Women’s Day & Solidarity · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Iranian women and bloggers are organizing conferences for Women’s day.  Zannevesht (Persian), an Iran based blogger & journalist, informs us that at 8th of March a conference will be organized in social sciences faculty in university of Tehran. Main topic will be violence against women.
Cafe 84 (Persian), an Iran based blogger, informs us that another conference has been organized in Law faculty in university of Tehran. There was a book exposition too. Only books about prostitution, street kids and begging were banned.
Shahram Kholdi, UK based blogger & academic, has analysed Roya Hakakian's piece in the Wall Street journal. Mrs. Hakakian said there is no real solidarity between Iranians to back protest movements such as bus strike. Mr.Kholdi writes:
“I agree with Roya that the Iranian Human Rights Activist Community has failed to show the much expected solidarity, not only in supporting Tehran's Bus Drivers’ Strike, but also in acting upon many other instances of severe violation of human rights. We, those of us who claim to promote human rights (especially those of us who prefer to focus on Iran) to ensure that the Tehran's Bus Drivers’ Strike to be appear as frequently as possible on the front page of as many major Western newspapers. Iranian human rights activists have failed to mount a publicity campaign throughout the Western media to expose the most recent atrocities committed by the Islamic Republic's Judiciary-Intelligence complex internationally. From the young female journalist Elham Forutan, who was even rumoured to have attempted suicide in the Evin prison, to the Bus Drivers’ Strike, we could and should have done more and we have not.
I disagree with her that we have not been doing much at all. At least in the blogosphere, there have been many who have been active to ensure that the voice of the Striking Bus Drivers to be echoed as much as possible. Unfortunately, the Blogosphere's reach is limited and cannot be exaggerated. Starting with Regime Change Iran in December 2005, to Freethoughts Babak Seradjeh's piece . Indeed, Farid Pouya covered on Global Voices online, as well as his own weblog. These are just two examples, there are many others.