Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh

Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh was born in Khoramshahr in southern Iran. She holds a BA in theology from Tehran University, a BA in Islamic Sciences from Islamic Azad University in Tehran and an MSc in Communication Sciences from Allameh Tabatabaee University in Tehran. She studied Arabic literature at Ain Shams University in Cairo. In 1997, faced with repression of women's publications by the Iranian judiciary, she founded the Association of Women Writers and Journalists. She has been active in the Women's Access to Public Stadiums campaign, the Stop Stoning Forever campaign, and the Iranian Women's Charter. Security forces first arrested her on 1 November 2004, holding her for a month as a result of a speech she had delivered in Bangkok. Her personal effects were summarily seized and the Non-Governmental Organisation Training Centre (NGOTC), where she was Director, was shut down. She was arrested again on 4 March 2007, prior to International Women's Day, during a peaceful demonstration in front of Tehran's Revolutionary Court in solidarity with five women activists on trial for an earlier demonstration. This time she was held for over a month in Evin Prison. Released after 24 hours - on condition that she remove films she had made from the website of her collective - she left Iran for Europe. She is teaching a Women's Social Movements in Muslim Contexts in UConn. ==Works==