[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/eqJSvqcp968″][vc_column_text]The women behind Open Stadiums risk their lives to assert women’s rights to attend public sporting events in Iran. It’s a daring campaign which challenges the established Islamic order of Iran, and engages women in an issue many human rights activists have not in the past thought important.
Currently in Iran women face many restrictions on using public space. Swimming pools, schools, sports hall and even parks are gender segregated.
But the most potent example of their banishment from public life is that they are prohibited from going to popular sporting fixtures where men compete.
One of the successes of the Open Stadiums campaign has been to build the awareness of this as an issue.
Iran particularly enjoys competing in, and hosting international football and volleyball tournaments, and the Open Stadiums campaign has used Iran’s desire to take part in international competition to challenge the government’s ban on women attending events. In theory international sporting bodies do not allow member nations to use discriminatory practices during matches.
The campaigners face many difficulties. The organisers are worried that as their campaign becomes more successful, they will be identified and tracked. They cannot expand their campaign because they fear any foreign funds they receive will lead to then being identified and jailed, as the Iranian government continues to stifle dissent of any kind. The Iranian regime has a history of putting women’s rights activists under pressure.
Despite the difficulties and fears, 2017 has been a successful year for the Open Stadiums campaign. But the success of the group has put them increasingly in the spotlight and therefore heightened the risk for them.
In May, the group used the slight easing of restrictions on public debate during the presidential election campaign to publish 21 demands for women and specifically pushed for women to be able to use public spaces and go to stadiums.
In September, the world’s media covered the fact women, despite having tickets, were refused entry to the football world cup qualifier between Syria and Iran in Tehran.
Two things this year have changed according to Open Stadiums. First, men and women in every match now complain about the ban on women at stadiums. They have been made to feel aware of the discrimination and it is talked about it a lot on social media. Second, MPs and people in power are beginning to talk about women’s rights to attend sports events in a way that would have been taboo before.
“I was happy down in my heart, especially when I read about the other nominees,” said Open Stadiums. “They were such great campaigns and people. I hadn’t heard of them before, and it was amazing to see how many individuals in this world are doing works not for more money but for better days for other people and society. This nomination gave me strength – yesterday when I was at risk of being arrested, I was thinking if i get arrested i know some people at least know about my passion and works i did these years.”
See the full shortlist for Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards 2018 here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content” equal_height=”yes” el_class=”text_white” css=”.vc_custom_1490258749071{background-color: #cb3000 !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”Support the Index Fellowship.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:28|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsupport-the-freedom-of-expression-awards%2F|||”][vc_column_text]
Iranian Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani fled the city of Ilam in Iran in May 2013 after the police raided the Kurdish cultural heritage magazine he had co-founded, arresting 11 of his colleagues. He travelled to Australia by boat, intending to claim asylum, but less than a month after arriving he was forcibly relocated to a “refugee processing centre” in Papua New Guinea that had been newly opened.
Imprisoned alongside nearly 1,000 men who have been ordered to claim asylum in Papua New Guinea or return home, Boochani has been passionately documenting their life in detention ever since. Publicly advertised by the Australian Government as a refugee deterrent, life in the detention centre is harsh. For the first 2 years, Boochani wrote under a pseudonym. Until 2016 he circumvented a ban on mobile phones by trading personal items including his shoes with local residents. And while outside journalists are barred, Boochani has refused to be silent, writing numerous stories via Whatsapp and even shooting a feature film with his phone.
“I have never stopped thinking and working as a journalist. Despite attempts to silence me, I have not been silenced,” Boochani told Index on Censorship.
See the full shortlist for Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards 2017 here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content” equal_height=”yes” el_class=”text_white” css=”.vc_custom_1490258749071{background-color: #cb3000 !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”Support the Index Fellowship.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:28|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsupport-the-freedom-of-expression-awards%2F|||”][vc_column_text]
Despite growing public knowledge of global digital surveillance capabilities and practices, it has often proved hard to attract mainstream public interest in the issue. This continues to be the case in Iran where even with widespread VPN usage, there is still little real awareness of digital security threats.
With public sexual health awareness equally low, the three people behind Jensiat, an online graphic novel, saw an opportunity to marry these challenges. Dealing with issues linked to sexuality and cyber security in a way that any Iranian can easily relate to, the webcomic also offers direct access to verified digital security resources. Launched in March 2016, Jensiat has had around 1.2 million unique readers and was rapidly censored by the Iranian government.
“Our interactions with readers leads us to believe they have picked up what we’ve been discussing, and are incorporating them into their online lives,” its creators told Index on Censorship.
With a team of illustrators, satirical writers, technologists and Internet researchers Jensiat constructed a graphic novel with a unique strategy of instilling a culture of understanding and everyday practices. The first season, which finished in August 2016, was centred around six episodes. The story revolved around the main character Leila, her love interest Jamshid, and her best friend and sexual health therapist Shirin. The characters built an NGO based on counselling and advice on matters regarding relationships, sexuality and sexual health, all the while encountering cyber security concerns such as phishing attacks, unsecured networks and how to protect your social media accounts from an abusive partner.
Iranians now contact the creators of the graphic novel seeking advice on what technologies or applications to download, and to discuss and debate the many risks Iranians face online. In March 2016, Jensiat’s website was filtered by the Iranian filtering committee, highlighting the discomfort the creators bring to the Iranian regime’s attempts to control the internet.
See the full shortlist for Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards 2017 here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content” equal_height=”yes” el_class=”text_white” css=”.vc_custom_1490258749071{background-color: #cb3000 !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”Support the Index Fellowship.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:28|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsupport-the-freedom-of-expression-awards%2F|||”][vc_column_text]
I’m a hand that has become a fist… I’m a Shia in Bahrain, I’m an Armenian in WWI I’m the one who is starving, with ribs obvious from starvation
They are raping someone and I am the sound of the agonised screaming When they tell him or her “relax, so that we can enjoy it, whore”, I’m that tense muscle I’m an Afghan homosexual woman that lives in Iran
Iranian rapper Soroush Lashkari, aka Hichkas, is sharing extracts from an unfinished song for his new album Mojaz, translating the lyrics into English on the spot. Hichkas (Nobody) has been called the godfather of Iranian hip-hop, which seems fitting for a man who turned the local calling code for Tehran — 021 — into song and a sign language that became the symbol of the Iranian hip-hop movement and its followers. But being a hip-hop artist in a country where the genre is banned comes with many challenges.
“When we made physical copies of our first album Jangale Asphalt in 2006, we were arrested whilst selling it on the streets of Tehran,” Hichkas, now in his late twenties, tells Index on Censorship. “You can’t just sell records in Iran, you need to seek approval from the authorities before you release anything or perform concerts. There is no structure or support system for musicians to perform freely, and in particular for hip hop artists.”
Anyone who wishes to publish, distribute or perform music in Iran is required to submit their work for review by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG), which is guided by Islamic law in force since the country’s 1979 revolution. The MCIG operates under the influence of the minister of culture, who is chosen by the president and the parliament. Even if the amount of freedom artists may experience varies under each presidency, all recordings submitted are archived to ensure the authenticity of Iranian musical culture is maintained. Exposure to Western music is also heavily scrutinised with genres such as hip-hop banned altogether. The implication is that musicians adopting traditional Iranian standards are favoured over artists incorporating external sounds tainted with “decadence”. The name of Hichkas’ upcoming album Mojaz -– meaning an album or artwork within the mojavez, the seal of approval required from the MCIG to sell records in the country.
The advent of the internet has provided an opportunity for musicians to challenge official censorship. The MCIG measures, designed with the intention to control the relationship between musician and audience within Iran’s geographical borders, often lead to long waits for recordings to be released. Digital technologies allow artists to distribute music produced in home-based studios or in secret locations, bypassing official channels. The web had a particular effect on Iranian hip-hop, helping rappers facilitate their own version of concerts through mobile phone video uploads and live streaming.
A figurehead in developing these alternative systems of dissemination, Hichkas argues the intention was not to go against the revolutionary regime as part of a political act. “Even if the laws allowed rappers to release music freely, consumers of music around the world were already shifting towards buying internet downloads,” he says. “In other words, the crisis of selling music was not unique to Iran; the real problem back home is that there is no way of making money from shows with rappers not being allowed to perform.”
But having been arrested numerous times for his work, it’s clear that even if you claim to shun politics, everything becomes political under a paranoid regime. “I’m actually a quiet person,” he said.
Hichkas doesn’t replicate American accents and maintains his typically Iranian appearance, blending in with those on the street. Most importantly, he embraces literary devices rooted in traditional Iranian poetry and turns it into conversational street talk that engages the disillusioned.
“I don’t like the blinging culture of hip-hop made in America that celebrates money and fakeness,” he said. “Me and my friends were teenagers making music that described our own culture, the society we grew up in, and challenging the clichés associated with it.”
He argues that the absence of hip-hop from the Iranian music scene is due to the lack of artists adopting the genre, rather than the association of hip-hop as a Western import. “No one had adopted rap to make music about our culture before us, so it was inevitable to be the first in finding that path for hip-hop to be heard,” he says. “We set standards through being driven by the love of what we were doing, which forced authorities to catch up and think about how investments can be made into a growing movement.”
Being a pioneer in developing a distribution network meant Hichkas’ many supporters outside of Iran began facilitating performances for him abroad in 2011, helping him get visas and opportunities to lecture at leading universities. Now based in London and juggling studio time alongside college work, he hopes his work on Mojaz “will add more substance to the poetry” and “set new benchmarks musically within the global standards of hip-hop by making it experimental but at the same time catchy”.
While he admits that rapping in Farsi is “a big barrier” to international audiences, he hopes the inclusion of English subtitles will help listeners find common ground across cultures. “Although previous songs were written in Iran and made in Iran, my lyrics were against evil deeds all around the world,” he explains. “They were against human discrimination in general. I want to continue writing something that engages my audience back home by addressing issues I have always talked about. I will use different lyrics, matching together social problems worldwide to scenes and characters that they can relate to.”
He says being in London, and having the opportunity to meet people from all over the world “helps me think about humanity through discovering common viewpoints.” The relocation also means working out new processes of distribution, from the logistics of sharing music from outside Iran, to the adoption of technological developments such as the bitcoin.
Navigating the external restrictions in his work has in itself become an art in the development of hip-hop. Working alongside long-time producer Maghdyar Aghajani, Hichkas preserves Iranian roots in his work whilst ensuring he can make his mark on the world wide hip-hop scene by making “a more complex music rather than the typical hip-hop” in his upcoming album.
“Self-censorship actually helps you to have more impact,” Hichkas argues. “Regardless of what the authorities say, if you come out in an extremely raw way in a closed society, people are not going to understand you. Also, if someone can’t go back to his or her society, how is he or she able to see what’s going on internally in his or her country? Why say something if you end up in jail for three years?”
He has tried writing about who he would be if he didn’t live under these rules, but gave up. “It just didn’t work,” he explains, “the lyrics wouldn’t flow, simply because I felt I would still be the same person, pushing boundaries through talking about whatever is going on around me from the culture I come from.” He says he wants to study psychology, “to understand how these cultures shape people, including those who choose to go into government.”
“Therefore, my music is not aimed at changing politics, but changing something at a grassroots level.”
In May, the group used the slight easing of restrictions on public debate during the presidential election campaign to publish 21 demands for women and specifically pushed for women to be able to use public spaces and go to stadiums.