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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Women at the Helm, the Government on the Brakes/ Pardis Parsa

Today in Iran, motorcycles and electric scooters have evolved from recreational vehicles or means of transportation associated with particular social classes into essential tools for earning a livelihood and for fast, inexpensive transportation. Nevertheless, the absence of a single, transparent procedure for issuing licenses to half of the country’s population has pushed women motorcyclists into […]...

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Derrida and the Question of the Death Penalty: Sovereignty, Exception, Violence, and Political Death/ Mustafa Ahmadian

Introduction: When the Law Arrives at Death Discussions of the death penalty usually begin from a point that the law has already determined: what constitutes a crime, what constitutes punishment, and in which cases the most severe punishment—the deprivation of life—may be applied. For this reason, a large part of the legal literature on the […]...

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The Erosion of the Middle Class: A Test for Civil Society/ Mina Javani

The middle class is usually defined in terms of income level, consumption patterns, or educational attainment, as though the issue were merely one of drawing an economic boundary separating one segment of society from the lower and upper classes. Yet the historical and political significance of this class cannot be reduced to its economic position. […]...

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Twenty years after one million signatures; a work by Motaharah Jafari

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