IRAN: WOMEN TO STAGE MAJOR RALLY IN TEHRAN [View All]

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Tehran, 7 June (AKI) - Iranian women will stage an unauthorised rally on Monday in Tehran to demand more rights. Organizers said on Wednesday that 400 activists including men have already signed up to take part in the demonstration which will group for the first time Iran's leading feminists and intellectuals in favour of a secular state, including Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. Demonstrators want among other things the abolition of polygamy, of men's right to repudiate their wives, the joint custody of children and a law raising the minimum age required to get married to 18 from today's 13.

The activists are also demanding that women be allowed to pass on their Iranian nationality to chidlren fathered by a foreigner and to testify in court - something they are not currently allowed to do - as well as other reforms banning the social and professional discrimination of women.

Among the intellectuals supporting the rally, which will be staged in one of the capital's main squares, are uman rights activist Mehranghiz Kar and leading poet Simin Behbahani, along with writers, journalists, painters, teachers, professionals and intellectuals.