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Revision as of 23:20, 13 November 2008 by Louis P. Boog (talk | contribs) (tag)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Masoumeh Ebtekar (Persian: معصومه ابتکار; born 1960) is an Iranian scientist and politician. Her original name is Niloufar Ebtekar, she is known as Nilofar among friends and relatives.
Ebtekar first achieved fame as the spokeswoman of the students who had occupied the US Embassy during the Iran hostage crisis. Later she became the first female Vice President of Iran, the head of the Environment Protection Organization of Iran during the administration of President Mohammad Khatami, and is currently a city councilwoman elect of Tehran. She is a founding member of the Iranian reformist political party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front.
Ebtekar is married and has two children.
Education and family
Ebtekar's father studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and she is reported to have lived with her parents in Upper Darby of Philadelphia for 3 years. Another source lists her have having lived in Philadelphia for six years as a child, from whence she developed "near-perfect, American-accented English."
Ebtekar holds a BSc degree in laboratory science from Shahid Beheshti University, a MSc and PhD in immunology from Tarbiat Modares University in 1995, where she still teaches.
Activism and role in Iran Hostage Crisis
Ebtekar served as spokeswoman for the students in the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, where Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line occupied the US Embassy and held 52 Americans hostage of 444 days. Selected because of her good command of English she made regular appearances on American television. At the time she was known as Niloufar Ebtekar. Ebtekar wrote an account of the embassy takeover with Fred A. Reed entitled Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture (ISBN 0-88922-443-9), When asked about her past as hostage-taker spokeswoman adn why it did not appear on her resume by an American interviewer in the late 1990s she was unapologetic about her role but surprised the interviewer with her "chutzpah", insisting that the interviewer "not write much about these things."
Social and Government career
In 1981, Ebtekar 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. In 1991 she co-founded the Institute for Women's Studies and Research. Since 1992, she has been the license holder and managing director of the journal Farzaneh for Women's Studies and Research. Ebtekar was appointed as the Head of Women's NGO Coordinating Office and Vice Head of the National Committee to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Laterو she was elected as the President of the Network of Women's NGOs in Iran.
As vice president
Dr. Ebtekar is a founding member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, a reformist party, and became the was the first woman to serve as Vice-President of Iran when the reformists came to power. Along with Zahra Shojaei, Dr. Ebtekar participated in the first cabinet since the Islamic Revolution to include women. She has been described as a leftist in Khatami's alliance.
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 – because she herself was wearing a chador, which many in the West view as oppressive, as well as the perceived violations of women's rights in Iran. Under the Taliban, women were forced to wear heavy burkas that covered their faces and were never allowed out without a male escort.
Post-vice-presidential environmental activism
Dr. Ebtekar was named one of the seven 2006 Champions of the Earth by the United Nations Environment Program as a prominent and "inspirational" environmental leader who has made an impact at policy level in a region of the world. She was also named as one of 50 environmental leaders by the The Guardian newspaper in January 5, 2008 - the only Iranian or Muslim woman in the list.
Center for Peace and Environment
Dr. Ebtekar co-founded the Center for Peace and Environment in 2005. This non-governmental organization is devoted to the promotion of just and sustainable peace and the protection of the environment. Over 120 experts and academicians are currently members of the Center. The Center has convened several national and international seminars and performed research projects on this topic. The Center convenes an annual international event on November 6 the International Day for Prevention of the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. www.pengo.ir
Tehran City Council member
Dr. Ebtekar ran for and was elected to the city council of Tehran for the term beginning in 2007, coming in 9th out of 21 candidates, just after Parvin Ahmadinejad, the sister of the current President of Iran. She established and heads the Tehran City Council Environment Committee and currently runs 20 working groups on environmental issues.
Academic Career and Research
Current fields of teaching at MSc and PhD levels include, immunology of the nervous system, cytokines as biological mediators, immunology of HIV /AIDs, and psychoneuroimmunology. Her research work includes areas such as immunomodulation, neuroimmunology, cytokine patterns, modulation of cord blood cells and DNA vaccines. Dr. Ebtekar has published several ISI articles on the above topics and her name appears as co-author in several original research works. Dr. Ebtekar is also member of several research board committees and is a reviewer for two international and four national immunology journals. This information is available at the website of .
After the termination of her government position in 2005 Dr. Ebtekar has spoken as inaugural or keynote speaker at many international events.
Questions about Plagarism
On October 7, 2008 eTBLAST recognized an article published by Masoumeh Ebtekar in 2006 at the Iran Journal of Allergy Asthma Immunol as a 85% duplication of several previously published articles. eTBLAST is a text similarity search engine on MEDLINE database sponsored by the Innovation Laboratory at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School to study the scientific publication ethics. This allegation received a level of political and public attention in Iran and resulted in Ebtekar's response in her personal weblog accepting the mistake, apologizing for it, but criticizing eTBLAST on several notes including not informing her of their finding in advance and not letting her to publish her response in the same page where the allegation is made. Also Dr. Ebtekar made the point that the article was a review article she was invited to write for the Journal and that more than 76 references were referred to in the text.
On October 23, 2008, Vol 455 Nature magazine covered this case in a short story titled "Iranian paper sparks sense of Deja Vu". In an interiew with Ian Mudway, a toxicologist at the King's college London and one of the authors of original papers plagarized by Ebtekar, he said: "The article is a veritable patchwork of other people's work, word for word, grammatical error for grammatical error." It reported that Ebtekar has not answered emails from Nature. Ebtekar apologized for her plagarism again at a public gathering about US embassy hostage crisis held in Shiraz University saying: "I apologize, humans are not prudent from mistakes."
Publications
Natural Peace, a collection of essays and speeches on the environment and sustainable development delivered from 1997-2005 by Ebtekar, was published in 2005 by the Iranian Department of Environment. These speeches include titles such as Human Rights and Challenges of the Century, Perspectives on Sustainable Development and the Role of the Woman in Iranian Society, etc. She also had two articles from Natural Peace published in Our Planet, the Magazine of the United Nations Environment Program (in 2005), and Market Messengers (in 2006). www.unep.org
Sources
- A Brief History of Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania
- dead link
- A Brief History of Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania
- Sciolino, Elaine, Persian Mirrors : the Elusive Face of Iran, Free Press, (2005), p.116
- Sciolino, Elaine, Persian Mirrors (2005), p.117
- published in 2000 by Talonbooks. The Farsi translation of this book was published in Tehran by Etellaat Newspaper Publications the same year and the Arabic translation was published in Beirut by Al Hadi Publications.
- Sciolino, Persian Mirrors (2005), p.116-118
- Sciolino, Persian Mirrors (2005), p.116
- Seven environmental heroes to be honoured by UN agency
- Iranian Students News Agency (in Persian)
- Final result of Tehran City Council election, December 21, 2006
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- International Conference on Women and Tradition , University of Damascus, Damascus, 2005
- International Conference on Women and the Alliance of Civilizations, Istanbul, 2005
- Delhi Sustainable Development Summit, Delhi ,2006 and in 2008
- Earth Dialogues, Brisbane, Australia, 2006
- International Conference on Role of Women in the Middle East, Kuwait University, Kuwait, 2006
- World Environment Day Conference on Sustainable Development , Tromso, Norway ,2007
- Religion Science Environment Conference on Arctic the Mirror of Life , Greenland ,2007
- Global Summit for Businesswomen and Leaders, Dubai in 2007 and 2008
- International Workshop on Islam- West Dialogue, Geneva , 2008.
- International Seminar of Women, Equality and Peace, 2008
- International IUCN Congress Barcelona, 2008
- International Conference on Religion in A Modern World, Tehran , 2008.
External links
- Masumeh Ebtekar's Blog in English - Called "Persian Paradox"
- Masumeh Ebtekar's Blog in Persian
- Final results of Tehran City Council election from Islamic Republic News Agency
- Profile: Masumeh Ebtekar, BBC's profile on Ebtekar
- Farzaneh Journal