A withness from "Evin" prison

Feminist school: It has been more than one month that I have been in "Evin" prison. And it’s been a short time that I can contact my friends and get some news from other prisoners by phone.

As I was taking my walking exercise in the prison yard in Evin I heard the the saddening news of the ratification of the new "Family protection Law" bill, again the voice of injustice, again the announcment of the crushing of women’s identity, again trying to feed us the notion of following them blindley to justify their immoral plans whilst hiding under the cloak of law. For me to belive the news was impossible so I had to ring and make sure that I had heard right.

Woman… the familiar phrase of enduring the taste of injustice and dictatorship of our times, metaphores that will ensure to make the reality of the news to fadeaway and be forgetten is the witnessing of imposing of the deaddly and unjust judgements. what is it that we want except equal rights for men and women, the right to be able to have child custody too, and being treated as equal in heritance and as a witness and as a human being.

Let us not allow this to happen! Daughters of the land of sun, let us not allow our love to be manipulated and stolen by the governors’ lusts!

The equality of rights is a necessity for democracy. It is not fair for girls who step into marriage to become the prisoners of love sellers hidden behind the law, that disrespects the sacred love that has, even been stated in Quran that which ruins thousands of families.

Here, I am a witness, a witness to the results of legal discriminations, a witness to the results of the law in favour of polygamy; killing of the other woman, killing the husband and now a day to day suicide, a witness to the consequences of the lack of rights in marriage and in divorce and a witness to the women who have been forced to marry as a child and now are here because of their rebeliousness.

We have to reiterate the anthem of unity and believe in aspiration of equality , and engrave the beautiful word of equality in our culture so perhaps once again we can find our union to freedom.

We must be aware of thousands of treacherous plots to break our feelings and we should know that by the unity of our hands together we can have faith in our pride.

Mahboobe Karami, 26 August 2008, Evin Prison

This article was first published in Farsi here, and was translated by AnAmy in wien

More informaion about Mahboubeh Karami