Fatemeh Haghighatjoo

Template:Short description Template:Infobox officeholder Fatemeh Haghighatjoo (also spelled Haghighatjou and Haqiqatju; Template:Langx)<ref name="MER"/> is an Iranian scholar and reformist politician who represented Tehran, Rey, Shemiranat and Eslamshahr in the Iranian Parliament from 2000 to 2004.<ref name="PG"/> She left Iran in 2005<ref name="BG"/> and resides in the United States, where is the CEO and co-founder of the 501(c)(3) organization Nonviolent Initiative for Democracy (NID).<ref name="IUP"/>

Early life and education

Haghighatjoo was born in 1968 in southern Tehran,<ref name="MER"/> the second of four daughters, and comes from a traditionalist middle-class family. She lost her father in an accident when she was 6, and was brought up by her mother as a practising Muslim.<ref name="BG">Template:Citation</ref> She attended University of Tehran and Tarbiat Modarres University,<ref name="MER"/> gaining a degree in psychology and holding a Ph.D. in family counseling. She was a student activist with the Office for Strengthening Unity.<ref name="PG"/>

Political career

Haghighatjoo worked for Mohammad Khatami's presidential campaign, and joined Mosharekat party as a student leader.<ref name="PG"/> In 2000, she successfully ran for a seat in the Iranian Parliament and became the youngest female deputy.<ref name="MER"/>

An advocate of women's rights, reforms and democracy, she contributed proposing a bill to join Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. She was charged with Tahrif of the words of Ayatollah Khomeini and insulting Ali Khamenei in 2001 for what she said in a speech in Qazvin, eventually convicted of the latter charge and sentenced to ten months suspended imprisonment.<ref name="MER"/>

On 23 February 2004, she resigned from the parliament on the grounds that she is no longer able to keep her oath of office and as a sign of protest to "the incorrect, illegal and non-religious conduct of the appointed bodies [e.g. the Guardian Council and Judiciary] in recent years".<ref name="MER"/>

Professional career

Haghighatjoo was a math teacher and then a counselor in a girls' high school, before being employed as a lecturer at University of Tehran and Shahid Beheshti University.<ref name="PG"/> She is also a former faculty member at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and the University of Connecticut and has had fellowship positions at Kennedy School of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies.<ref name="IUP">Template:Cite book</ref>

Views

She self-identifies as feminist. She told The Boston Globe in 2009 that she entered Parliament believing Islam and democracy could coexist; she left office believing in “separation of mosque and state.’’<ref name="BG"/>

Personal life

Haghighatjoo married a parliamentary correspondent, when she was 31 and in her second year as a lawmaker. In August 2003, she gave birth to a girl, Sara Tahavori.<ref name="MER">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="PG">Template:Cite journal</ref>