The One Million Signatures Campaign: Strategies, Achievements, and an Enduring Legacy in Iran’s Women’s Civil Movement/ Azadeh Davachi

The “One Million Signatures Campaign to Change Discriminatory Laws” (Change for Equality), launched in August 2006 (Mordad 1385) through the efforts of a group of women’s rights activists, is regarded as one of the most prominent, cohesive, and influential collective actions in Iran’s contemporary history. By adopting an issue-oriented approach and making use of social […]...

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The One Million Signatures Campaign and the Women Left Out of Its Narrative/ Samireh Hanaei

When does a movement that claims to represent “all women” turn the experience of one particular group of women into the general experience of women as a whole? When we speak of the “Iranian women’s movement,” exactly which women are we talking about? Who defines these women? Who decides what constitutes a women’s issue? Is […]...

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The One Million Signatures Campaign and the Tradition of Petitioning/ Majid Shia’Ali

Twenty years have passed since an experience that was never repeated either before or after it. It was a campaign made unique by the convergence of several characteristics: the formation of a formal feminist movement, political and religious moderation with an emphasis on legality and non-conflict with religious foundations, an emphasis on collective action and […]...

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The Twentieth Anniversary of the One Million Signatures Campaign: Achievements, Challenges, and Moving Beyond the Reformist Discourse/ Elahe Amani

The One Million Signatures Campaign in Iran cannot be understood without considering the experience of the women’s movement in Morocco in the early 1990s. Iranian women activists drew inspiration from the Moroccan experience, particularly its use of large-scale signature collection as a tool for social mobilization, raising public awareness, and creating pressure to reform discriminatory […]...

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Men in the One Million Signatures Campaign and the Test of Commitment to Equality/ Kaveh Kermanshahi

Twenty years have passed since the launch of the “One Million Signatures Campaign to Change Discriminatory Laws.” The movement was initiated by activists in the women’s movement and, for many young people, became their first experience of social activism and their first close encounter with the struggle for gender equality. Among these young people were […]...

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Let’s embrace the small steps/ Raha Azadi

Those who are around my age remember the One Million Signatures Campaign. Just when civil society felt that it had been pushed several steps backward by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, efforts—perhaps struggles—were underway to take steps forward, however small. This was one of them. Its memories now go back twenty years; its website is no longer […]...

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A Public Circle Around a Private Suffering/ Nasim Khosravi

It is a hot afternoon in June 2008 (Khordad 1387), at the entrance of a hospital in central Tehran. A distressed woman asks passersby for help contacting her child’s paternal uncle. The child must undergo surgery as soon as possible, and her signature on the consent form is not acceptable. The father, who separated from […]...

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From One Million Signatures to Woman, Life, Freedom: Continuity or Rupture?/ Hermineh Hourdad

When we speak today of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, there is a strong temptation to begin everything in September 2022 (Shahrivar 1401), as though the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini suddenly gave birth to the questions of women, freedom, and the body in Iranian society. But the memory of the women’s movement tells a […]...

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Twenty Years of Transformation in Iranian Women’s Activism/ Diako Moradi

Twenty years after the launch of the “One Million Signatures Campaign to Change Discriminatory Laws,” revisiting this experience becomes meaningful when we assess it not only by the number of signatures that were supposed to be collected or the laws that were supposed to be changed, but by the impact it had on forms of […]...

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How Did Repression Change the Course of the One Million Signatures Campaign?/ Sina Yousefi

The twentieth anniversary of the One Million Signatures Campaign provides an opportunity to revisit one of the most important experiences of Iran’s women’s movement. It was an experience that, in the mid-2000s, sought to move the demand for legal equality from the realm of specialized discussions and limited circles of activists into the sphere of […]...

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The Discriminatory Legal Structure Against Women in Iran and the Strategic Logic of the One Million Signatures Campaign/ Parvaneh Ahmadi

The legal, social, and political status of women in contemporary Iranian history, particularly in the decades following the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979 (1357), has always been marked by profound contradictions and complexities. On the one hand, as time has passed, Iranian society has witnessed the dynamism and extensive presence of women in […]...

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One Million Signatures, Beyond the Borders/ Monireh Kazemi

Throughout different periods of history, there have always been Iranian migrants and exiles. What distinguishes this era from previous ones, however, is, first, their large numbers and widespread dispersal across different parts of the world and, second, their constant exploration of their personal pasts and Iran’s recent history—an exploration accompanied by a sense of longing […]...

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