Farrochru Parsa
Farrochru Parsa ( Persian فرخرو پارسا Farrochru Pārsā ; born March 22, 1922 in Qom ; died May 8, 1980 in Tehran ) was an Iranian minister, educator and doctor. She campaigned for women's rights and was the first woman in higher political positions in Iran. She was the only female representative of the old political system to beexecutedafter the Islamic Revolution .
Life
Farrochru Parsa's parents were extremely progressive for their time, especially on women's rights. Parsa's mother Fachr-e Afagh still had to attend school in secret, as her father had threatened her with death if she attended a normal (non-religious) school. She was one of the first Iranian women to appear unveiled in public. Shortly before Farrochru Parsa's birth, she had started a magazine called World of Women , of which four issues were published. In the fourth edition of the magazine, she called for education for women and a reform of marriage law, causing such a stir that she and her family had to flee their city.
Farrochru Parsa received the same educational opportunities from her parents as her brothers. She started school at the age of five, and she received part of her high school education at a school run by supporters of the Baha'i community . After graduating from school, she attended the Tehran Teachers' Training Institute - pedagogy and medicine were the only higher education paths open to women. Shortly before graduating, she was given the opportunity to begin studying medicine. At the age of 20 she started teaching at Nour Baksh High School. At that time it was a better girls' high school, Parsa was supposed to make it an institution for the most intelligent girls in Tehran. In 1957 she became the director of this school and thus held one of the most prestigious offices in the Iranian education system. Until then she had also taught at other schools, including the future Queen Farah Diba among her students at the Jeanne d'Arc high school.
In the early 1960s, Parsa began to get involved in politics. She joined the recently founded Iran Novin party of Hassan Ali Mansur and Amir Abbas Hoveyda . When the Shah gave women access to parliament, Farrochru Parsa was one of the country's first women parliamentarians. Her parliamentary work focused on education issues and became a member of the committee that oversaw the education system. She later became State Secretary in the Ministry of Education - again the first woman in such a position. On August 27, 1968, she was appointed Minister of Education under Prime Minister Hoveyda. At the same time, she was promoted to the Politburo of her party.
In the six years of her tenure as minister, the Shah suddenly announced, without consulting his government, that all students in his country would from now on receive one free meal per day. In view of the fact that hardly any Iranian school had a kitchen or a dining room, it was necessary to improvise. There were irregularities in the procurement of large quantities of material for this program. Critics accused Parsa of embezzlement. She argued with the clergy about modernizing and improving the content of Iranian school books. Opponents spread rumors that she had converted to Baha'itum and would indulge in sexual debauchery. Rumors were also circulated about her family.
After her resignation, Farrochru Parsa devoted herself to philanthropy , engaged in educational institutions such as Farah University , founded a hospital management institute, and wrote articles, books, and her memoirs. Among other things, she criticized politics and society under the rule of the Shah and expressed her hopes for a better life after the Islamic revolution, which was already casting its shadow.
When the new Islamist regime imprisoned her brother for three months without explanation as part of repressive measures, she exercised extreme caution and did not go into her own house for months. Former employees at the ministry who asked for help advised her to flee Iran. In May 1979 a group of Revolutionary Guards led by their own nephew attempted to arrest Farrochru Parsa. She was only found in February 1980 at her son's house. In April 1980, a trial began before a revolutionary court, where they were accused, over nine days of the trial, of spreading corruption on earth and of having made speeches calling for the rebuilding of the Pahlavi dynasty . In this trial, in which the prosecutor also acted as a judge and an appeal was impossible, Parsa was sentenced to the death penalty. She was executed on May 8, 1980.
In her last letter from prison, Farrochru Parsa wrote to her children: "I am a doctor, so I am not afraid of death. Death is only a moment and nothing more. I am ready to receive death with open arms instead To live in it. Too bad I am forced to be veiled. I will not bow to those who expect me to regret my efforts for equality between men and women for fifty years. I am not ready to the chador to wear and take a step back in history. "
literature
- Fahime Mortazavi: A Biography of Farrokhru Parsa: An Advocate for Women's Rights and Education in Iran . Ph.D. diss., American University, 1986.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians . 1st edition. tape 2 . Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York 2008, ISBN 978-0-8156-0907-0 , pp. 978-984 .
- ↑ a b c Ardavan Bahrami: A Woman For All Seasons: In Memory Of Farrokhrou Parsa. The Iranian, May 9, 2005, accessed August 14, 2018 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Parsa, Farrochru |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pārsā, Farrochru; Pārsā, Farrokhroo; فرخرو پارسا (Persian) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Iranian educator, doctor, minister, women's rights activist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 22, 1922 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Qom , Iran |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 8, 1980 |
| Place of death | Tehran |