Author: Emmunah » Thu Sep 08, 2005 4:06 am
KURDISTAN, July 4 (DozaMe.org) - Poet and musician Naze Ezizi from eastern Kurdistan (northwestern Iran) was called to a security office in Mahabad where she was told, “Woman singing is against the law. The punishment is honour killing”. Iranian officials also warned all the Kurdish newspapers not to publish Ezizi’s poems in their daily editions.
Ezizi lives in Tehran but at the time of call from the Mahabad security office, she was visiting her parents in Mahabad. When she was in the security office, she was threatened and warned for the songs she sang. Security officers told Ezizi, “We are against the women singing. The punishment for people like you is honour killing or being stoned”. One of the ethnic Turkish members of the security personnel Peyxember Nejad asked Ezizi, “Why are your songs being played on Kurdistan TV” and wanted the singer to complain to Kurdistan TV about “Playing Muslim woman’s songs on their TV station”.
Ezizi told them “I will never betray them and I thank them for playing my songs”
Poems are prohibited
The security office fined her 600,000 Iran Rials (US$67) and told her that if she continues to sing songs the punishment will change to regm (honour killing).
She reacted by saying that all of her poems have been prohibited from all the Kurdish and Persian language newspapers in Iran. She pointed that before the ban many of the publications published her poems weekly in their columns and asked her to send more of her poems, but she said the government creates a lot of obstacles to her voice being heard.
‘Women’s image and voice belongs to her husband’
Ezizi said, “Art is my life. There is no meaning for me to be alive if my poems and songs are not allowed to exist” and “Even if I have been threatened with being “honour killed”, I will not give up my art”
Security officers also told Ezizi that,”Your songs have been played in Iraqi Kurdistan during the Hatemi period but now we have real Islamic justice and it is the time of emperor Ahmednejad‘s regime. We will not let everybody do as they wish. Women should stay home and should use her image and voice to entertain her husband and not anybody else”
(Source: Sherko Mahabadi, MHA)
Bravery makes her voice and face all the sweeter yes?
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