Iran's Ahmadinejad appoints another woman as deputy-president

Dec 20, 2010, 14:21 GMT

Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has appointed another woman as his deputy and in charge of the country's youth, affairs official news agency IRNA reported Monday.

Farahnaz Torkestani replaced Mehrdad Bazrpash as chief of National Youth Organisation and became one of the president's 12 deputies, IRNA reported.

Torkestani is Ahmadinejad's third female deputy president. The other two are on charge of the science and legal departments of the presidential office.

The president also has a woman minister in his government. Health Minister Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi is the first female minister since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The president's critics say that the women in the cabinet were only for show, and that the status of women in Iran could only be improved by granting them more social and legal rights.

The critics say that instead of appointing women in the administration, what was first needed was to end discrimination against women in such areas as divorce, child custody, inheritance and permission to leave the country without the husband's permission.

Ahmadinejad however rejects the criticisms and says the main criterion for him would solely be qualification and that the women he had chosen for his cabinet were simply more qualified than their male rivals.

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