He may have failed to wrest the Iranian presidency from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but Mir Hossein Mousavi at least has the satisfaction of knowing his wife has helped wring an unexpected political concession from his main rival.
Zahra Rahnavard’s appearance at her husband’s side throughout his campaign highlighted the issue of women’s rights in Iran and wooed many female voters to Mousavi’s side.
Never before in the Islamic republic’s 30-year history has a woman played such a high-profile political role, prompting some to compare Rahnavard — a sculptor and respected academic — to US first lady Michelle Obama.
Now her lasting impact has galvanized Ahmadinejad into a radical move that risks alienating his most religiously devout supporters. In announcing his intention to appoint three women Cabinet members — including Fatemeh Ajorlou as social welfare minister and Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi as health minister — Ahmadinejad trumped the campaign pledges of his two other election rivals, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohzen Rezai, who each said they would appoint the country’s first female Cabinet minister since the 1979 revolution.
But the social pressures prompting the appointments long pre-dated the election campaign.
“These appointments are a result of the pressure that women’s demands have imposed on the system,” said Asiyeh Amini, a leading women’s activist.
Female protesters played a prominent role in the unrest after the disputed election, as illustrated by the case of Neda Agha Soltan, the 26-year-old woman who became the symbol of the demonstrations after her death at the hands of a sniper was caught on film and beamed across the world.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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