Nayereh Ebtehaj-Samii

Nayereh Ebtehaj-Samii (Persian: نیره ابتهاج سمیعی‎, 1914–2017) was an Iranian educator and politician. In 1963 she was one of the first group of women elected to the National Consultative Assembly.

Nayereh Ebtehaj-Samii
Member of the National Consultative Assembly
In office
1963–1979
ConstituencyRasht
Personal details
Born1914
Rasht, Persia
Died2017 (aged 103)
Rasht, Iran

Biography

Ebtehaj-Samii was born in Rasht in 1914.[1] After being educated at a local Presbyterian Missionary school,[1] she then attended the American Missionary School in Tehran.[2] She studied for a bachelor's degree in Persian language and later became the first woman to earn a bachelor's degree in English at the University of Tehran.[3][4] A member of the Women's Council, she became the first president of the Tehran chapter of Zonta International.[1]

Women were granted the right to vote in 1963, and in the parliamentary elections that year, Ebtehaj-Samii was one of six women elected to the National Consultative Assembly.[5] A founder member of the Iran Novin Party,[1] she was re-elected in 1967 and 1971. After joining the Rastakhiz Party, she was re-elected again in 1975,[6] and was the first woman to serve as Deputy Speaker.

Following the Iranian Revolution, she withdrew from politics and moved to the United States. However, she later returned to Iran, settling in Bandar-e Anzali, before moving back to Rasht. She died in April 2017 aged 103.

References
  1. Programme of Oral History Foundation for Iranian Stidies
  2. Shireen Burki (2013) The Politics of State Intervention: Gender Politics in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, p217
  3. مروری بر حیات سیاسی و اجتماعی زنان نمايندۀ دوره بيست و يكم همایش تاریخ مجلس به روایت تصویر
  4. نظری بر زندگی نیره سمیعی ابتهاج- سید ابراهیم مروجی
  5. Lois Beck & Guity Nashat (2004) Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic, p141
  6. نیره ابتهاج سمیعی Majlis Research Centre
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