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IranFebruary 2 2023, 3:59 am

Iran Holds First “International Congress for Women of Influence”- Leaders Castigate West Over Women’s Rights

In response to the recent unrest in Iran, Iran­ian media is report­ing on the first “Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress for Women of Influ­ence” held from Jan­u­ary 17–20. Accord­ing to the Tehran Times report:

Jan­u­ary 20, 2023 An exhi­bi­tion show­cas­ing the achieve­ments of suc­cess­ful Iran­ian women was held on Fri­day on the side­lines of the First Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress for Women of Influ­ence. In this exhi­bi­tion, the achieve­ments of Iran­ian women entre­pre­neurs in var­i­ous fields such as elec­tric­i­ty and elec­tron­ics, med­ical equip­ment, tech­nol­o­gy, inno­va­tion cen­ters, and home busi­ness­es were on dis­play. In this regard, 900 female CEOs of knowl­edge-based com­pa­nies have been iden­ti­fied, 100 of them were select­ed as the best in the field of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy, and final­ly, the top 50 par­tic­i­pat­ed in this exhi­bi­tion, ISNA report­ed. Guests from 28 coun­tries, includ­ing Sri Lan­ka, Aus­tralia, Japan, Chi­na, Thai­land, Pak­istan, Cameroon, Ser­bia, Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina, Swe­den, Aus­tria, Kaza­khstan, and Cana­da vis­it­ed the exhi­bi­tion. It should be not­ed that the con­gress for women of influ­ence was held for the first time this year at both nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lev­els. Its nation­al lev­el was held on Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 17, and its inter­na­tion­al lev­el was held on Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 20. The event aimed to appre­ci­ate women of influ­ence, sup­port and help them grow, and pro­mote their cre­ativ­i­ty and ideas. Women in var­i­ous sec­tors, includ­ing sci­ence, research, inno­va­tion, econ­o­my, health­care, art, pho­tog­ra­phy, paint­ing, soci­ety and envi­ron­ment, law, and media par­tic­i­pat­ed in the congress.

The report goes on to say that Iran­ian Pres­i­dent Ebrahim Raisi used the oppor­tu­ni­ty to crit­i­cize West­ern coun­tries for what he described as their vio­la­tion of wom­en’s rights:

Refer­ring to the fact that despite claims, wom­en’s rights are vio­lat­ed in many cas­es in West­ern coun­tries, Raisi said that accord­ing to the sta­tis­tics, many women are killed by the police in these coun­tries every year just for the crime of demand­ing their rights. “The rea­son why today the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran is angered by these coun­tries is because it has pre­sent­ed a new way of life by pre­serv­ing the prin­ci­ples and val­ues of the women of the soci­ety who have been able to reach high cul­tur­al, polit­i­cal, social and sports peaks.” In the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran, we have always empha­sized in the laws and reg­u­la­tions relat­ed to women that the pro­tec­tion of wom­en’s rights and the issue of fam­i­ly for­ma­tion should be giv­en spe­cial atten­tion, he stressed.

Iran­ian leader Aya­tol­lah Seyed Ali Khamenei report­ed­ly had met ear­li­er with a group of “promi­nent Iran­ian women” where he cas­ti­gat­ed the “deca­dent West­ern cul­ture and its crimes against women.”

Read the full report here.

The lat­est Iran­ian protests over wom­en’s rights are cen­tered on Mah­sa Ami­ni, a 22-year-old Iran­ian Kur­dish woman who died in police cus­tody on Sep­tem­ber 25, 2022. Protests have been call­ing for the fall of the cler­i­cal estab­lish­ment as well as an end to dis­crim­i­na­to­ry rules against women and girls in Iran. Women have been burn­ing their hijabs, cut­ting their hair, and lead­ing mass protests to demand their rights and free­doms. The protests are also strik­ing for their scale, feroc­i­ty, and rare fem­i­nist nature, with the last demon­stra­tions of this size occur­ring three years prior.