Parvin Ardalan: The Pace of the Campaign’s Work and Movement Was Far Beyond What We Had Imagined/ Ali Kalaei

This September, twenty years have passed since the launch of the “One Million Signatures Campaign to Change Discriminatory Laws,” a rare experience in Iran’s women’s movement that took shape in 2006 (1385), following years of collective discussion and joint activity among various women’s groups. The campaign sought to take the demand for changing unequal laws […]...

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Nasrin Sotoudeh: If We Were to Launch the Campaign Again, I Would Put Optional Hijab at the Top of the Agenda/ Pedram Tahsini

The One Million Signatures Campaign can be regarded as one of the most important and influential experiences of women’s civil activism in contemporary Iran—an experience that emerged from legal demands, entered the public sphere, faced repression, and, despite the cessation of its activities, played a significant role in changing attitudes and expanding women’s demands. What […]...

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Sara Loghmani: Talking with People Was the One Million Signatures Campaign’s Most Unique Experience/ Mahtab Alinejad

On the twentieth anniversary of the formation of the “One Million Signatures Campaign to Change Discriminatory Laws,” revisiting this experience has once again taken on particular importance. Launched in September 2006 (Shahrivar 1385) with the aim of reforming laws that discriminated against women, the campaign did not limit its activities to collecting signatures. Through direct […]...

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Compulsory Hijab and the Boundaries of the One Million Signatures Campaign’s Demands/ Aliyeh Motalebzadeh

I belong to a generation of women who have spent a large part of their lives in conflict with the Islamic Republic; not only in the streets, in prison, and in civil activism, but also in the media, in photographs and images, in those very places that the government, whenever it has deemed necessary, has […]...

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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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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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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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The role of men in confronting gender-based violence/ Elahe Amani

The annual international campaign “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence”, entitled “16 Orange Days”, ended on December 10, coinciding with International Human Rights Day. Although public awareness of violence against women has increased during the 34 years of the global campaign, the path to ending this violence remains long and complex. Violence against women […]...

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Are Hashtags and Campaigns Tools for Change or Illusions of Participation?/ Mehrnaz Razaghi

Today, social media has become a key platform for activism, enabling everything from public support for political and social causes to the organization of protests. This digital space gained even more significance during the COVID-19 pandemic when people turned to digital media more than ever before. Now, every gathering or protest is not just a […]...

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Embrace the Modern Tolerance of Iranians/ Navid Mihan-Doost

A few days of leave granted to me for unspecified reasons (without a personal request) offered me the chance to step out of Evin Prison and witness the new face of Tehran after approximately a year and a few months. This new face did not pertain to the city’s infrastructure or urban landscape; Tehran had […]...

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The Hijab and Modesty Law on a Challenging Path/ Roza Nateghi

The text of the Hijab and Modesty Law was released on December 1, 2024 (10 Azar 1403). Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Speaker of the Parliament, had previously explained the delay in its release. While defending the law, he stated that its implementation had been postponed due to “events related to the year 1401.” He emphasized that […]...

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