Change for Equality: Campaign activists based in Southern California have issued a press release regarding June 12, the day women’s rights activists in Iran have declared to be their National Day of Solidarity.

The press release and contact information is provided below.

HISTORIC CELEBRATION OF IRANIAN WOMEN’S MOVEMENT

Southern California activists celebrate June 12, the Iranian Women’s Solidarity Day

June 12 is the third anniversary of the historic gathering in 2005 near
Tehran University organized by Iranian women demanding gender equality in the legal system. This peaceful demonstration was attended by more than six thousand men and women, and was supported by over ninety groups and NGOs in Iran with a broad range of concerns from women’s rights to the environment and education. The following year, on June 12, 2006, a similar gathering for gender equality organized in Haft-Tir square in Tehran was met with harsh police reaction and the arrest of seventy participants. Undefeated by the backlash, this gathering grew over the following months into a well-organized grassroots movement called the One Million Signatures Campaign, which has spread to over twenty-seven cities in Iran. Today, it is a worldwide movement, with campaigns in eight countries, and the support of renowned international leaders, including Nobel Peace Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Jody Williams, and Dr. Mairead Corrigan.

The One Million Signatures Campaign raises awareness by public dissemination of information about discriminatory laws, and seeks to promote social justice through a petition that calls for legal reform. Based entirely on volunteer labor, the movement has refrained from propagating an explicit political agenda and instead presents information about the Iranian legal system in a non-ideological manner. People around the world can join in peaceful protest against discrimination by signing the Campaign’s petition in support of the Iranians’ demand for legal gender equality. Forms of support can include printing the petition from the campaign website, circulating it and sending it in, and talking about the campaign with family and friends.

The Campaign has been well represented in areas with large Iranian immigrant populations, including Southern California, which is home to the largest number of Iranians outside Iran. This local chapter of the Campaign comprises Iranian-American graduate students and professionals, who not only promote awareness of the campaign’s efforts but also aim to protect activists within Iran by calling attention to their political persecution.
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For more information about this press release, or to schedule an interview with a local campaign organizer, please call Peyman Malaz (949) 466-0142 or email forequality@gmail.com

Contact: Peyman Malaz

Website: www.campaignforequality.org/english