Masoumeh Ebtekar

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Masoumeh Ebtekar (Persian: معصومه ابتکار; born 1960) was the Iranian "Vice President" and the head of the Environment Protection Organization of Iran under President Mohammad Khatami.

1 Education
2 Career
3 Political affiliation
4 Family
5 Awards and Honors
6 Books
7 External links

[edit] Education

She was awarded by the current government of Iran a BSc in laboratory science from Shahid Beheshti University, and a PhD in immunology from Tarbiat Modares University in 1995, where she still preaches.

[edit] Career

[edit] Iran hostage crisis

In the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, Ebtekar was the spokeswoman of the students who had occupied the US Embassy, selected for her good command of English, and was internationally known as Screaming Mary.^{[citation needed]} She was also known to have been an active participant in inflicting physical and mental torture on the American hostages.

[edit] Professional career

Later, in 1981, she became the editor-in-chief of the English daily newspaper Kayhan International, selected by Khatami who was then the representative of Ayatollah Khomeini in Kayhan Institute. She served in the newspaper until 1983. Since 1995, she has been the managing director of the journal Farzaneh.

[edit] Anti-Taliban speech for International Women's Day

On International Women's Day in 1998, Dr. Ebtekar (then vice-president of environmental affairs) shocked the Western news media when she made an impassioned speech condemning the horrific oppression of women by the Taliban Movement in Afghanistan – even though she herself was wearing a chador.

[edit] First woman Vice-President of Iran

Dr. Ebtekar was the first woman to serve as Vice-President of Iran. Along with Zahra Shojaei, Masoumeh Ebtekar participated in the first cabinet since the Islamic Revolution to include women.

[edit] Political affiliation

Vice President Ebtekar is also a member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, a reformist party founded in 1998.

[edit] Family

Ebtekar is married and has two children.

[edit] Awards and Honors

Dr. Ebtekar was named one of the seven 2006 Champions of the Earth by the United Nations as a prominent and inspirational environmental leader who has made an impact at policy level in a region of the world. [1] [2]

[edit] Books

Her polemic memoir of the Iranian hostage crisis is the first of over 30 books written in English on the subject to express the perspective of the hostage takers. This book is : Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture (Paperback).

Read the following review:

Under the Iranian Criminal Code( Article 62/11) the holding of hostages is a crime punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment and, if it leads to the death of the hostage, by capital punishment. Thus the gang of fanatics who raided the US embassy compound in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage in 1979 must all be considered as criminals under the laws of their own country to start with. They may, of course, want to explain their action. But that can only be done in a proper court, in the framework of a proper trial and not in a cheap, shabbily written pamphlet as this one. Ms. Ebtekar's little pamphlet, full of hatred as it is for the United States and the American people, in no way diminishes from the gravity of the crime that she and her fellow gang members committed. The problem in the Western democracies, notably the United States, is that one always finds individuals who try to " understand", " explain" and, ultimately justify the most heinous of crimes. This is why serial killers on death row produce best-selling memoirs, ghost-written of course, and rapists are allowed to explain and justify their behaviour by reference to childhood grievances and other excuses. Ms Ebtekar's " ghost" has performed a similar task: trying to explain the unexplainable, jusify the unjustifiable. A READER IN LONDON, ENGLAND