ABC blog

Renowned Iranian singer and composer Sussan Deyhim performed at the National Geographic in Washington DC on October 27^th and captivated the audience with her rich, soulful, and haunting vocals. The multimedia event included master santour player Alan Kushan, singer and songwriter Arash Sobhani, young Iranian musician Behfar Bahadoran, and a music video honoring Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman who was shot to death in the streets of Tehran during a peaceful protest after the 2009 presidential election in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

At the event, the Executive Director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation (ABF), Roya Boroumand, spoke about the legal and civil discrimination that women face in Iran. Ms. Boroumand also talked about the widespread desire among Iranian women across the country for democracy and against injustice. For example, ABF’s documentation and research work over the years has shown that in the Islamic Republic of Iran, women from diverse backgrounds – from wealthy and poor families, from urban and rural areas, women who are atheists and religious devotees, and women who are high-school teenagers and master’s degree candidates — may hold differing political views, but they are all united by their collective desire for equal rights and democracy.

ABF’s slideshow was also screened at the event. The slideshow featured Iranian women, who, as students, have been among those arbitrarily arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran over the last three decades. The students featured in the slideshow were drawn from a list of more than 1,600 executed high school and university students in the Omid Memorial and from ABF’s list of more than 11,000 students punished or intimidated by the Islamic Republic’s judiciary, security and paramilitary forces, university disciplinary committees, and ideological and political bureaus.