The 2023 International Women’s Day theme is DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality. In her address to the IIEA, Tara Sepehri Far outlines how women in Iran have employed digital activism to amplify their voices in the face of oppression. Social media and the internet have proven to be extremely powerful tools for the women of Iran who, despite being subject to significant censorship and surveillance, have made effective use of these tools to document and spread digital evidence of protests, to spotlight symbolic acts of defiance, and to demand fundamental rights.

About the Speaker:

Tara Sepehri Far is a researcher in the Middle East and North Africa Division, where she investigates human rights abuses in Iran and Kuwait. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, she was the Deputy Director of the Human Rights in Iran Unit at the City University New York, where she worked on a project supporting the mandate of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran. Tara graduated from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran and holds M.A. and LL.M degrees in international law from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.