Women’s rights

Iranian women without wearing hijab shout slogans while gathering around a burning dumpster during a protest near Punak square, on Oct. 1, 2022

Culture

Rape case against movie star Pejman Jamshidi rocks Iran: What to know

The accusations against Jamshidi, one of Iran’s most famous celebrities, come amid ongoing discussions about women’s lack of rights in the country.

ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images

Leaked video shows Khamenei aide's daughter in Western wedding gown amid Iran's hijab crackdown

Senior Iranian official Ali Shamkhani faced criticism online after video surfaced of his daughter’s extravagant wedding.

ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images

Iran adding 80,000 personnel to enforce hijab in Tehran province

Iran scrapped a stricter law on women’s head coverings last year and some women are now defying the restrictions altogether.

LOUAI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images

As Syria finalizes candidates for parliament, women make up 14% of list

Syria’s parliamentary elections are set for Sunday, when electoral committees will select 140 lawmakers before President Ahmed al-Sharaa appoints the remaining 70.

Latest News

Turkey's Erdogan acknowledges 'alarming' rise in violence against women

Women's rights activists and relatives of victims of feminicide wait outside the Istanbul court ahead of a hearing on June 1, 2022.

Culture

Iran mulls lifting ban on women driving motorcycles: What to know

A man and a woman ride their motorcycles past a billboard in the background bearing a portrait of Iran's late President Ebrahim Raisi in central Tehran, on May 21, 2024.

Turkey’s top religious body sparks outrage over women’s inheritance rights

YASIN AKGUL/AFP via Getty Images

Opposition slams Erdogan after 9 killed in deadly week for Turkish women

YASIN AKGUL/AFP via Getty Images

Turkish actress Merve Dizdar poses during a photocall after she won the Best Actress Prize for her part in the film "Kuru Otlar Ustune" (About Dry Grasses) during the closing ceremony of the 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 27, 2023.

Turkey's conservatives lash out at actress Merve Dizdar after Cannes win

Angry reactions to actress Merve Dizdar’s acceptance speech at the Cannes film festival may foreshadow more crackdowns on the liberal arts sector as Erdogan and a new conservative parliament takes the reins.

Raqqa’s first ever girls’ soccer team poses outside a pitch funded by Norwegian donors, April 25, 2023.

Syrian girls play soccer among ghosts of Islamic State

Raqqa's first-ever girls' soccer team is blooming where Islamic State once terrorized the society.

Jordan Christians

Christians in Jordan welcome progress on inheritance law

Experts say the Jordanian Civil Code must differentiate between Christians and Muslims, so that the recent draft law on equal inheritance between female and male Christians can be implemented without controversies.

Rana Husseini

By Rana Husseini

Turkey election

Turkey’s new parliament: 50 shades of nationalism, conservatism

Turkey has ended up with the most nationalist and conservative parliament in its modern history, and where women, LGBT groups will face an uphill battle.

A woman walks past a poster showing the portrait of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the presidential candidate of the Main Opposition alliance on May 05, 2023 in Istanbul, Turkey. On May 14th, Turkey’s President Erdogan will face his biggest electoral test as voters head to the polls in the country’s general election. Erdogan has been in power for more than two decades, as prime minister and then as president, but his popularity has taken a hit recently due to Turkey’s ongoing economic crisis and his government’s handl

Women candidates in Turkey face growing hurdles across political spectrum

Even as patriarchal attitudes fade, efforts to recruit candidates or put them at the top of party lists have fallen short due to the old boy network.

A woman walks past a mural in the Iranian capital Tehran, on October 11, 2022. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP) (Photo by ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)

Iran steps up hijab crackdown on women, shuttering businesses

In Iran's capital Tehran, some 150 such shops have been forced to close by authorities in the past two weeks alone.

Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin (R) listens to MP May Golan during a session at the Knesset, Jerusalem, March 20, 2023.

Who is May Golan, Israel's self-styled 'racist' considered for NY consul general?

The Likud party confirmed Minister without portfolio May Golan, known for her strong support of the judicial overhaul, was proposed the much-coveted position of consul general in New York.

Iranian Armenian schoolgirls walk home after class in the Julfa neighbourhood in the historic city of Isfahan, some 400 kms south of the capital, Tehran on April 21, 2015. Julfa neighborhood in Isfahan is where the biggest Armenian community in Iran resides and was established as an Armenian quarter by Persian Safavid King Shah Abbas I in 1606. Some 180.000 Armenians were living in Iran before the Islamic revolution in 1979, compared to some 60000 today, according to official figures. Most of the community

Fury in Iran as officials fail to address schoolgirls' poisonings

Iranian authorities either looked the other way or blamed the students, failing to soothe the public rage at the fresh suspected gas attacks on schoolgirls.

Alinejad

Breaking | Last Updated: April 10, 2023, 4:59 pm

Iranian-born US woman sentenced in plot to kidnap Masih Alinejad

Niloufar Bahadorifar, sentenced to prison, had pleaded guilty in December for unknowingly supporting an alleged Iranian plot to kidnap activist Masih Alinejad.

Women chant slogans in front of the Istanbul courthouse in Istanbul on April 5, 2023, as We Will Stop Femicides Platform, leading women rights group in Turkey appear on court for the second hearing of the trial that seeks to ban the platform.

Will Turkey’s conservative young women abandon Erdogan and AKP?

The conservative women vote played an important role in bringing Erdogan’s AKP to power two decades ago. But according to polls, that segment of Turkish society is looking for alternatives as AKP became too conservative for their taste.

Lebanese women hold placards during a protest organized by civil society groups and activists.

Lebanon fumes as another woman murdered by husband

The man killed his wife in front of their three children, renewing calls to enforce laws on domestic violence.

Chairman of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu (C).

Turkey’s opposing camps seek to broaden base ahead of May elections

The rapprochement between Erdogan’s People’s Alliance and the Kurdish Islamist Huda-Par, seen as the successor of Hezbollah, annoys nationalists, while the move toward arch-conservative New Welfare alarms women.