Parvin Ardalan - Gothenburg Book Fair 2016

Parvin Ardalan ( fa, پروین اردلان; born 1967 in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

) with a Kurdish background, although not a Kurdish speaker, is a leading Iranian

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

activist, writer and journalist. She was awarded the Olof Palme Prize in 2007 for her struggles for equal rights for men and women in Iran.

Career

In the 1990s Ardalan, along with e.g. Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani, established the Women's Cultural Centre (''Markaz-e Farhangi-ye Zanan''), which since then has been a center for forming opinions, analyzing and documenting the women's issues in Iran. Since 2005 the organization has published Iran's first online magazine on women's rights, Zanestan, with Ardalan as its editor. In its constant struggle against censorship – the magazine comes back with a new name all the time – the newspaper has dealt with marriage, prostitution,

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

, AIDS, and

violence against women Violence against women (VAW), also known as gender-based violence and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), are violent acts primarily or exclusively committed against women or girls, usually by men or boys. Such violence is often con ...

. With Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani, Ardalan co-authored a book about the country's first female lawyer,

Mehrangiz Manouchehrian Mehrangiz Manouchehrian (1906 – 5 July 2000) was an Iranian lawyer, musician, feminist, and appointed Senator. She was involved in the Women's Organization of Iran. She was involved in drafting the Family Protection Act - a set of laws extendin ...

, titled "Senator: the Work of Senator Mehrangiz Manouchehrian in the Struggle for Legal Rights for Women". The book received the Latifeh Yarshater Book Award in 2004.

One Million Signatures Campaign

Ardalan is one of the founding members of the

One Million Signatures One Million Signatures for the Repeal of Discriminatory Laws (Persian: ), also known as Change for Equality, is a campaign by women in Iran to collect one million signatures in support of changing discriminatory laws against women in their coun ...

Campaign, attempting to collect a million signatures for women's equal rights. As a part of the campaign she has taken part in protests that have been violently silenced. In 2007 she, together with Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani, was sentenced to three years in prison for "threatening the national security" with their struggle for women's rights. Four more women's rights activists later received the same sentence.

Citizenship

In 2012 the Swedish Migration Board decided that Ardalan would be granted permanent residency in Sweden, where she had moved 3 years earlier.

Awards

* Olof Palme Prize (2007)

References

External links