http://www.minutodigital.com/noticias/2010/04/26/el-uso-del-velo-islamico-en-iran-se-extiende-a-las-guarderias/
ABAJO EN INGLES LA NOTICIA DE LA ONU...
El régimen iraní ha puesto en marcha un plan para acabar con lo que denomina “el erróneo uso del Hiyab” o pañuelo islámico, que incluye medidas para corregir y extender su uso incluso en las guarderías.
Una plataforma ciudadana será la encargada de hacer cumplir la norma, apoyada por clérigos jóvenes que ya han iniciado una campaña para informar de como deben vestir las mujeres, según ha explicado el ministro de Interior, Mustafa Mohamad Nayar, a quien hoy cita el diario pro reformista ARMAN.
Nayar, que fue ministro de Defensa durante el primer mandato de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2009), reunió anoche a los directores de las oficinas de asuntos de la mujer de las diferentes provincias para detallar la estrategia.
“La mejor vía para luchar contra el mal uso del velo son la educación cultural y un fortalecimiento de la sociedad que lo haga invulnerable (a la invasión cultural extranjera)”, argumentó el ministro.
“Una plataforma de defensa de los derechos de la ciudadanía ejecutará ahora el plan de la lucha contra el mal uso del velo”, tanto en la calle como en comercios, empresas privadas y la administración pública, subrayó.
Desde que en 1979 triunfara la Revolución Islámica que derrocó el régimen pro occidental del último Sha de Persia, Mohamad Reza Pahlevi, ninguna mujer, ya sea iraní o extranjera, puede salir a las calles de Irán sin cubrir su cabello con un pañuelo y su cuerpo con un guardapolvos o capa que oculte su cuerpo.
La observación del código comenzó a relajarse a finales de la década de los noventa, durante el primer mandato del presidente reformista Mohamad Jatami (1997-2001).
En el norte de Teherán, más abierto, muchas mujeres empezaron a sustituir el negro “Chador” -pieza de tela que cubre desde la cabeza a los pies- por el hiyab y el mantoo (guardapolvos o abrigo hasta las rodillas) primero blancos y con el tiempo de multitud de colores.
En el sur de la capital, y en general en el resto del país, el “chador” es aún la prenda más utilizada.
Pero en los últimos años, el mantoo se ha ido acortando y ciñiendo, y el velo estrechando, permitiendo la visión de los flequillos por delante y la melena por detrás, lo que ha desatado una ola de reprobación de los sectores más radicales de la sociedad y el clero.
La semana pasada, varios clérigos denunciaron que esa “indecente forma de vestir de las mujeres” es la causa de las desgracias naturales que sufre el mundo, y en particular de la oleada de terremotos.
“Muchas mujeres que no visten con decoro inducen a los hombres al extravío, corrompen su castidad y propalan el adulterio en la sociedad, lo que incrementa los terremotos”, dijo el hayatola Kazem Sedighi.
En la misma línea se ha expresado la plataforma “Ansar Hizbula” (los seguidores del partido de Dios), que en comunicado divulgado también hoy por el diario “Arman” advierte que las desgracias son consecuencia de la inmoralidad al vestir.
“El incumplimiento de las normas de la vestimenta islámica ha sido tan claro en los últimos meses que el presidente iraní (Ahmadinejad) ha tenido que advertir que puede causar castigos celestiales como terremotos”.
A este respecto, el ministro de Interior admitió que el respeto al código de vestuario ha decrecido en el último año y vinculó este hecho con los disturbios postelectorales que han sumido a Irán en la peor crisis política y social que vive desde la fundación de la República Islámica.
El pasado junio, nada más conocerse la reelección de Ahmadineyad, cientos de miles de personas salieron a la calle en apoyo a la oposición, que denunció un fraude masivo.
“La cuestión del uso del velo es preocupante hasta en las guarderías. Esperamos que con la colaboración de los instructores podamos introducir la cultura islámica en los jardines de infancia”, explicó Nayar.
El ministro destacó, asimismo, la importancia de la familia en la educación sobre el uso del hiyab y subrayó a este respecto que la radio-televisión iraní está comprometida a desempeñar un papel muy importante.
La campaña, que coincide con el anunciado deseo de Irán de optar a un puesto en la Comisión de Defensa de los Derechos de la Mujer en la ONU, ya es visible en las calles.
El pasado viernes, efectivos de la Policía se desplegaron en una de las principales arterias del norte de Teherán, lugar de encuentro ente jóvenes iraníes, donde paraban al azar coches con mujeres que dejaran entrever su cabellos.
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U.N. Elects Iran to Commission on Women's Rights
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/29/elects-iran-commission-womens-rights/
Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."
Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women," according to its website.
Buried 2,000 words deep in a U.N. press release distributed Wednesday on the filling of "vacancies in subsidiary bodies," was the stark announcement: Iran, along with representatives from 10 other nations, was "elected by acclamation," meaning that no open vote was requested or required by any member states — including the United States. FOXNews.com learned of the press release only after being alerted to it by Anne Bayefsky director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.
The U.S. currently holds one of the 45 seats on the body, a position set to expire in 2012. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not return requests for comment on whether it actively opposed elevating Iran to the women's commission.
Iran's election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, a statement that created an international uproar — but little affected their bid to become an international arbiter of women's rights.
"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," said the respected cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi.
As word of Iran's intention to join the women's commission came out, a group of Iranian activists circulated a petition to the U.N. asking that member states oppose its election.
"Iran's discriminatory laws demonstrate that the Islamic Republic does not believe in gender equality," reads the letter, signed by 214 activists and endorsed by over a dozen human rights bodies.
The letter draws a dark picture of the status of women in Iran: "women lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women's admission at universities, and are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of such laws."
The Commission on the Status of Women is supposed to conduct review of nations that violate women's rights, issue reports detailing their failings, and monitor their success in improving women's equality.
Yet critics of Iran's human rights record say the country has taken "every conceivable step" to deter women's equality.
"In the past year, it has arrested and jailed mothers of peaceful civil rights protesters," wrote three prominent democracy and human rights activists in an op-ed published online Tuesday by Foreign Policy Magazine.
"It has charged women who were seeking equality in the social sphere — as wives, daughters and mothers — with threatening national security, subjecting many to hours of harrowing interrogation. Its prison guards have beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted and raped female and male civil rights protesters."
Click here for more on Iran's human rights record.
Iran's elevation to the commission comes as a black eye just days after the U.S. helped lead a successful effort to keep Iran off the Human Rights Council, which is already dominated by nations that are judged by human rights advocates as chronic violators of essential freedoms. The current membership of the women's commission is little different.
Though it touts itself as "the principal global policy-making body" on women's rights, the makeup of the commission is mostly determined by geography and its membership is a hodge-podge of some human rights advocates (including the U.S., Japan, and Germany) and other nations with stark histories of rights violations.
The number of seats on the commission is based on the number of countries in a region, no matter how small their populations or how scant their respect for rights. The commission is currently made up of 13 members from Africa, 11 from Asia, nine from Latin America and the Caribbean, eight from Western Europe and North America, and four from Eastern Europe.
During this round of "elections," which were not competitive and in which no real votes were cast, two seats opened up for the Asian bloc for the 2011-2015 period. Only two nations put forward candidates to fill empty spots — Iran and Thailand. As at most such commissions in the U.N., backroom deals determined who would gain new seats at the women's rights body.
The activists' letter sent to the U.N. Tuesday argued that it would be better if the Asian countries proffered only one candidate, instead of elevating Iran to the commission.
"We, a group of gender-equality activists, believe that for the sake of women's rights globally, an empty seat for the Asia group on (the commission) is much preferable to Iran's membership. We are writing to alert you to the highly negative ramifications of Iran’s membership in this international body."
A spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which oversees the commission, did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment.
When its term begins in 2011, Iran will be joined by 10 other countries: Belgium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Estonia, Georgia, Jamaica, Iran, Liberia, the Netherlands, Spain, Thailand and Zimbabwe.
