Ms.
Masih Alinejad, who now lives
abroad, was born to a traditional and religious family in a small town in Iran.
Her student activities landed her in jail at the age of 20 while she was
pregnant. After her release, she went to Tehran and worked as a journalist for
several mainstream newspapers, starting with the daily Hambastegi, and later with the Iranian Labour News Agency as a parliamentary correspondent.
However, her journalism caused trouble and in 2005, her expose of parliamentary
corruption got her expelled from the legislature.
On
February 22, 2015, at the7th annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and
Democracy, a global
coalition of 20 non-governmental organizations announced that Iranian freelance
journalist, Masih Alinejad, creator of a viral Facebook page that allows
Iranian women to upload photos of themselves without the mandatory headscarf,
is the inaugural 2015 recipient of the Geneva Summit Women’s Rights Award. Upon
receiving this award, Alinejad said, “I'm delighted to receive this award. From
7-year-old schoolgirls to 70-year-old grandmothers, women in Iran are all
forced to wear the hijab. Hopefully this award will create an opportunity for
the voices of Iranian women who say no to the forced hijab to echo throughout
the halls of the United Nations.”Alinejad hopes the award will “raise global
awareness about Iranian women who are standing up for their basic rights.” She
concluded her speech by stating, "Like the leaders of the American civil rights movement,
like Martin Luther King, we the women of my land also have a dream — we dream
that one day our voice gets heard, the world stand up with us and compulsory
hijab leaves Iran forever.”Click here to read more.
