Gloria Steinem - Iran Is Calling

I know the Women’s Movement is getting a little long in the tooth, but some of the Sisterhood is Powerful set might get up from writing anti-Bush screeds and consider organizing on behalf of their sisters in Iran. According to the Student Movement Coordinating Committee for Democracy in Iran, there’s plenty to protest, most recently religious police (Bassij) actions at the Iran-Bahrain World Cup match:

The celebration gatherings turned, right after the end of the game, into massive shows of popular defiance and rejection of all symbols of the Islamic regime. The National exasperation is to the point that male demonstrators had in most occasions to create security belts around maverick females who persisted to stay and ‘fight for freedom’.

Several demonstrators, including many females, have been injured due to the use of acid or knives while many other have been wounded by heavy clubs or chains. Many have been hospitalized due to the brutality used by Islamic regime’s plainclothes men and members of the paramilitary Bassij force.

Some female demonstrators who had pulled off their veils or were dancing and chanting were beaten and injured. In Guisha, Shahrak e Gharb, Gohardasht and Tajrish areas of Tehran several women were seen bleeding from faces or arms. Same kind of brutality have been reported from several provincial cities.

Even the Chinese are covering the story:

Iran defeated Bahrain Wednesday evening to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in advance with one gameat hand, whereas another outreaching attraction of the match is the nearly 50-member group of female fans on the stands, a rare scene in this Islamic country.

Iranian women, calling for gender equality in all fields, have cautiously escalated their show from single figures to a collective image in the stadium, which is viewed as a scene open only for men according to the strict Islamic laws of the country.

Here’s the Washington Post version.

(Several links via Regime Change Iran. Bloggers reading this, please consider joining up with their campaign.)