Women in History - 22 December

Mukhopadhyaya

Mukhopadhyaya was the wife and spiritual counterpart of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a nineteenth century mystic of Bengal. Sarad Devi is also reverentially addressed as the Holy Mother. Sarada Devi played an important role in the growth of the Ramakrishna Movement.

Lucy Burns

American suffragist and women’s rights advocate, formed the National Woman’s Party with Alice Paul

LucyBurns (July 28, 1879 – December 22, 1966) was born in New York to an Irish Catholic family. She was so inspired by their activism and charisma that she dropped her graduate studies to stay with them and work in the Women's Social and Political Union, an organization dedicated to fighting for women's rights in the United Kingdom. While working with the WSPU, Lucy Burns met Alice Paul at a London police station. Both women had been arrested for demonstrating, and Alice Paul introduced herself when she noticed that Lucy Burns was wearing an American flag pin on her lapel.

Burns was the first woman to speak before the Congressional delegates in 1914 when the Anthony amendment finally made it out of committee and into the House. Burns and other suffragists had been told by the chairman of the House Committee on Suffrage that the House would not pass a suffrage amendment before 1920. To their surprise, it was announced in late 1917 that the House would make a decision on January 10, 1918. She died on December 22, 1966 in Brooklyn, New York.

IRAN - Forozan Abdipour, member of Iran national volleyball team

Forozan Abdipour, member of Iran national volleyball team

to all volleyball fans: In memory of Forozan Abdipour, member of national volleyball  team who was executed in 1988 by the Iranian regime

Ms. Abdi was born in Tehran in 1957. She was the captain of the National Volleyball team and a sympathizer of the PMOI. According to her cellmate, Ms. Abdi was very popular among other inmates.

Her cellmates remember her for her open-mindedness and tolerant attitude towards other political prisoners. In one instance, her cellmate recalls, when a repenting prisoner who was in charge of the cell ordered another prisoner to separate her dishes from the others (because prison authorities treated prisoners who did not believe in God as “unclean”), Ms. Abdi had intervened and stressed that “no one considers the prisoner as ‘unclean’ and whoever does, should separate her own dishes from others”. Ms. Abdi had also kept her athletic spirits during her years of imprisonment and organized volleyball games during the short period when female prisoners had access to a volleyball court at Qezelhesar prison.

Arrest and detention

She was arrested in 1981.

One of her cellmates saying: "I saw her in section 8 of Qezelhesar in 1982. It was a section for special punishment and sometimes there were 25 to 30 people in a cell [that was meant to fit 3]... They placed Foruzan and some others in a restroom in early 1983. The place was so dirty that all of them contracted skin diseases. Then, they were transferred to solitary confinement at both Gohardasht and Qezelhesar prisons where they stayed until early 1986."

Ms. Abdi was protesting against the inhuman rules and behaviour of prison guards. As a result, for almost a year and half (fall 1983 - winter 1984), she was held in solitary confinement and was deprived from recreation time outside, from having contacts with others, reading newspapers, and having regular visits from her family.

Sometime in 1986, Ms. Abdi was transferred from Gohardasht to Evin prison where she was detained until her execution. During this period, she also spent most of her imprisonment in the closed section of the ward that prison authorities used for punishing prisoners. Those held in this section were held in closed cells and were allowed to leave their cells 3 times a day (for 30 minutes), during which time they could use the bathroom, wash their dishes and their clothes.

Forozan Abdipour was executed along with 30 000 other prisoners, mostly PMOI, when the Iranian regime carried out the massacre of political prisoners in the summer of 1988.

Today, women are fighting to enter volleyball stadiums to watch games. Forozan Abdipour, member of national volleyball volleyball team was executed in 1988 by the Iranian regime for wanted all women to live in freedom and democracy.

Iran: Letter to my imprisoned daughter

Athena Daemi’s

AthenaDaemi’s  mother wrote a letter to her daughter, a political prisoner, after being in prison for one year.

Daemi was arrested at her father’s home on October 21, 2014 and was transferred to ward 2A of Evin Prison in Tehran.

She has been accused of “propaganda against the state”, “insulting the leader”, “assembly and collusion to commit crimes against national security”.

Masoumeh Ne’mati, Atena’s mother, wrote:

One year passed without you…

It has been one year that I am fighting with every heartbeat, worried it might stop… and I don’t know how many more days it will endure.

IRAN: Ex-bodyguard for Ahmadinejad killed in Syria fight

pasdar-bagheri

A former bodyguard for the Iranian regime's former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been killed while fighting in Syria, the regime's state media announced on Friday.

The state-run Fars agency reported Friday that Abdollah Bagheri Niakari was killed while fighting in Syria's civil war alongside Syrian government forces in the northern city of Aleppo.