TEHRAN: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appointed two female vice presidents on Wednesday but continued to take flak from reformists for nominating no women ministers.
The appointments came a day after the moderate president announced his all-male list of ministers to Parliament, seen as a betrayal by reformists who backed his re-election campaign in May.
“It is incredible and shocking that the president has ignored the demands of women in nominating his government,” Parvaneh Salahshouri, head of a parliamentary women’s group, told lawmakers.
A letter calling for female ministers to be appointed was signed by 157 of the 290 MPs.
There was small comfort in the appointment of two women as vice presidents, who do not require parliamentary approval.
Massoumeh Ebtekar, known internationally for her role as spokesperson during the 1980 US embassy hostage crisis, was named as vice president in charge of women’s affairs, having previously run the environment brief in Rouhani’s office.
Laya Joneydi was appointed as the vice president for legal affairs, while another woman, Shahindokht Mowlaverdi, was named as a special adviser for citizens’ rights.
Rouhani, a moderate cleric who had three female vice presidents during his previous term, has several more deputy positions to fill and it was unclear if any would go to women.
In an interview with AFP, the head of the newly formed Reformist Women’s Party, Zahra Shojaei, said she was unsurprised by the lack of female ministers given the continued opposition of many lawmakers and powerful religious figures behind the scenes.
A large independent faction of MPs “are still not in favor of female ministers,” said Shojaei.
But she said female vice presidents actually have more power than ministers and have already broken the taboo on putting women in positions of authority.
“We have gone past the symbolic stage. Female ministers are important but it’s not our only demand. Even if Rouhani had appointed several women ministers, it would not have solved women’s issues,” she said.
She highlighted a number of legal issues — including the need to gain permission from a male relative to leave the country, lower levels of legal compensation and “blood money” for women, and discriminatory inheritance laws — as areas that needed action.
“Rouhani has worked on policies of empowerment for women over the past four years, and we want that to continue, as well as amending laws in Parliament,” she said.
The continued fraught issue of gender in Iranian politics was highlighted over the weekend, when EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini led an all-female team for talks with an all-male Iranian contingent led by Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif.
The image from that meeting was “heavy with significance,” Mohammed Reza Aref, head of the reformist faction in Parliament, wrote on social media.
Rouhani sailed to victory in May over hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi with the backing of reformists after vowing to improve civil liberties and rebuild ties with the West.
Some reformists have argued this week that Rouhani is failing to repay their confidence in him.
“We expected at least one woman among Rouhani’s nominations,” said Aref.
Rouhani appoints female VPs after criticism
Rouhani appoints female VPs after criticism
Fledgling radio station aims to be ‘voice of the people’ in Gaza
- The electricity crisis is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip, says Shereen Khalifa Broadcaster
DEIR EL-BALAH: From a small studio in the central city of Deir El-Balah, Sylvia Hassan’s voice echoes across the Gaza Strip, broadcast on one of the Palestinian territory’s first radio stations to hit the airwaves after two years of war.
Hassan, a radio host on fledgling station “Here Gaza,” delivers her broadcast from a well-lit room, as members of the technical team check levels and mix backing tracks on a sound deck. “This radio station was a dream we worked to achieve for many long months and sometimes without sleep,” Hassan said.
“It was a challenge for us, and a story of resilience.”
Hassan said the station would focus on social issues and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which remains grave in the territory despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas since October.
“The radio station’s goal is to be the voice of the people in the Gaza Strip and to express their problems and suffering, especially after the war,” said Shereen Khalifa, part of the broadcasting team.
“There are many issues that people need to voice.” Most of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people were displaced at least once during the gruelling war.
Many still live in tents with little or no sanitation.
The war also decimated Gaza’s telecommunications and electricity infrastructure, compounding the challenges in reviving the territory’s local media landscape. “The electricity problem is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip,” said Khalifa.
“We have solar power, but sometimes it doesn’t work well, so we have to rely on an external generator,” she added.
The station’s launch is funded by the EU and overseen by Filastiniyat, an organization that supports Palestinian women journalists, and the media center at the An-Najah National University in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.
The station plans to broadcast for two hours per day from Gaza and for longer from Nablus. It is available on FM and online.
Khalifa said that stable internet access had been one of the biggest obstacles in setting up the station, but that it was now broadcasting uninterrupted audio.
The Gaza Strip, a tiny territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under Israeli blockade even before the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the war. Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to strictly control the entry of all goods and people to the territory.
“Under the siege, it is natural that modern equipment necessary for radio broadcasting cannot enter, so we have made the most of what is available,” she said.
