#26 and 27-22 The Stolen Revolution
Iranian women were at the forefront of the 1979 revolution. But after the Shah was deposed, Ayatollah Khomeini’s new regime turned against them. Women revolted against restrictions, but decades later have yet to defeat a brutally enforced dress code. Producer Donya Ziaee interviewed women who lived the revolution for the CBC radio’s series Ideas, and she adapted that hour into two parts for WINGS. Heard in Part 1: Minoo Jalali, women’s rights activist, retired lawyer and chair of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in London, UK. She fled Iran in 1983. Haideh Daragahi was a professor of English Literature at Tehran University when Khomeini took power. She fled to Sweden in 1984 and worked as an academic, women’s rights activist and journalist. Shahin Navai (heard in Part 2) is a women’s movement activist and entomology researcher who fled to Berlin in 1984. Additional credits: Ideas host Paul Kennedy; narrator, Donya Ziaee; voice-over Tina Verma; archive help Keith Hart, Zoe Barraclough, Greg Hobbs. Historic audio from CBC, Associated Press, and Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture at Duke University.