Mourning Mothers

The Mourning Mothers (also known as the Mothers of Laleh Park; Persian: مادران پارک لاله, romanized: madaran park laleh) are a group of Iranian women whose spouses or children were killed by government agents in the protests following the disputed Iranian presidential election of 2009. The group also includes relatives of victims of earlier human rights abuses, including mass executions during the 1980s. The principal demand of the Mourning Mothers is government accountability for the deaths, arrests, and disappearances of their children. The mothers meet on Saturdays in Laleh Park in Tehran, and are often chased by the police and arrested.

The Mourning Mothers have called for the revocation of death sentences for political prisoners, the release of prisoners of conscience, and trials of "those who were responsible for and who ordered their children's murders." In 2009, Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi urged women around the world to show solidarity with the Mourning Mothers by wearing black and meeting in neighborhood parks on Saturdays from 7 to 8 pm.

History and Formation

As already mentioned: the Mourning Mothers emerged in the political context of the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests, which became one of the largest opposition movements in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The election, in which incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner over the reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, was widely disputed because of claims of election irregularities. Because of the announcement of the results, mass protests, which became known as The Green movement, broke out across Iran.

Although Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei initially upheld the official results and a partial recount was conducted, the government maintained Ahmadinejad’s victory which led to continued demonstrations. The protests were met with a large-scale security crackdown which involved the police and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).