

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has written an article about the arrest of student leader Majid Tavakoli and his subsequent display, dressed in hejab, by Iranian authorities and about the mass response "We Are All Majids/We Are All in Hejab":

My dear sons, who were not ashamed of your mother and sister’s scarf and wore it around your head with pride, I’m talking to you.

I do not know what your imprisoned friend Majid Tavakoli really was wearing when he was arrested. I have heard so many lies from news agencies affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s government that I do not believe a thing they say. It is not important if he was dressed up as a man or a woman when he was arrested. What is important is that he was arrested was against the law, and that, when he was arrested, the beating he received for his words were so harsh that they became nightmares for his friends. But they did not know that you have dreams, not nightmares; that you are not afraid of the dictator but the cause of dictators’ fears.

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My studious children, with your symbolic move, you defended not your imprisoned friend but also the being a “woman.” You demonstrated with your action that you oppose discriminatory laws. You oppose a law that regards a woman not as a human being, but as half a human being, equaling the testimony of two women in court with that of one man.

You the youth shouted that you respect your mothers and defend the human rights of your sisters. You interpreted the concept of “feminist” once again for the interrogators. Many of my daughters were sentenced to prison terms by the injustice system for the crime of being a “feminist”.

The state-run media in Iran has been making all kinds of accusations against us for years because we are feminists, while from our point of view feminist means “being a woman” and being proud of it, nothing more. Those who regard themselves as higher than their mothers simply because they are men must be ashamed and embarrassed. The stigma attaches to those who grew up because of and were nourished by their mothers, but imposed salaries for themselves double those of their mothers when they reached power, simply because they were men.

They, passing their discriminatory laws, are the ones responsible for the law that does not give ever murdered women the same rights as murdered men. They even imposed gender quotas in universities to create a dam against the entrance of your sisters into universities. They have tried to extinguish the women’s voice for equality under the rubric of “acting against national security,” authorizing their officers to arrest, threaten and beat women who demanded equal rights.

My dear sons, with your wise reaction to wear women’s Hijab to protest the unjust rulers, from now on, more than belonging to the “student movement”, you belong to the “women’s movement.” We pridefully will note your symbolic move in the history of our movement.