Every pictures of this portfolio was made in 21st-century Iran, state where I have been going regularly for 10 years.
For this tenth presidential election since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the women’s participation (as well as the youth one) was decisive. The weight of their vote had permitted, in 1997, the election of Mohammed Khatami. Their abstention had given the victory to Mahmoud Ahmadinedjad in 2005.
During the electoral campaign, the women’s mobilisation was reinforced by a new fact: reformer candidates, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi’ wives have taken a great part in their husband’s campaign, and have not hesitated to take the microphone in public to reclaim more rights. While the two conservative candidates, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mohsen Rezai, have left their wives in the background.
In Iran, women can’t work or have a passport without the agreement of their husband. Because of the Islamic rule, in court, their testimonies are worth half of a man’s one. They are disadvantaged for legacy, divorce, or for the custody.
Despite this position in society, Iranian women flock in university, work in administration, and in banks.
They militate with strength, sometimes with their lives at stake. In this way, the “One million signing campaign” aiming to obtain parity, in 2006, received in France, the Simone de Beauvoir Award for the freedom of women in 2009.
But for four years, I have noticed an increased repression on all the kinds of freedom. What is happening today, this bloody revolt is the result of four years when the government try to remove all the expression spaces.

Isabelle Eshraghi