Asieh Amini

Asieh Amini (born 14 September 1973) is an Iranian poet and journalist currently residing in Norway. She is a Women's Rights activist fighting against the death penalty in general and specifically against the stoning of women and minors in Iran.

Life

Amini grew up in the Mazandaran Province in northern Iran. She was the third of four sisters. Her family originated from the gentry of feudal times. They owned land and animals and employed gardeners and housekeepers. Her great-grandmothers made a great impression on Amini and she recognized that she is an important person, as everyone had to sit up straight, when she entered the room. In Northern Iran women were allowed to own property and work with their pants and sleeves rolled up. But men did still commonly have multiple wives.^[1]

Aminis father was a teacher. He was religious but practicing lightly. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979 Amini's family lost a lot of their wealth and became middle class. Amini and her sister's spent a lot of time reading, writing and painting. She started visiting an afternoon's poetry circle at a local library. Already back then she wanted to become a painter or writer.^[1]

Amini's life changed after the revolution. She hated the mandatory black hijab all girls had to wear and cried when she put it on. Her mother though explained to her that it was a rule no one could disobey. A lot of young man returned from the Iran–Iraq War without limbs or didn't return at all. Some of her family members were opposed to the regime and imprisoned. Some of her family members were supportive of the regime.^[1] Amini's uncle Ayatollah Mohammad Mohammadi Gilani became the Islamic Republic of Iran's chief justice. He presided over the courts in a time when thousands of opposition members were executed. His two sons were part of Mujahideen-e Khalq, a leftist Islamic militant group. He said he couldn't hold them to different standards but would protect them if they stopped their political activism. However they didn't. Trying to avoid prosecution they fled and subsequently died, so Amini was told. Some people in Iran associated Ayatollah Mohammad Mohammadi Gilani name from there on with the Islamic Republic executing its own children.^[1]

Career

Amini started studying journalism at Tabataba'i University in Teheran in 1993. While still studying she already started writing for newspapers. She began at the hard-line daily Kayhan. Then she moved on to the larger newspaper Iran. When a colleague was supposed to interview a poet that Amini liked he took her along. The poet invited her into his writer's circle. The newspaper Iran started a youth supplement and Amini was put in as the cultural editor. For these times in Iran a woman being in such a senior position was unusual. She was responsible for 28 pages, supervised men that were older than her and was frequently scrutinized by the paper's editor- in- chief. One day one of her colleagues pulled her aside. He as fighting back tears when he advised her to leave the job. "Why?" she asked. He said that every day the colleagues were speaking ill of her, they didn't like a young single woman to be in such a position. "That's their problem, not mine." Amini said. When Mohammad Khatami was elected president in 1997 the bans were lifted a little and more daring publications emerged. More women entered journalism. Amini took up a job at the newspaper Zan, which covered women's affairs. Although Amini opposed the idea of segregating news by gender, she took on the job. The newspaper Zan was unfortunately banned. Subsequently, Amini took on freelancer work. After giving birth Amini started working as the social editor of the newspaper Etemaad. She also ran a website called Women in Iran.^[1]

Activism

Amini founded the 'Stop Stoning Forever Campaign' in October 2006. She worked together with a well known feminist from Iran and two writers from outside the country who could publish without censorship.^[1] She is fighting gender- based injustices in Iran's judicial system and is advocating for an end of stoning as a form of execution.^[2]

She started her acitivism when she met a 16-year-old girl named Atefeh Sahaaleh who had endured a lifetime of sexual abuse. As a result of that abuse she turned to sex work and was eventually sentenced for extramarital sex to death by stoning. Amini felt compelled to write about and investigate the practice of stoning. During her investigations she found out that despite Iran's commitment to the international community to abolish the practice stoning were still going on in secret. In 2002, Iran's chief justice declared a moratorium on stoning.^[1] Amini tried to publish her story but was soon after fired from her newspaper.^[2] The editor- in- chief of her newspaper said that it was impossible for them to publish the story as she was fighting Sharia law and the Iranian judicial system. She sent the story to another newspaper but they declined. After a long search a women's publication agreed to publish an edited version.^[1] Soon after the publishing of the story of Atefeh Amini heard of another similar story concerning the fate of Leyla, a nineteen- year old with mental age of an eight year old who was supposed to be hanged for chastity. Amini found out that the girl was still alive in a prison in Arak and decided to help her. The girl had first been put out for prostitution by her own mother at the age between five and eight. From then onward her mother prostituted her and lived from the money. Leyla gave birth to her first child at age nine and received a 100 lashes sentence for chastitiy for the first time. She was sentenced to death for incest among other things as her brothers had been among the townsmen who had raped her. Amini visited the judge who had sentences Leyla and he said that the law is the law and that he was just applying it. He further stated, under Amini's account, that if the society was an apple Leyla was a worm. Amini wrote a story about Leyla in the magazine Zanan. The story echoed internationally. Even the Norwegian prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik wrote a letter to the Iranian president Khatami. Eventually Leyla had a second trial.^[1] With the help of a friend of hers Shadi Sadr a human rights attorney, Amini was able to have Leyla be removed from prison and had her be put in a social organization that provided her with private lessons and helped her to learn to read and to write. In 2007 Amini was arrested and imprisoned.^[3]

After this experience Amini founded the 'Stop Stoning Forever Campaign'. She fights to have to practice of stoning stopped, researches cases of women who have been sentenced to death by stoning and shares their stories with the public.^[2] After the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 the situation of humans rights activists became dangerous in Iran. Amini's phone calls were wiretapped, her e-mails were surveilled. Four months after the re-election Amini went to exile in Norway.^[2] In Norway she continued to be a contributor to a newspaper. She was also a guest writer in Trondheim City of Refuge from 2010 to 2012.^[4]

Family

At the newspaper Zan Amini met Javad Montazeri, a photographer who came from the Mazandaran region just like her. After eight months they decided to get married. After giving birth to her daughter Ava her husband encouraged her to continue to work. When she became pregnant for a second time, she tried to take medicine that would induce a miscarriage, which would make it possible to go to an emergency room in a hospital and have the fetus removed. This was necessary as in Iran abortion is illegal. However the medicine didn't work and Amini thought that she had damaged the fetus irreparably. So she proceeded to have an illegal abortion with complications but was able to return to work afterwards.^[1]

Awards

• Hellman/ Hammett Award by Human Rights Watch in 2009
• dubbed best Iranian poet by UNESCO in 2005
• Oxfam Novib/ PEN award
• Ord i Grenseland Award in 2014

Writings

• "Bih khuāb-i man bā tufang nayā."
• "Kom ikke til mine drømmer med gevær" ("Do not enter my dreams with a gun")
• "Jeg savner å savne deg" ("I miss missing you")

References