Studies in Iranian Politics Series Editor Shahram Akbarzadeh Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University Burwood, VIC, Australia
This series offers much-needed insights into the internal and external dynamics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A major player in the Middle East, Iran faces a range of challenges and opportunities that have significant ramifications for its citizens and the neighbourhood. Questions of political representation, Islamic rule, as well as youth and civil society movements are contentious topics in a state that feels besieged by hostile forces. The intersection of such factors present fascinating case-studies. Studies in Iranian Politics will publish ground-breaking research that draw on original sources and contribute to our understanding of contemporary Iran. Advisory Board: Prof. Mohammed Ayoob, Michigan State University Prof. Anoush Ehteshami, Durham University Prof. Mehran Kamrava, Georgetown University Prof. Mahmood Sariolghalam, Shahid Beheshti University More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15186
Rebecca Barlow Shahram Akbarzadeh Editors Human Rights and Agents of Change in Iran Towards a Theory of Change
Editors Rebecca Barlow Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University Burwood, VIC, Australia Shahram Akbarzadeh Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University Burwood, VIC, Australia ISSN 2524-4132 ISSN 2524-4140 (electronic) Studies in Iranian Politics ISBN 978-981-10-8823-0 ISBN 978-981-10-8824-7 (ebook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8824-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018944129 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Jenny Meilihove / Getty Images Cover Design by Tom Howey Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore
Contents Part I Introduction 1 1 Top-Down or Bottom-Up? Towards a Theory of Change for Human Rights Practice in Iran 3 Rebecca Barlow and Shahram Akbarzadeh Part II Top-Down: The State and the Law as Entry Points for Change 25 2 The Inside-Track Approach to Change in Iran Under President Rouhani: The Case of Freedom on the Internet 27 Dara Conduit and Shahram Akbarzadeh 3 Indigenising Modernisation in Iran 51 Ghoncheh Tazmini 4 Iranian Lawyers for Human Rights: The Defenders of Human Rights Center 65 Leila Alikarami v
vi Contents Part III Bottom-Up: The Grassroots as an Entry Point for Change 81 5 Is Grassroots Justice a Viable Alternative to Impunity? The Case of the Iran People s Tribunal 83 Payam Akhavan 6 Secular and Islamic Feminist Work to Increase Parliamentary Representation in Iran: Towards an Alliance? 105 Rebecca Barlow 7 Struggles for Revival: The Iranian Student Movement under the Moderate Government, 2013 2017 127 Ali Honari 8 Environmentalism and Social Change in Iran 143 Simin Fadaee 9 Ethnic Minorities and the Question of Liberal Multiculturalism in Iran 157 Meysam Badamchi Part IV Conclusion 177 10 Intersecting Issues and Their Implications for Human Rights Practice in Iran 179 Rebecca Barlow and Shahram Akbarzadeh Selected Bibliography 205 Index 215
Notes on Contributors Shahram Akbarzadeh is Research Professor of Middle East & Central Asian Politics at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Australia. He has an active research interest in the politics of Central Asia, Islam, Muslims in Australia and the Middle East. Shahram is author of Uzbekistan and the United States (Zed Books, 2011), US Foreign Policy in the Middle East (with Kylie Baxter, Routledge, 2008), Muslim Active Citizenship in the West (with Mario Peucker, Routledge, 2014), and The Politics and International Relations of the Middle East (with Kylie Baxter, Routledge, 2018). He is the founding Editor of the Islamic Studies Series, published by Melbourne University Press, and a regular public commentator. Payam Akhavan is an Associate Professor at McGill University s Faculty of Law (Montreal, Quebec). Payam teaches and researches on public international law, international dispute settlement, international criminal law, human rights and cultural pluralism. He received the degree of Doctor of the Science of Jurisprudence (SJD) from Harvard Law School and, prior to joining McGill, he was a Senior Fellow at Yale Law School, and a United Nations prosecutor at The Hague. In 2016, he was appointed a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration established under the 1899 Hague Convention on the Pacific Settlement of Disputes. Leila Alikarami is a lawyer and human rights advocate who has represented dozens of prisoners of conscience in Iran s Revolutionary Courts. She was an active member of Iran s One Million Signatures Campaign vii
viii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS demanding changes to all discriminatory laws against women. In 2009, she accepted the RAW in War Anna Politkovskaya Award on behalf of the women involved in the Campaign. Leila has written extensively on the issue of women s rights in Iran. She holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, where she is a Sakharov Fellow. Meysam Badamchi holds a PhD from Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, with a dissertation entitled Political Liberalism for Muslim Majority Societies. Since September 2013 Meysam has been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Modern Turkish Studies at Sȩhir University in Istanbul. His fields of research include contemporary political theory in Anglo-American and Muslim traditions, political liberalism, multiculturalism, and nationalism in Muslim contexts, Iranian and Turkish political thought, and Iranian and Turkish politics. Meysam is the author of Post-Islamist Political Theory: Iranian Intellectuals and Political Liberalism in Dialogue (Springer s Philosophy and Politics Critical Explorations series, 2017). He has published in a range of peer-reviewed journals, including Philosophy & Social Criticism and Iranian Studies. Meysam is a regular commentator on Turikish politics for BBC Persian and a freelance writer for variety of Iranian websites in the diaspora. Rebecca Barlow is a Senior Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests include women s leadership in Muslim contexts, with a focus on the Iranian women s movement and the politics of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Rebecca is the author of Universal Women s Human Rights and the Muslim Question: Iran s One Million Signatures Campaign (Melbourne University Publishing, 2012). Her work has been published in a range of peer-reviewed journals, including Human Rights Quarterly, Third World Quarterly, and the Social Movement Studies. In 2007 Rebecca was one of only four postgraduate research students selected globally to act as Rapporteur at the Nobel Women s Initiative s first international conference Women Redefining Peace in the Middle East and Beyond (Galway, Ireland). She has also interned and acted as Consultant for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Gender, Human Rights and Culture Branch, where she worked with a
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS ix team to implement the United Nations Global Forum of Faith- based Organisations in Population and Development (Istanbul, Turkey, 2008). Dara Conduit is an Associate Research Fellow at Deakin University. Her work has been published in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, International Community Law Review and the Middle East Journal. Ms. Conduit also holds a M. Litt from the University of St. Andrews, was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge in 2015 and has provided advice to the UN OHCHR s Working Group on Mercenaries. She recently submitted her PhD thesis on the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. Simin Fadaee is a Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology, University of Manchester. She received her PhD in Sociology from Albert- Ludwigs University of Freiburg in Germany and taught for several years at Humboldt University of Berlin before joining the University of Sheffield. Simin s research focuses broadly on issues of political sociology, social movements and activism, environmentalism and environmental politics. She is the author of Social Movements in Iran: Environmentalism and Civil Society (Routledge, 2012) and the editor of Understanding Southern Social Movements (Routledge, 2016). Simin also serves as a board member of the Research Committee on Social Movements and Social Classes (RC47) of the International Sociological Association (ISA). Ali Honari is a Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He holds an MA in Sociology from the Inter- University Centre for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS) at the University of Groningen. Ali s primary research interests include social movements, repression, social network analysis, political participation, and Iranian civil society, particularly the Iranian student movement. He has served on the editorial board of prominent Iranian journals dedicated to social and political affairs, including Goftogu. He is a frequent contributor to several Iranian journals. Ghoncheh Tazmini has a PhD in International Relations from the University of Kent at Canterbury, and a Masters in Russian and Post- Soviet Studies from the London School of Economics. Ghoncheh is the author of Khatami s Iran (I.B. Tauris, 2009, 2013) and Revolution and Reform in Russia and Iran (I.B. Tauris, 2012). Ghoncheh was formerly
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Iranian Heritage Foundation Visiting Fellow at the London Middle East Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She is currently an Associate Member of the Centre for Iranian Studies at SOAS, where she is an occasional lecturer for the Masters Program in Iranian Studies. Ghoncheh is regularly commissioned for consultancy with non-governmental organizations, law firms and diplomatic corps. She is also Research Associate at ISCTE-Centre for International Studies, University of Lisbon, Portugal.