niyad
niyad's Journal'Stop killing us': Huge crowds rally in Brazil, decrying rise in femicide (trigger warning)
(And the MISOGYNIST, PATRIARCHAL, CHRISTOFASCIST, THEOCRATIC, WAR ON WOMEN continues apace)
‘Stop killing us’: Huge crowds rally in Brazil, decrying rise in femicide (trigger warning)
Demonstrators march in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other cities, calling for an end to femicide, rape and misogyny.
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Women on stilts participate in a nationwide protest against femicide and gender-based violence, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, December 7, 2025 [Marina Calderon/ Reuters]
By News Agencies
Published On 8 Dec 20258 Dec 2025
Tens of thousands of women have marched in cities across Brazil, denouncing femicide and gender-based violence, after a series of high-profile cases that shocked the country. Women of all ages and some men took to the streets in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other cities on Sunday, calling for an end to femicide, rape and misogyny.
In Rio, the protesters put out dozens of black crosses, while others bore stickers with messages such as “machismo kills”. And in Sao Paulo, the demonstrators chanted, “Stop killing us”, and held placards that read, “Enough of femicide”. The protesters in Rio’s Copacabana included Alline de Souza Pedrotti, whose sister was killed on November 28 by a male colleague. Pedrotti said the person who killed her sister, an administrative employee at a school, did not accept having female bosses. “I’m devastated,” she told The Associated Press news agency. “But I’m fighting through the pain, and I won’t stop. I want changes in the legislation and new protocols to prevent this kind of crime from happening again.”
The protesters also denounced other shocking cases that took place last month in Sao Paulo and in the southern city of Florianopolis. In Sao Paulo on November 28, Taynara Souza Santos was run over by her ex-boyfriend and trapped by the car, which dragged her over concrete for one kilometre (0.6 mile). The 31-year-old’s injuries were so severe, her legs were amputated. Video footage of the incident went viral. And in Florianopolis on November 21, English teacher Catarina Kasten was raped and strangled to death on a trail next to a beach on her way to a swimming lesson.
These recent cases were “the final straw”, said Isabela Pontes, who was on Sao Paulo’s Paulista Avenue. “I have suffered many forms of abuses, and today, I am here to show our voice.” A decade ago, Brazil passed a law recognising the crime of femicide, defined as the death of a woman in the domestic sphere or as resulting from contempt for women. Last year, 1,492 women were victims of femicide, the highest number since the law was introduced in 2015, according to the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety. “We’re seeing an increase in numbers, but also in the intensity and cruelty of
. . . .
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/8/stop-killing-us-huge-crowds-rally-in-brazil-decrying-rise-in-femicide
Protesters worldwide demand end to violence against women
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Protesters worldwide demand end to violence against women
The UN finds home most dangerous place for women, with about 50,000 of them killed by partners or family last year.
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Women take part in a demonstration on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in Guatemala City. [Johan Ordonez/AFP]
Protesters around the world have rallied to express their anger over the persistence of violence against women and to demand greater public action to combat the scourge. November 25 marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, a global call to raise awareness about all forms of abuse targeting women and girls. About 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members last year, according to a report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the UN Women to mark the day. That is 60 percent of all women killed globally that year. By comparison, 11 percent of male murder victims were killed by someone close to them. The figure of 50,000, based on data from 117 countries, equates to 137 women per day, or about one every 10 minutes, the report said.
Femicide continues to claim the lives of tens of thousands of women and girls each year, with no signs of improvement. The home remains the most dangerous place for women and girls in terms of the risk of homicide, the study concluded.The report also highlighted how technological developments have exacerbated certain types of violence against women and girls and created new forms, including nonconsensual image sharing, doxxing, and deepfake videos.
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
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A protester shouts slogans during a march to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Athens, Greece. [Louiza Vradi/Reuters]
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
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People carry drums during a march to mark the day in Madrid, Spain. [Violeta Santos Moura/Reuters]
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
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Protesters take part in a memorial service held at the site where a woman, Yessica Solis, was shot dead earlier this month, in San Salvador, El Salvador. [Jose Cabezas/Reuters]
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
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A woman shouts slogans during a protest to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Santiago, Chile. [Pablo Sanhueza/Reuters]
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
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Women attend a torch procession to mark the day in Dhaka, Bangladesh. [Munir Uz Zaman/AFP]
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
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Dancers of the Compagnia Nazionale del Balletto, meaning National Ballet Company in Italian, perform on the Spanish Steps in Rome, Italy. [Andreas Solaro/AFP]
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
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Women play instruments during a march to mark the day in Mexico City, Mexico. [Franyeli Garcia/AFP]
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/11/26/protesters-worldwide-demand-end-to-violence-against-women
'Bad girls' is how society labels women in prison. But what if that label is a lie?
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‘Bad girls’ is how society labels women in prison. But what if that label is a lie?
Sabrina Mahtani
Incarceration should be a last resort, yet this broken and brutal system punishes marginalised women, most of whom are inside for non-violent crimes
Supported by
theguardian.org
Wed 3 Dec 2025 01.00 EST
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/03/prison-feminist-issue-jailing-marginalised-women-ruins-lives-children#img-1
‘When you imprison a woman, you imprison a family,” a young woman in Sierra Leone told me, cradling her small baby in a damp cell. My mind flashed back to being a teenager, hearing my mother sob after receiving a phone call to say that my father had been arrested in Zambia for political reasons. I understand how children are collateral damage of imprisonment, and over 20 years as a lawyer, I know that is even more true when women – primary caregivers – are arrested. I have witnessed the devastating impact of incarceration on hundreds of women and their children but also how their voices are ignored, even in women’s rights spaces.
“Bad girls” is how society labels women in prison. But what if that label is a lie? The majority of women are imprisoned for non-violent offences, and my research, conducted by Women Beyond Walls and Penal Reform International over the past two years, shows that in most cases women are criminalised due to poverty, mental illness, abuse or discrimination. Half of all women in prison, as opposed to less than a third of men, have a drug dependence in the year before imprisonment. In Pollsmoor prison in South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was once detained, a woman told me how she had been arrested for shoplifting, as she tried to feed her family. In Sierra Leone, I documented countless women who were arrested for owing money. In Kenya, I heard stories of women being arrested for “hawking” – selling food without a licence – to survive. Women from Mexico explained how the US-led “war on drugs” is fuelling a rise in the number of women behind bars, especially in Latin America and Asia. Many women sell drugs due to poverty and coercion; though not major players in the drug trade, they are easier to apprehend by police trying
to meet quotas.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/03/prison-feminist-issue-jailing-marginalised-women-ruins-lives-children#img-2
A two-year-old boy pushes a pram through the female inmates’ cellblock in Ciudad Juarez. In 2023, 344 children lived with their mothers in Mexican prisons. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty
The small proportion of women who commit violent crimes are usually survivors of violence themselves. Women such as 21-year-old Chisomo from Malawi, who was arrested for the murder of her ex-partner. He sexually assaulted her and threatened to kill her if she left him. Chisomo finally fled after he attempted to stab her. However, he later attacked her, stabbing her in her arm and chest. She grabbed the knife and struck back in self-defence. I have collaborated with lawyers across the world who fight for legal processes to take into consideration a woman’s background of poverty and abuse. But despite these efforts, a legal system built by men and for men continues to fail women through sexism and gender bias. Those who do not fulfil traditional stereotypes of the moral and motherly woman are often punished more harshly.
. . . . .
Next year offers advocacy opportunities to redress this omittance – from the UN Commission on the Status of Women to the Women Deliver conference. States must be held accountable for their failure to implement UN standards and lack of investment in alternatives to incarceration. Donors need to resource the vibrant movement of women with lived experience, lawyers, family members and activists, who are chipping away at a broken and brutal system. Prison is a feminist issue and is deeply intertwined with other women’s rights struggles, including gender-based violence, reproductive rights and poverty. Reducing women’s mass incarceration must be a global priority so that marginalised women and their children stop being punished for systemic injustice.
Sabrina Mahtani is a Zambian-British human rights lawyer and founder of Women Beyond Walls, which campaigns against the mass incarceration of women, and AdvocAid in Sierra Leone
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/03/prison-feminist-issue-jailing-marginalised-women-ruins-lives-children
'The patriarchy runs deep': women still getting a raw deal in the workplace as equality remains a dream
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‘The patriarchy runs deep’: women still getting a raw deal in the workplace as equality remains a dream
Women work longer and per hour earn a third of what men are paid, in figures that have changed little in 35 years, UN report shows
Supported by
theguardian.org
Sarah Johnson
Wed 10 Dec 2025 02.00 EST
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/10/women-workplace-equality-gender-world-un-report#img-1
“Gender inequality is one of the most entrenched and significant problems of our time,” says Jocelyn Chu, a programme director at UN Women, responding to the stark figures contained in this year’s World Inequality report, which labels gender inequality a “defining and persistent feature of the global economy”. Women work longer and earn just a third – 32% – of what men get per hour, when paid and unpaid labour, such as domestic work, are taken into account. Even when unpaid domestic labour is not included, women only earn 61% of what men make, according to the report.
Those aged 15 to 64 work 10 hours more a week, on average, than men. They earned just over a quarter (about 28%) in 2025 of total income around the world, a share that has barely shifted over the past 35 years.
The report, prefaced by leading economists Jayati Ghosh and Joseph Stiglitz, reveals that the richest 10% of the global population own close to three-quarters of all wealth, while the poorest half hold barely 2%, and looks at how inequality affects every aspect of people’s lives. When it comes to gender, it noted that despite decades of anti-discrimination laws and advocacy, equality remains a distant dream. “It’s not surprising,” says Chu, who adds that gender inequality has continued to be entrenched in recent years with “the backsliding of democratic institutions and threats to women’s rights”.
Women work more hours than men everywhere, according to the report. The largest gaps in working hours are between 12 to 13 a week in the Middle East and north Africa, east Asia, and south and south-east Asia. The smallest gaps of six to seven hours a week were seen in Europe, North America and Oceania. Women are employed less than men across all regions of the world. Structural barriers such as access to affordable childcare, transport and family leave policies hinder women’s ability to enter and remain in employment, says the report. In south and south-east Asia, the Middle East and north Africa about one in three women of working age is employed, compared with more than two-thirds of men. Other regions, including Europe and North America, have higher female employment rates, yet the gap is still significant.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/10/women-workplace-equality-gender-world-un-report#img-2
A woman pours rice from a bucket into a larger container on the ground. Several other women perform similar tasks in a field, among large piles of harvested rice.
Women harvest rice in Moossou, Côte d’Ivoire. Women often take on low skilled, lower-paying jobs to fit around care responsibilities. Photograph: Legnan Koula/EPA
. . . . . . . .
Aatif Somji, a senior research officer in gender equality and social inclusion at the thinktank ODI global, says the gender pay gap is “profoundly unfair” and that there has been “so little progress because unpaid care work still largely falls on women’s shoulders”. He adds that although these “invisible tasks sustain society”, they are still coded as “women’s work”. “This often makes it impossible for women to compete on an equal footing with men in the paid workforce, as they take up lower quality, lower-paying jobs of part-time work to balance their care responsibilities – or are kept out of better-paying jobs because of deep-rooted gender norms and stereotypes,” he says. While some progress has been made, says Chu, including improvements around women’s labour rights and legislation relating to equal pay, change still needs to happen. “The patriarchy runs deep,” she says. “It is embedded in institutions and economic systems. It spans from the household to government, to international organisations.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/10/women-workplace-equality-gender-world-un-report
A Birth Control Battle: Survivors Take Pfizer to Court Over Depo-Provera
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A Birth Control Battle: Survivors Take Pfizer to Court Over Depo-Provera
Jaharra Anglin Stubbs | December 4, 2025
A lawsuit has been filed against Pfizer relating to Depo-Provera, formally known as depot medroxyprogesterone acetate, a progesterone-based birth control injection you receive once every three months. The lead plaintiff, Robin Phillip, who used the shot for nearly 30 years, is a survivor of intracranial meningioma—a tumor in the lining of the brain. Phillip only stopped using the shot during her two pregnancies and believed that her symptoms were signs of a more serious issue. Although emergency surgery was successful, she lost vision in her left eye and faced a long recovery.
In her claim, along with 1,000 other co-plaintiffs, she states that Pfizer knew about the medication’s effects and risks, but failed to warn its patients. Nonetheless, Pfizer submitted a motion to dismiss the case and reaffirmed its confidence in the medication despite the allegations.
Recent studies have confirmed that meningiomas are usually not cancerous. However, there are patients who received Depo-Provera that had a higher risk of meningioma, especially with prolonged use and at older ages. Although this area is still under ongoing research, it is known that women are more likely to develop this type of brain tumor by age 50. Additionally, some findings suggest that after using the Depo Shot, pregnancy and menopausal hormone therapy may speed up meningioma growth.
Although 1 in 4 sexually active women use the Depo injection nationally, Black women use nearly double. This makes Black women even more predisposed to the risk of meningioma in the United States. It has already been proven that Black women are 41% more likely to develop cervical cancer. Furthermore, Black women are more likely to be diagnosed with HPV, which often serves as a preliminary diagnosis that can lead to other forms of cancer. Black women are also among the most affected by medical racism and discrimination within the healthcare system. Although the risks of this medication are not taken seriously, it is crucial to recognize how much this medication impacts its largest patient demographic.
Although the FDA has declined to reevaluate these concerns at this time, other countries have issued warnings about the risks associated with Depo, including European agencies, South Africa, and Canada. This indicates that there is a serious concern with the risks. While the case is not yet fully resolved, the survivors’ testimonies suggest that the FDA and Pfizer may need to evaluate the risks of this medication and consider how to alert consumers.
https://feminist.org/news/a-birth-control-battle-survivors-take-pfizer-to-court-over-depo-provera/
Project 2026 Declares Open War on Women's Rights
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Project 2026 Declares Open War on Women’s Rights
PUBLISHED 12/13/2025 by Kathy Spillar
Project 2026 is not destiny. It is a warning—and one we must answer with the full force of a movement that has never accepted a future written for us by someone else.
Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, speaks at the National Conservative Convention in Washington D.C., Sept. 3, 2025. Vought is a key author of Project 2025’s 900‑page governing guide. (Dominic Gwinn / Middle East Images via AFP)
When the Heritage Foundation released its new policy blueprint for 2026 this week—an extension of the now-infamous Project 2025—it did so with the calm confidence of an institution convinced no one will stop it. The document is shorter than last year’s 900-page “Mandate for Leadership,” but no less dangerous. It is, in fact, more candid. Project 2026 lays out a government redesigned to control women’s bodies, erase LGBTQ+ lives, dismantle civil rights protections and roll back decades of hard-won progress. Wrapped in the language of “family,” “sovereignty” and “restoring America,” it is a direct attempt to impose a narrow, rigid ideology on an entire nation. Make no mistake: This is a plan for forced motherhood, government-policed gender and the end of women’s equality as we know it.
A National Strategy to Control Women’s Bodies
Project 2026 picks up where Project 2025 left off: banning abortion pills, weaponizing the 150-year-old Comstock Act to criminalize medication by mail, embedding fetal personhood across federal agencies, and stripping every federal safeguard protecting reproductive freedom. As the Women’s March’s analysis notes bluntly, this blueprint is “designed to rebuild a country where women, queer people, trans people, and anyone outside their ‘ideal family’ have fewer rights.” Heritage puts this in softer words—saying that “every child conceived deserves to be born to a married mother and father” and pledging to reduce “the supply and demand for abortion at all stages.” But we know exactly what this means. A country where a woman’s future is no longer her own.
Eliminating the Department of Education—and Women’s Rights With It
The plan also endorses dismantling the U.S. Department of Education entirely. Heritage has pledged to “reclaim higher education from the radical Left,” a phrase that has become a catch-all for eliminating protections for survivors of sexual assault, Title IX enforcement, LGBTQ+ inclusion and academic freedom itself. Who benefits when civil rights oversight disappears? Not girls. Not young women on campus. Not any student whose gender, sexuality, race or disability puts them at risk of discrimination. This is not “parental rights.” It is state-engineered ignorance.
A polling station in Smyrna, Ga., on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024. (Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP via Getty Images)
. . . . .
The United States has faced coordinated backlash against women’s rights before—and every time, women have organized, resisted and reshaped the nation. The women who fought for suffrage did not stop when they were dismissed as unreasonable. The women who pushed Title IX into law did not stop when they were told girls didn’t need equal opportunities. The women who built the modern reproductive rights movement did not stop when the courts narrowed their freedoms. And we will not stop now. Project 2026 is not destiny. It is a warning—and one we must answer with the full force of a movement that has never accepted a future written for us by someone else.The coming year will test our resolve. But we have marched before. We have organized before. We have voted in record numbers before. And we will do it again. Because women’s rights are not a “radical ideology.” They are the foundation of a free and democratic society. And we intend to keep it that way.
https://msmagazine.com/2025/12/13/project-2026-heritage-foundation-womens-rights-childcare-education-department-abortion/
Police Officer Domestic Violence Is A Crisis. It's Time for States to Take Action. (trigger warning)
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Police Officer Domestic Violence Is A Crisis. It’s Time for States to Take Action. (trigger warning)
PUBLISHED 12/11/2025 by Brian Stanley
Elevated rates of intimate partner violence in police families, paired with weak oversight and harmful policies, make officer-abusers a uniquely urgent public safety threat.
Police tape is shown at the scene in Brampton, Ontario, on December 9, 2025, of a shooting that happens the previous evening in the parking lot of the Shoppers World mall in the Hurontario St. and Steeles area. Peel Regional Police say shots are fired into a vehicle with a lone occupant, killing a 25-year-old Brampton man. (Photo by Mike Campbell/NurPhoto via Getty Images)Studies and reviews show intimate partner violence in law enforcement families is elevated. (Mike Campbell / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Domestic violence by police officers is a nationwide scourge. While the actual number of cases that happen every year is unknown, it’s likely in the tens of thousands. Police officers in almost every state have been charged with domestic violence since the start of 2025. Such figures demonstrate that police officer domestic violence is a structural failure, not the isolated misconduct of ‘a few bad apples.’ These numbers become even more sobering in light of police officer-abusers’ training and responsibilities, which makes them uniquely dangerous, and extremely undertrained: On average, less than 2 percent of police academy training time is spent on domestic violence response, while 17 percent is spent on weapons and defensive training. And when there’s smoke, there’s fire. Law enforcement, and the criminal-legal system more broadly, are notoriously bad at supporting domestic violence survivors. Many law enforcement organizations resisted abuser gun bans since their inception, despite ample evidence that owning a firearm increases domestic violence abuse risk. Similarly, the first “modern” domestic violence laws didn’t come into play until the mid-1970s, and the first rules about police officer domestic violence didn’t surface until the 1990s, though it’s unclear if they’ve been implemented or followed.
“Violence begins in the home,” wrote Gloria Steinem in the August 1976 issue of Ms., “and it must end there.”
Case and point can be found in Newark, N.J., where the Newark Police Department, who has a police domestic violence policy, was just recently released from an oversight measure implemented by the Department of Justice nearly 10 years ago. Despite a decade of monitoring and reforms, the final report about the oversight decree noted that “domestic violence by [Newark Police Department] officers remains a serious concern.” Why is it that oversight can be lifted while abuse remains in the ranks? As one practitioner notes, maybe it’s because “law enforcement’s response to domestic violence in their own family reveals their genuine attitudes and beliefs about domestic violence in any family.”
Given these circumstances, it’s time for states to take action to protect survivors and change the broken systems that have for too long let this violence go on. Addressing this crisis is particularly challenging given the nature of police officer domestic violence. Officer-abusers often have close ties to fellow police, district attorneys and first responders—all of the people involved with responding to and prosecuting domestic violence calls. Alongside access to firearms, they also have insider knowledge of how domestic violence cases are investigated and where domestic violence shelters are located. And they have training in authority and control tactics used to subdue people during an arrest, which further imperils victims. For decades, the response to domestic violence writ large has been criminalization: Punish the abuser to prevent the crime. Currently, this looks like public policy dominated by laws and funding that address domestic violence with intervention from the criminal-legal system rather than directly supporting victim needs. When it comes to police officer domestic violence, the downsides of this approach are easy to see. As a loved one of a woman murdered by her officer-abuser spouse told reporters, “Who was she supposed to call for help? When things go sideways, you call 911. He was 911.”
. . . . .
For one, redirecting resources away from criminalization through law enforcement and courts toward programs designed to address the root causes and consequences of domestic violence is an excellent first step. This will look different from community to community, but is usually rooted in anti-poverty, health promotion, gender-based violence prevention, mutual aid and safe, private batterer-intervention programs. We also need more, and better, research on police domestic violence. The first and last time U.S. scholars talked to survivors of police domestic violence was the early 1990s, and those studies gave the highest-ever rates of police domestic violence. (Forty percent of survivors in those studies reported their partner violently losing control within the last year.) Since then, *********researchers have only talked to officer-abusers and their colleagues—not to survivors themselves.********* Every level of government can help change this by funding both the researchers who collect information on the topic and domestic violence care services for victims. In 2023, 40 percent of calls to the National Domestic Violence Hotline went unanswered due to staff and funding shortages, and domestic violence shelters constantly face funding cuts. If practitioners want to get involved, this is a great space to start. Officer-abusers and their victims make clear that something is deeply wrong in our domestic violence support system. For now, we don’t understand the depth of that dysfunction, but we can be certain that more funding, better policy and less criminalization will help drive a better future.
https://msmagazine.com/2025/12/11/police-officer-domestic-violence-women/
Reza Khandan: A Year in Prison for Supporting Women's Rights
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Reza Khandan: A Year in Prison for Supporting Women’s Rights
PUBLISHED 12/12/2025 by Jeff Kaufman
Under the threat of retaliation, Reza Khandan refuses to be silenced.
https://cdn-lblif.nitrocdn.com/dGudqkMNFXTXrXjkpgPQKThunaLAxBAM/assets/images/optimized/rev-b4b05ea/msmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Nasrin-outside-Evin-Prison-2025-1024x768.webp
Nasrin Sotoudeh holds a picture of her husband Reza Khandan outside Evin Prison in Tehran. (Courtesy of Sotoudeh)
Sunday marks one year since 60-year-old Iranian human rights activist Reza Khandan was arrested in what was clearly another official attack on his family. Political prisoners in authoritarian regimes are meant to disappear into hopeless silence, but Khandan has become a force to be reckoned with. A graphic artist by vocation, Khandan has dedicated much of his life to campaigning for social progress in Iran. He met his wife, internationally acclaimed human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, when they were working for a political journal called A Gate for Dialogue. They were married in 1995. During Sotoudeh’s time in prison on charges of “spreading propaganda” and “conspiring to harm state security” (from 2010 to 2013, then again from 2018 to 2021), Khandan raised their young children, ran his business, and regularly put himself at risk advocating for his wife’s freedom and for the causes they share.
Reza Khandan. (Courtesy of Sotoudeh)
“During my long years of imprisonment, Reza never complained,” Sotoudeh said. “He was threatened many times for supporting me, but even in the darkest days of our lives, he has always stood on the side of the truth with a courage that gives me a lot of strength.” A special focus for Khandan and Sotoudeh is the symbol of their country’s repressive laws against women, the compulsory hijab, or headscarf. Khandan said in an interview for CNN International, “When you respect a person’s individuality and freedom, it goes beyond the hijab or clothing choices. I’m not against women who want to be veiled. I am against the government mandating the hijab for all women, regardless of their faith or practices. And it’s not just about the hijab. I’m against the forced imposition of any religion or belief.” Khandan was first arrested in 2018, along with his friend Dr. Farhad Meysami, for creating thousands of handmade buttons that said, “I OPPOSE THE MANDATORY HIJAB.” The charges against them included “gathering and collusion against national security,” “propaganda against the regime” and “spreading and promoting not wearing a hijab.” Khandan served 111 days of a six-year sentence before being released on bail so he could care for his children while Nasrin Sotoudeh was in prison. A severely malnourished Farhad was freed in February 2023.
Reza Khandan and Nasrin Sotoudeh with a button that says, “I oppose the mandatory hijab.” (Courtesy of Sotoudeh)
On Dec. 14, 2024, Khandan was re-arrested at his home and taken away without having a moment to say goodbye to his family. He is now facing another two and a half years in the foul and overcrowded Evin Prison, the same facility that held Nasrin Sotoudeh for over half a decade. Until this year’s war with Israel, Evin housed between 15,000 and 20,000 prisoners. Along with inedible food and widespread vermin, inmates experience beatings, denial of medical care, months in solitary confinement, brutal interrogations, and torture. Sotoudeh said, “Reza has not been idle. As soon as he entered Ward 8 of the prison last year, he went on a hunger strike to protest the almost unlivable conditions. This prompted the prison authorities to take steps to improve some of the conditions.”
. . . .
Reza Khandan (second from left) with his family: son Nima, daughter Mehraveh and wife Nasrin. (Courtesy of Sotoudeh)
. . . . .
Nasrin Sotoudeh holds a photo of her husband Reza Khandan, who was arrested in his house on Dec. 13, 2024, and taken into custody.
. . . .
Reza Khandan and fellow activist Farhad Meysami print buttons that say, “I oppose the mandatory hijab,” in Farsi. (Courtesy of Sotoudeh)
. . . .
Reza Khandan and Nasrin Sotoudeh. (Courtesy of Sotoudeh)
“The crime for which Reza Khandan is in prison is the crime of love,” writes Ariel Dorfman, author, human rights advocate and friend of Sotoudeh and Khandan. “Not just love of his country and its culture. Not just love of humanity and our rights to be human. Not just love for the future. But also, the real reason why he is being punished: Reza loves the extraordinary Nasrin with whom he shares a life, a land, and a cause. How those who persecute Reza must fear his loyalty and steadfastness. He will prevail.” Everything in the previous 12 months, and in his life, shows that the Iranian regime will crack well before Reza Khandan bends an inch. “I will continue until I achieve legal rights, restore my family’s dignity, and change the conditions of the prison administration,” Khandan wrote. “May the shadow of terror and tyranny be removed from our beloved country one day. And finally, I would like to add: ‘I object to the compulsory hijab!’”
https://msmagazine.com/2025/12/12/reza-khandan-prison-womens-rights-iran-nasrin-sotoudeh/
I was deeply disturbed watching Jimmy Kimmel showing video of
krasnov in PA yesterday. I had, of course, heard about the pencils and dolls. . but the rest of it??? It is one thing to READ about pencils and dolls, but to actually see and listen to whatever he was spewing??? If any of my memory care clients had EVER started speaking or acting that way, I would have been on the phone with their primary at once, while I was counting all their meds. Something was even more off with him than usual last night. Please, please, orange, just go already. Whatever mind you may once have had, went away ages ago. Would that you did the same.
Desensitizing, brutalizing. Yesterday, I read a DU post about a story
from the Rome of gladiators and christians and lions ( post 14 helpfully provided the link). The person in the story was apparently a kind and decent person who abhored violence and bloodlust. Friends persuaded him to go to the arena with them. Although originally appalled and horrified, he soon becomes just as bloodthirsty as the rest.
Lawrence O'Donnell made a similar point in talking about showing the video of that second strike on the fishing boat. He said that one of the purposes of showing that over and over again was to get people into the same bloodthirsty, murderous mindset as pete and donnie and the rest (paraphrasing here). Deliberate programming and manipulation to desensitize us to the further horrors they are practically slavering to unleash. Of course, many are already there, they want the rest of us there also.
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