A Letter Sent to The Website
Monday 21 Apr 08

My name is Sheikhnur Ali, a Somali who lives in Minneapolis, MN and I do like your work to protecting the women in Iran and since Iran says that follows Islamic Laws, but not following right. Islam gave women rights and we should honor those laws in ever place. What upsets me more is that in Iran don’t promote freedom which Islam itself granted freedom for all. I do love Persian literature.

We Have a Dream
Wednesday 16 Apr 08

Iranian’s have for many years struggled and sacrificed for the same Dream Martin Luther King spoke of. They have suffered long and intolerable sentences and almost always reach a point where they would not even dare speak of the Dream

Legislation and Democracy in Iran
Friday 15 Feb 08

Following a revolution that ended the years of the absolute rule of the Shah (king), Iranians wrote their first constitution in 1906. Through writing and passing the contents of the Constitution they were able to document their most important revolutionary quest which was putting an end to the absolute power of the Shah over the country’s political affairs.

Election?
Friday 01 Feb 08

It is widely thought that Iranians have accepted - at least in the political realm - that their ‎choices in the forthcoming parliamentary elections on March 14, 2008 are limited to ‎picking between the lesser of two evils. However, Iranian people are not satisfied with ‎this limited choice, and their silence should not be interpreted as a sign of their approval.

Murder or Suicide
Friday 16 Nov 07

Recently, a young woman medical student was arrested in the town of Hamedan on some ‎fake charges. She is taken to a detention centre and 24 hours later her dead body is ‎presented to her family members. They claim that the victim hanged herself in prison. ‎How? With the propaganda cloth placards that are abundantly found in detention centers. Now the family members of this young woman have vowed to stand up against such ‎cruelty. We are familiar with the consequences of similar crimes in the past. The serial ‎murders of the 1990s and the murder of Iranian Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi that ‎took place in prison shod the public conscience. But true to form, Iran’s security and ‎judiciary officials ignored the public’s calls for justice...‎

A Brief History of Grassroots Struggles to End Stoning
Tuesday 16 Oct 07

In our activism, we would initiate the discussion on stoning by using the many international treaties that Iran had signed as leverage to point out how incongruent these practices were with these treaties. We would use specific articles to argue that these punishments were cruel, inhumane, indefensible and incompatible with international human rights law and should be erased from domestic law. As Iran was a signatory to many international human rights treaties, we were able to enter the discussion and to an extent we were successful in advancing the cause against these forms of punishment...

Laws Are Not Enough: An Interview with Mehrangiz Kar on Children’s Rights
Monday 08 Oct 07

An interview with Mehrangiz Kar in the occasion of International Children’s Rights Day, October 8th, as published by Gozaar Online website Sassan Ghahreman: Ms. Kar, please tell us about the existing laws in Iran which protect children. Mehrangiz Kar: There...

Latest Update on Mehrangiz Kar's Status


Banned from making public appearances within her country, Kar comes to Wellesley College via the “Scholars at Risk” network. While at Wellesley, Mehrangiz Kar will continue with her own writing and political work, lecture in a variety of classes and convene small discussion groups of Wellesley faculty and students. She will be in residence at the Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College as a New House Fellow for the 2007-2008 academic year.