Iranian state closes Iranian Women's magazine

international | gender and sexuality | other press

Tuesday January 29, 2008 10:14

by ribbid

"The licence of the magazine Zanan ('Women') managed by Shahla Sherkat has been cancelled as the monthly published articles undermining public confidence in law and order by leading people to believe that the Islamic republic was unsafe for women," the FARS news agency has reported citing an official it did not name.

Shahla Sherkat author, directing editor & founder of "Zanan" (="women") has told a handful of western news organisations that she has not been contacted by the Iranian state & learnt of the news herself on the FARS website. FARS is not the official Iranian news service (that's IRNA) but it seems quite likely. Her last monthly offering published a feature on gender violence & included a monthly toll.

Women & Crime in Iran.

The website is still up
http://www.zanan.co.ir/
The last edition on the site though is the November one http://www.zanan.co.ir/archives/November_2007.html
The magazine has been running for 16 years, & its editor & founder has been no stranger to controversy. I can't believe I actually typed such a cliché. Don't worry about it, clichés help you think its news. ".......Shahla Sherkat is considered a prime example of Islamic Iranian feminism. She has been accused of "offering a dark picture of the Islamic Republic through the pages of Zanan" and of "compromising the psyche and the mental health" of its readers by providing them with "morally questionable information."............."

They published stuff like articles on plastic surgery, mascara, lipstick, thrush, candida, itchy intimate bits, discharges & rape. You know - all kinds of rape. Marital rape, date rape, pre-marital rape, incestual rape & another type of rape you might think of.

Shahla Sherkat was sentanced to four months in prison back in 2001 along with a fine of 2 milion Tomans not for rape or mascara but for attending a conference in Berlin where neither rape nor the holocaust were mentioned but other stuff was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Iran_After_the_Election...pants
Now you know what currency Iran uses, but until you put that in perspective it will be useless trivial data which will serve you little or mostly likely not at all. I can't bear the idea of you keeping that bit of information out of context burning your synapses for ages to come .The "Toman" hasn't been the currency of Iran about 1932 but just in the same way Irish rapists & rape victims still use the word quid despite us not having any, Iranians still use the word "Toman" for "ten rials". 1euro which if we get technical was a quid and a few shillings is worth 13,671.43 rials at time of writing. You do the math. She was fined 2 million tenners of rials so that's about 260,000euros which you'll agree is a lot of money &you could probably build a rape crises centre in Tehran with it. If there was any crises of course & need.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahla_Sherkat

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Reporters without Borders (the global RSF) have issued a statement this afternoon.

by iosaf

Wed Jan 30, 2008 13:01

".......... Reporters Without Borders condemns a decision by the Commission for Press Authorisation and Surveillance on 28 January to suspend the feminist monthly Zanan (“Women” in Farsi) for “publishing information detrimental to society’s psychological tranquillity.”

The press freedom organisation is also concerned about a summons received by Jila Bani Yaghoub of the daily Sarmayeh on 23 January from a Tehran revolutionary court in connection with a case for which she was arrested in March.

“The Commission for Press Authorisation and Surveillance is the judiciary’s right arm in its crusade against news media that stray from the official line,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It has been responsible for the suspension of many publications which the courts subsequently close down for good, often imprisoning their journalists. In Iran, the right to information is still seen as a threat to national security.”

The commission accused Zanan of “offering a sombre picture of the Islamic Republic,” “compromising its readers’ mental health” and “publishing morally questionable information.” Editor Shahla Sherkat, who disputes the legal validity of the charges, said she had not yet been officially notified of the suspension. Regarded as the country’s leading feminist magazine, it has been a forum for debating Iranian society’s most controversial topics since its creation 16 years ago.

Dozens of news media have been suspended by the commission since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president. Deputy state prosecutor Nasser Saraji told the official news agency ISNA in October that the commission had suspended 42 publications and cancelled 24 licences since 2005. Other newspapers have been temporarily or provisionally suspended by the courts. Those suspended since October include Krafto, Ashati, Arzesh, Bilmaj and Madareseh.

Yaghoub is being prosecuted for covering a women’s demonstration on 4 March 2007, when she was arrested and held for three days. She is charged with “participating in an illegal demonstration,” “activity against national security” and “publicity against the Islamic Republic.”

Other journalists and cyber-feminists who attended the demonstration are also still being prosecuted. But journalist and blogger Asieh Amini (www.varesh.blogfa.com), independent journalist Fatemeh Govarayee and activist Susan Tahmassebi, the editor of the English-language version of www.we4change.info were acquitted on 21 January............."

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Iranian state closes Iranian Women's magazine

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