Simone de Beauvoir Prize 2009 goes to the One Million Signatures Campaign in Iran

This is very exciting news. The winner of this year’s Simone de Beauvoir prize for Women’s Freedom is the Iranian One Million Signatures Campaign , a campaign for equality in the legal system. The winner of the Simone de Beauvoir prize was announced today January 9th, on the birthday of this feminist icon. The announcement was made by Julia Kristeva , the founder and head of the prize committee.

I could not find an English or French link on RFI but here is the link from RFI in persian and this is the announcement for last year’s winner , Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen.

The One Million Signatures Campaign is a grassroots signature drive and has no hierarchy or central location. It is the result of creative imaginations of Iranian women inside Iran and their persistence throughout over 2 years of activism under pressure. There are several websites in several cities in Iran (and in a few countries among the Iranian diaspora) that belong to the activists of this campaign, such as:

Change for Equality

Feminist School

and many more,…

(this last link belongs to us, a local branch of this campaign in california that aims to raise awareness about this campaign among the Iranian diaspora in the US: Campaign in California)