Public event

Voices of Resistance: Women's rights movement in Iran

This panel discussion will explore the protests that erupted in Iran since September 2022 led by the Iranian women's movement, the challenges faced by the movement as well as the role of the international community in supporting it.

Protests erupted across Iran in September 2022 after the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman detained for wearing an “improper” hijab. Amini’s death sparked nationwide demonstrations, including in schools and universities, demanding equality for women, under the slogan of “Woman, Life, Freedom”. 

These protests morphed into a nationwide movement by the Iranian people against a government that had systematically denied them their rights, mismanaged the economy, and driven people into poverty. In the protests, security forces have killed hundreds, and detained many more, meted out death penalties and executions,  yet the protests go on. 

This panel discussion will address the history of the women's movement and the struggle for women's rights in Iran, consequences of the recent and ongoing protests and the state’s reply, the challenges for the protest movement and activists as well as the role of the international community in supporting the movement and advocating for change.

Introduction by Dr Golnaz Aghazadeh Tabrizi, Hertie School's alumna (MPP 2016) and an Iranian-German currently living in Berlin.

Prior registration is required. Registered attendees will receive the login details via e-mail prior to the event.

Speakers

  • Bauke Baumann is working as Senior Programme Officer for Israel, Palestine and Iran at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin. He is working at the Middle East and North Africa department of the Foundation since 2014. From 2018 to 2022 he headed the Rabat Office oft he foundation in Morocco. Before joining the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Bauke used to work for the GIZ in Amman, Jordan, and Berlin, Germany.

  • Dastan Jasim is a Doctoral Fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies in Hamburg and researches on the political culture of Kurdish people in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. She researches how the Kurdish community has developed different strategies of resistance and hence different political cultures reacting to the different regimes in these four countries. For her work, she is regularly in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where she last conducted her field research in spring 2022 based at the Center for Gender and Development Studies at the American University of Iraq - Sulaimaniya.

  • Neda Soltani was a junior professor of English literature in Iran when, in 2009 during the Green Movement, she was forced to flee the country and seek asylum in Germany. She advocates for right to education and academic freedom. Neda works at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as the lead officer for at-risk and displaced scholars and students. 

Chair

  • Prof. Başak Çalı is Professor of International Law at the Hertie School and Co-Director of the School's Centre for Fundamental Rights. She is an expert in international law and institutions, international human rights law and policy. She is the Chair of European Implementation Network and a Fellow of the Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex. She has acted as a Council of Europe expert on the European Convention on Human Rights since 2002.