Paula Quinteros

In the spring of 1980, Farrokhroo Parsa — Iran’s Minister of Education before the Islamic Revolution — was executed. She had devoted her life to fighting for women’s rights and did not betray her principles even after the victory of the Islamic Revolution. In the verdict issued by the new authorities, she was found guilty of “spreading corruption on earth and denying Allah.” “I would rather face death with open arms than live in disgrace, forcibly covered with a veil. I will not kneel before those who expect me to repent for half a century of my struggle for equality between men and women. I am not prepared to wear the chador and take a step backward in history,” Parsa wrote in her farewell letter to her children.