Citizenship Rights

Non-governmental organizations as the third pillar and representative of civil society play a main role in socially excluded groups’ access to their citizenship rights including women. The most important aspect of citizenship is social citizenship which has a close relationship with public sphere. It seems that NGOs play a substantial role in facilitating women’s access to their social rights; however, their role, efficiency and effectiveness in realizing this goal are disputed by experts. The purpose of this study is to investigate efficiency of non-governmental organizations in women’s access to their social citizenship rights in Iran. This research has been conducted by a quantitative approach, survey method and questionnaire tool. The questionnaire, consisting of effective factors, was developed by library method and was presented to experts of women study in order to examine its face validity. The data of this study was gathered from three groups including 30 scientific and executive experts, 10 NGO managers and 319 people of NGO’s target population which were selected via stratified sampling. Data analysis rejected hypothesis of high efficiency and great power of NGOs in women’s access to their social citizenship rights in Iran.

Neglecting and ignorance of citizenship rights by the socio-political system is one of the soft war manifestations against the Islamic Revolution of Iran in recent decades. Accordingly, to defend and introduce the original Islamic thought in the field of citizenship rights, the present study aimed to explain the position of this concept and its derived components by examining the principles and perspectives related to citizenship rights in the Islamic Revolution foundations. To this aim, used library and descriptive method and discourse analysis of Laclau and Mouffe using Quranic verses and critical legal documents of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Then, the symbols of Islamic discourse on citizenship rights were extracted, and objective examples were studied in important legal documents of the republic. Citizenship rights in Islamic discourse are based on the semantic system from the central symbol of purified life and the signs of the principles of dignity, security, freedom and the executive guarantee of citizenship rights. Evaluating the status of citizenship rights in the social and political context of post-revolutionary Iran indicates that the Islamic Revolution discourse has a strong potential for fulfilling citizenship rights. The constitution addresses citizenship rights in various dimensions, including public-private security, judicial law, liberty rights in multiple sizes, participant rights in the administration of national affairs, economic, social and cultural rights, and the rights of vulnerable groups. The implementing citizenship rights specified in this law are guaranteed in parts of the Islamic Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code.