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Homa Darabi
Iranian pediatrician and political activist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Homa Darabi (Persian: هما دارابی; 1940–1994) was an Iranian child psychiatrist, academic, and political activist affiliated with the Nation Party of Iran. She is known for her political self-immolation in protest to the compulsory hijab, which led to her death.
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Biography
Darabi was born in 1940[3] in Tehran. Following the end of high school, she entered Medical School of University of Tehran in 1959.[4] In 1960, she was detained for organizing a student demonstration in favor of the National Front.[2] She married her classmate Manoochehr Keyhani in 1963.[4] After completing her studies, she practiced in the village Bahmanieh, located in northern Iran.[2] Darabi went to the United States to continue her studies, and obtained a pediatrics specialist degree in psychology.[4] She returned to Iran in 1976 and was employed as a professor of child psychiatry at University of Tehran, while she became once again politically active against the Pahlavi dynasty.[2] She also taught at the National University (later known as Shahid Beheshti University).[5]
She was dismissed from her position for "non-adherence to hijab" in December 1991. Although a tribunal in May 1993 overturned the decision, the university refused to restore her position.[2]
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Death
As a sign of protest, Darabi immolated herself by pouring petrol over her head on 21 February 1994, after she had taken her hijab off in a public thoroughfare near Tajrish.[2][5]
She died from the burns in a hospital the next day.[1]
See also
Further reading
- Darabi, Parvin; Thomson, Romin P (1999). Rage against the veil: the courageous life and death of an Islamic dissident. Amherst, N.Y. : Prometheus Books. ISBN 9781573926829.
References
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