Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, is a professor in the Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology at Shahid Beheshti University.
Fatemeh Haghighat-Joo – Iran
She is also the Head of the Counselling Centre of Elm-o-Sanat University, a representative of the people of Tehran in the Islamic Consultative Parliament, and a member of the Education Committee.
Previously she worked as an industrial psychologist, newsletter expert and counsellor in high schools.
She is a leading advocate of human rights and democracy in Iran, has joined MIT’s Center for International Studies (CIS) as a visiting scholar. This is the first visit to the United States for Ms. Haghighatjoo, who resigned from Iran’s Parliament in February 2004 following a crackdown on reformers.
Called fearless and outspoken, Ms. Haghighatjoo was a member of the 6th Majlis, Iran’s reform parliament, and was the first to resign when the anti-reform measures of the Supreme Leader began to take shape. Ms. Haghighatjoo, a staunch advocate of women’s rights and a psychologist with a PhD in counseling, was president of the student movement faction in the Majlis and a deputy in the Mosharekat Party. According to Ms. Haghighatjoo, “democratization is the central issue for Iran.”
Ms. Haghighatjoo was sentenced in 2001 by Iran’s judiciary to 20 months in prison, for “inciting public opinion and insulting the judiciary”; she had criticized the arrest of a female journalist and had claimed that Iran’s government tortured prisoners. Her sentence—which she terms illegitimate and undemocratic, and which she has not served—was later reduced to 10 months.
While at the Center for International Studies during the coming year, Ms. Haghighatjoo writes about human rights and democratization in Iran and the Middle East. She also speaks (in Farsi) at venues around the U.S.
Ms. Haghighatjoo speaks some English.
Links:
MIT Center for International Studies;
Iran -Elections;