Iran's embattled but determined women's rights campaigners are celebrating a rare victory after persuading parliament to scrap a government proposal that would have made it simpler for men to have more than one wife. Success came with help of a dissenting grand ayatollah who supports women's rights, as well as from unlikely allies that include prominent conservative politicians.
The government is not expected to take the setback lightly. Four women's rights campaigners were jailed for six months last week for writing for outlawed women's websites. Days earlier, a fifth woman activist was jailed for four years. All are leading figures in an international campaign called "One Million Signatures" that is collecting support for equal rights for Iranian women. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's hardline leader, is already smarting from two other bruising run-ins with parliament, where many deputies, albeit fellow conservatives, are highly critical of him. He is under fire in particular over his handling of the economy: inflation is at 27 per cent.
But lawmakers have also latched on to other issues such as the viability of Ali Kordan, his new interior minister, who boasted he had an honorary law degree from Oxford University. The prestigious seat of learning denies having any knowledge of Mr Kordan. Parliamentary pressure is also mounting against Mr Ahmadinejad over an assertion last month by Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie, one of his vice presidents and closest aides, that Iran was a "friend of the Israeli people".
The proposal on polygamy was put to parliament last week under Article 23 of the "Family Support Bill": a title its critics saw as an Orwellian misnomer. The proposal would have enabled a man to take a new wife without the consent of the first one, which hitherto had been a legal requirement. The amendment would have required a man merely to get a court decision proving he had the financial means to take a second wife, critics said.
Many women, reformists and conservatives alike, attacked the bill, insisting it paved the way for rich men to take a second wife and threatened "the foundation and sanctity of the family". The bill was opposed mainly on principle, however. Under Iran's Islamic laws a man is allowed four wives, but polygamy is generally frowned upon in the Islamic republic and is rare compared with some Muslim countries. In Syria and Tunisia, the consent of the first wife also is required.
Many activists saw the proposal as an attempt by the government of Mr Ahmadinejad to impose an even stricter version of Islamic law. Dozens of women's rights campaigners protested against the polygamy article outside the Iranian parliament, or Majlis, at the end of August. Among them was Laleh Seddigh, a glamorous racing car driver and Shirin Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel peace prize who has become a bête noire of Iran's hardliners for taking on highly sensitive cases. The bill would bring "moral corruption" to society, Ms Ebadi said.
The outcry forced the conservative-controlled parliament to postpone a vote on the proposal last week. On Tuesday the Iranian media said parliament's legal and judicial committee had debated the bill again and threw out two articles: the one on polygamy and another that would require divorced women to pay taxes on alimony. "It is a very positive move. We think it is great that parliament has listened to women's voices," said Sussan Tahmasebi, who is involved in the "One Million Signatures" campaign.
Iranian newspapers quoted Ali Shahroki, the chairman of the parliamentary committee, saying families would have been "exposed to collapse" under the polygamy proposal. "We did not see this article as logical and we deleted it," Mr Shahroki said, adding: "Iranian families and women should know that we are not indifferent to their issues." Along with female activists, Ali Larijani, the powerful speaker of the Majlis, who is a key political rival of Mr Ahmadinejad, had expressed his reservations about the bill.
Stronger opposition was voiced by Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei, one of the most renowned clerics in the holy city of Qom, who maintains that under Islam, women have equal rights to men. He insisted that a second marriage without the permission of the first wife is "haram, a sin, a religious offence, contrary to the concept of the justice prescribed by the Quran". Writing on his website, he continued: "I pray that such a decision that is oppressive to women will not be made into law. God forbid that the Majlis should add another problem to the existing problems of women."
Emboldened by their victory, female activists say they have many other battles to fight because institutionalised discrimination makes them second-class citizens. A man's testimony in court, for instance, carries twice the weight of a woman's; men are given custody of children in divorce cases; and a woman is restricted to half the inheritance rights due to men. Iran's ruling clerics say Iranian women are protected from the sex symbol status women have in the West and that the country is implementing divine law. They also point out that, unlike Saudi Arabia, a US ally, women in Iran can drive, vote, play sports - and become a legislator in parliament.
@email:mtheodoulou@thenational.ae
