Guest Contributor

Death Sentence for Arghavan Fallahi in Iran: An Urgent Call to Action to Save Her Life by Iran Human Rights Monitor

This article appeared on the website of Iran Human Rights Monitor on July 3, 2026. It is reprinted with permission. You can see the original and learn more about Iran HRM here.

The death sentence issued for Arghavan Fallahi stands as an immediate and critical warning regarding the imminent danger of execution facing a female political prisoner in Iran. Arghavan Fallahi, 25 years old, was reportedly sentenced to death on July 1, 2026 (10 Tir 1405) by Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Abolghasem Salavati (notoriously known as the “Execution Judge”), with the verdict formally communicated to her through her legal counsel. The acute urgency of this case stems from the fact that the primary accusations against her were framed within security cases linked to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). This death sentence follows months of arbitrary detention, prolonged solitary confinement, enforced disappearance, relentless interrogations, and explicit reports of torture and coercive pressure aimed at manufacturing a state security case.

Ariadne & Me – Mother Magic by Arianne MacBean

The fortune teller stood at a square park table, her hair wrapped in a gold scarf, stacking perfectly formed human fingernails. Across from her, I watched as she methodically piled and unpiled the fingernails according to some obscure but precise calculation known only to her. She measured them against a line carved into the wood marked with tiny incremental notches.

Reading the messages she found there, she spoke.

“Your mother and father are not one, but All.”

My friend Jacqueline, standing between us, immediately blurted out, “What the fuck does that mean? That doesn’t make any sense!”

But I answered with unexpected certainty.

“No. She’s right. They are the archetypal Mother and Father. They are not mine alone.”

The fortune teller waved us closer.

“Come on. I have to finish these visions so I can go to heaven.”

This was the dream I had the night I arrived on the Isle of Mull in western Scotland for a two-week Goddess Pilgrimage. I believed I was traveling to my fatherland, the home of Clan MacBean, to heal old wounds and unbind myself from contracts unknowingly inherited through my patrilineal line.

The Creative Divine: L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon by Elanur Williams

Montgomery, L. M. *Anne of Green Gables*. Bantam Books, 1982 edition.

Long before I lived in Montréal, the lands known to the Kanienʼkehá:ka Nation as Tiohtià:ke, Canada lived in my heart. When I moved there as a young adult, the reality beautifully exceeded my imagination; yet in the years before experiencing those landscapes firsthand, they existed for me purely through books. I was an avid reader and an aspiring writer, searching for characters who felt the same strong and sometimes overwhelming pull toward self-expression that I did. I found that mirror in the windswept shores of Prince Edward Island, through L.M. Montgomery’s fiercely imaginative protagonists, Anne Shirley and Emily Byrd Starr. In her Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon books, Montgomery dismantles the rigid, punitive theology of her upbringing and offers a sharp, proto-feminist interrogation of late 19th-century Canadian Presbyterianism. In doing so, she constructs a deeply personal, feminist spirituality that equates creativity and autonomy with the divine.

Islam: A Feminist/Womanist Faith by Jamilah Ali

American media and the Taliban in Afghanistan have both long disparaged Islam regarding the status of women. I would like not only to correct the contention that women are second-class, but to provide for you an argument that Islam is, based on our Prophet and the Holy Quran, a feminist and egalitarian religion. It has been falsely maligned.

For your convenience I will use the English word for Allah, God, throughout this piece. (Did you know Arabic speaking Christians call God; Allah?)

Please note Muslims believe that all the Holy Books, the Bible and Torah, were indeed revelations from God. Belief in all the Holy Books is one of Islams 7 articles of faith. However, according to Muslim creed the Bible has been changed by humans through time deliberately or not. Thus Quran, the most recent revelation sent 610 years after Christ, is relatively unaltered from its original. It was radical, even then, for providing women the rights to inheritance, to have their own money and property, and for them to retain the dowry paid for marriage, not the father.

From the Archives: Hagar and Intersectionality by Marilyn Batchelor

This was originally posted on May 15, 2020

I began to follow Kimberlé Crenshaw a little more than five years ago when I first learned of her theory of intersectionality as a more concise description of oppressions stemming from race, age, gender, sex/sexual orientation, religion and socio-economic status.

In Delores Williams’ book, Sisters in the Wilderness, there is a closer look at womanist theology as it relates to Intersectionality. The focus on traditions of biblical appropriation that emphasize liberation of the oppressed “showed God relating to men in the liberation struggles,” Williams says in the introduction. “In some African American spiritual songs, in slave narratives and in sermons by black preachers, reference was made to biblical stories and personalities who were involved in liberation struggle.”

From the Archives: Creating Space: Mosques Affirming All Bodies, Minds, and Hearts by Laury Silvers

This was originally posted on December 31, 2013

In my first blog for Feminism and Religion, I discussed the cognitive and embodied dissonance that some Muslims experience as a result of historically (not eternally) gendered ritual forms. I ended with a promise to share with readers the ways in which el-Tawhid Juma Circle mosques try to create space to break free of those forms. Our mosques affirm all human beings as spiritually, socially, and ritually equal and try to break down the social hierarchy of ritual and theological leadership by opening up a space for all bodies, minds, and hearts to lead and follow as equals among each other.

Breaking out of cognitive and embodied dissonance requires cognitive and embodied habituation to what Amina Wadud names, “The Tawhidic Principle.” Meaning, the space must be one in which human beings can embody divine oneness by recognizing that their relationships with each other are on the horizontal plane and refrain from mediating between any other individual and God on the vertical plane. Wadud has described it as a triangle in which God is at the top with self and other at the two points beneath. Each has an individual relationship with God and a relationship of reciprocitous community with each other. Wadud argues that to mediate between another and God is nothing other than idolatry because the mediator forces another to accept that satisfying his expectations is the same as satisfying God.

From the Archives: The Story of Juneteenth by Kelly Brown Douglas

This blog has been posted twice before. June 18,2013 and June 19, 2022. Today is Juneteenth in the USA.

Tomorrow is a special day for me. It is Juneteenth. On June 19, 1865, news finally reached Galveston, Texas that slavery had been abolished. This was of course two and a half years after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. While the actual impact of the emancipation for the enslaved remains a source of historical discussion if not debate, the fact of the matter is that the proclamation of emancipation and the reality of freedom for black women and men did not necessarily coincide. To be sure, for a variety of reasons, the Emancipation Proclamation did not have an immediate impact on the daily lives of enslaved women, men and children. While the “official” historical records marks January 1, 1863 as a day of emancipation, the historical record for the descendants of enslaved men and women marks June 19, 1865 as the day of freedom. For, it was on this day that the last slaves were free.

While the celebrations of Juneteenth have waxed and waned over the years, it remains a day in which African Americans reflect upon the “mighty long way” we have come as well as the “mighty long way” we have left to go on the pathway toward freedom. As I celebrate Juneteenth, in the words of a black gospel song, “My soul looks back and wonders how they got over.” And so it is that my theological imagination is stirred, for it is clear that it was by faith that they (the enslaved) got over. And so I ask, what kind of faith was it that allowed them to get over, that is, to survive a life of bondage? This question is even more pressing to me each time that I am reminded that there were those who were born into slavery and died in slavery, and thus, as Toni Morrison once exclaimed, “never drew a free breath.” So, what kind of faith was it that carried these people through life?

Zahra Tabari by WNCRI

Women’s National Council of Resistance of Iran (info below)

In a continuation of the escalating crackdown on political dissent in Iran, Zahra Shahbaz Tabari, a 67-year-old political prisoner, was sentenced to death by Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Rasht on October 25, 2025. The regime’s judiciary has accused her of “supporting the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).”

Who Is Zahra Tabari?

Zahra Tabari, 68, holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering and is a graduate of Isfahan University of Technology and the University of Borås in Sweden, specializing in Sustainable Energy.

She suffers from chronic health conditions, and the poor conditions in Lakan Prison, combined with shortages of medication, medical care, and constant psychological pressure, have severely deteriorated her physical condition.

She was arrested on April 17, 2025, after security forces raided her home in Rasht without presenting a judicial warrant. During the raid, agents searched the house and confiscated her and her daughter’s electronic devices. For weeks, her family had no information about her whereabouts or health condition. She is currently being held in Lakan Prison in Rasht.

May Alcott Nieriker (1840-1879): Little Woman, Big Ambition, part 2 by Maria Dintino

Part 1 was posted yesterday

May clearly defines her audience,

“For I am supposing our particular artist to be no gay tourist doing Europe according to guide-books, with perhaps few lessons, here and there, taken only for the name of having been a pupil of some distinguished master, but a thoroughly earnest worker, a lady, and poor, like so many of the profession, wishing to make the most of all opportunities, and the little bag of gold last as long as possible”(6).

In her book, she covers three art hubs, London, Paris, and Rome, providing information on means of travel, places to stay, artists to study with, galleries and museums to frequent, scenic sites for sketching and painting, and even stores to buy art supplies and clothing. A more useful document, I cannot imagine! Julia Dabbs concurs with this assessment in her article Empowering American Women Artists: The Travel Writings of May Alcott Nieriker:

“Then as now, it is difficult to imagine a reader not being inspired by May’s words of encouragement, her practical advice, and her passion for art.”

May Alcott Nieriker (1840-1879): Little Woman, Big Ambition, part 1 by Maria Dintino

Moderator’s Note: This piece is in co-operation with The Nasty Women Writers Project, a site dedicated to highlighting and amplifying the voices and visions of powerful women. The site was founded by sisters Theresa and Maria Dintino. To quote Theresa, “by doing this work we are expanding our own writer’s web for nourishment and support.” This was originally posted on their site on Oct 22, 2024. You can see more of their posts here.

The Orchard House, painted by May Alcott.

The youngest sister of Little Women author Louisa May Alcott, May Alcott Nieriker, was a successful artist. Her accomplishments were many and her unflappable relationship with her sister Louisa made it all possible. Here’s to sisterhood of all kinds, where unwavering love and support make so much possible!

Visiting the literary houses lining the streets of Concord, Massachusetts, I found myself in the Orchard House, a house and family made famous by Louisa May Alcott’s blockbuster novel Little Women (1868).

Entering an upstairs bedroom, I was struck by the artwork on the walls and was told it is the work of May, the youngest Alcott sister, Amy in Little Women. Her parents, progressives in their time, allowed her to paint and sketch on her bedroom walls. I was informed that most of the artwork displayed in the house is also that of May’s.

My curiosity was stoked: Who was this woman?