WCI’s film screening and panel featured on Action News from Women’s Campaign International on Vimeo.

M Power Productions’ The Stoning of Soraya M. is a film adaptation of the sobering true story of an Iranian woman who was unjustly accused of adultery and stoned to death in 1986.  French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam first brought the story to the international stage in 1994 with his best-selling book of the same name. Soraya’s story exposes the harsh realities and injustice that women face worldwide, especially those living in strictly traditional, rural communities. The film demonstrates how quickly a lack of fair trial, legal transparency and respect for women’s human rights can spiral into a horrifying fate that is impossible to forget.

On Thursday, June 18^th, Women’s Campaign International (WCI) hosted 200 guests at the Bridge Theater in Philadelphia for a preview film screening of M Power Productions’ The Stoning of Soraya M.  Following the screening, WCI was honored to host the star of the film, Oscar-nominated actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, and University of Pennsylvania professors Dean Richard Gelles, and Professor Susan Sorenson for a post-film discussion panel.  The panelists touched on the topics of international women’s rights, domestic and gender-based abuse, secondary traumatization and mob violence. Guests then were invited to a reception where they could speak to the panelists and WCI staff more in depth on these topics.

Ms. Aghdashloo was pleased to announce that the film would be released this week in Philadelphia’s Ritz theaters. The actress will be in town to promote the film further and raise awareness about such devastating practices that threaten human rights and particularly women’s safety throughout the world.

The Stoning of Soraya M. film screening proved to be a very timely event, as recent elections in Iran have yielded great public dissent and protest worldwide. The topic of Iranian women’s rights has become an especially contentious topic during this election cycle – both for Iranian citizens and Iranian Americans. The declaration of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “landslide victory” in recent elections has been fervently opposed by tens of thousands of voters in Iran, many of whom have taken to the streets of Tehran in protest.  The implication of his continued leadership is a cause of concern for many in Iran, but most notably for women and women’s rights advocates. Although female candidates were prohibited from running in the past election cycle, women in Iran have been at the forefront of those visibly speaking out and protesting the results of the election.  Mr. Ahmadinejad has done very little to promote women’s empowerment and has  been known to jail women leaders of the One Million Signatures Campaign, a movement to reform Iran’s legal system to end gender discrimination.  Meanwhile, his main opposition candidate and a former prime minister, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, was well regarded among Iranian women and ran his campaign with promises to end discriminatory laws against women, appoint women to high positions, and disband the morality police that arrest women for immodesty in dress and behavior.

While the future of Iranian politics remains uncertain, The New York Times has reported as of Monday, June 22nd, that Iran’s most senior panel of election monitors has determined that the recent elections were flawed, and that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters.