زندگی با طعم گیلاس

 

A stool, a red small television and a heart full of hope, is their whole share of international soccer wave in the world.

Iranian women gathered to watch soccer outside the doors of Tehran"s biggest stadium during a match between Iran and Bosnia on 31 May 2006. This symbolic action was against all those rules that do not give any right to Iranian women to watch soccer in the stadium. While in the other side of the wall 100.000 men shout hurrah for their team, women are kicked buy police forces. They even do not have the right to watch the game in TV behind the high walls of stadium that its name in Persian equals "freedom". 

Just one month before in a shocking action, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered to the head of Iran"s sport organization: "Open the doors of stadiums to women. Give them the best place to watch the Soccer matches." These two sentences repeated in every news announcement of Iran"s state run TV on 24^th of April.

It looked like that Iran"s regime is finally bowed to give more freedom to women. Soon it became a hot topic for all people in taxies, in universities, in work places and all this gained freedom made women rights activists more optimistic to fight more for their rights.

But all this sweet victory did not last so much. Ayatollahs made a fatwa that Muslim women are not allowed to watch bare pats of men"s body. They said that Ahmadinejad"s Government should be ashamed to suggest these "non Islamic" things. Finally the supreme leader wanted Ahmadinejad to "listen" to Ayatollahs and all that hope vanished in a second.

 In all these 27 years after Iran"s revolution, women"s entrance to the stadium for watching Soccer matches was forbidden. Twice before Iranian women rights activists had gathered in front of Azadi"(freedom) stadium and insisted to watch the match. Once it was on 9^th of June in 2005 for a match Between Iran and Bahrain. It was just before the presidential elections and Islamic hardliners at last opened the doors for shouting women who had some placards that were written on them: "freedom, equality, gender equality", "freedom is my right, Iran is my homeland".

After Ahmadynejad"s winning in the elections women activists were disappointed to watch any Soccer match again. On 1^st of March 2006, more women gathered to watch a Soccer match. Police forces did not allow them to enter the stadium and even beat them. At last police forced women to ride a bus to keep them at a distance and after one hour, police released them. This behavior made women rights activist anxious but a week later on 8^th of March, the international day of women, police again invaded women gatherings and there were no allowance for university students to hold a ceremony in the universities. That was what social activists expected: a new conservative move for imposing more inequality to women. Ahamdynejad even changed the name of the only "women affairs" organization to" women and family affairs" organization. It seemed that in his government women are only accepted as mothers or wives.

Although it seems that Ahmadinejad"s action has been a very big and unsuccessful reform but even his political friends" say that it was just a show. Masoud Dehnamaki, Hardliner activist and editor in chief of "sobhe dokouhe" newspaper which is a newspaper for "Basiji"s, told Mainichi that

"I think Akhmadinejad has done this to show that his government is open about social issues. I think his work has more political meaning than social."

Dehnamaki used to attack student demonstration to prevent them to criticize the regime.

While lots of women shout in stadiums for their favorite team during the world cup in Germany, Iranian women look at them on their TV screens as a never accessible dream. But women rights activists seem to be indefatigable. They have managed a very big demonstration to protest rules against women in Iran"s constitution. Entering soccer matches is one of their requests in front of lots of big limitations of Iranian women.

In addition to fair and equal laws they want to gain a citizenship right. There is nothing written in the law that women are not allowed to watch the Soccer matches. It is only social norms and customs against this, what they call:"unwritten law".