Iranian-Canadian Academic Homa Hoodfar was released after months of imprisonment for her “feminist” activity. Her case was part of a larger crackdown on women's rights activity before and after the 2016 parliamentary elections. Remix image of Hoodfar and a woman receiving a ballot to vote in Iran. Some good news reached Canada this week when Homa Hoodfar, an Iranian-Canadian anthropologist, was released after months of incarceration in Iran. Hoodfar is known for her research on women and Islam, especially women's participation in Iranian elections. Her arrest highlighted two particular areas of sensitivity for Iranian hardliners: the presence of dual nationals, and any activity related to women's rights in Iran. Hoodfar was therefore particularly problematic amongst the hardline Iranian institutions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the judiciary. These two bodies have been responsible for the arrests and incarceration of many activists, journalists, and dual nationals. They operate independent of the elected government, and often work to undermine the relatively progressive tendencies of the moderate Rouhani administration. Hoodfar's status and persecution as a dual national has been widely discussed. However, what has been given less focus is the Iranian government's recent crackdown on activism and discourse around women's rights, in which Hoodfar's case was also entangled. Women's participation in Iran's parliamentary elections in February 2016 was unprecedented since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Women won 17 of the 209 parliamentary seats. These gains for women marked the first time since the revolution that there are more female politicians than clerical politicians in the parliament and signalled a shift in public support away from hardline Islamic conservatives. This female participation was the subject of Hoodfar's research when she spent time scouring the Iranian parliament's library on her February visit to Iran. Following the beginning of her detainment in June, Tehran's prosecutor general gave a media interview stating that Hoodfar’s “criminal” case was connected with “her entry into fields concerning feminism and national security offences”. Days earlier, media outlets affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards ran articles claiming that the 65-year-old Concordia University professor was “the Iran agent of a feminist network building operation” and the Campaign for Changing the Male Dominated Face of Parliament was “her latest project”. The Campaign for Changing the Male Dominated Face of Parliament worked to promote women's participation within parliament; it is not clear if Hoodfar has any direct affiliation with them. An image from the Campaign to Change the Male Face of Parliament's introductory video. On the left, the number 50 with the female symbol incorporated placing her election ballot. On the right, the number 50 again with the female symbol in a parliamentary chair. The text reads: “The work of women for women in parliament” is equal to “women for the change of laws for equal rights.” Those who participated in it belong to a large network of women in Iran with a solidarity network from within the Iranian diaspora, including prominent activists inside Iran such a Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani, who has previously faced arrest and imprisonment for her women's rights work on campaigns such as the One Million Signatures Campaign to Repeal Discriminatory Laws and the Feminist School. The Feminist School explained on its website that its goal was to move beyond the right to vote towards the right to be elected — women only held 3% of the seats in the Iranian parliament before the February elections: We need our parliamentary representatives to be committed to equal human rights for women and other citizens. It’s because of this that we have initiated our campaign for changing the male-dominated face of the parliament. […] Women hold critical responsibilities at all levels of society from the household level to economic, social and cultural arenas. It’s now time for the place of women in the legislative body to change commensurate with the responsibilities they hold. Participation in the political management and legislative processes is a justified demand that has been stipulated in clause 25 of the Islamic Republic’s constitution: “All citizens irrespective of their gender are protected by the law and enjoy political, economic, social and cultural rights consistent with Islamic standards”. The campaign's goal was to elect 50 female parliamentarians. While the total of 17 women elected fell short, they had significant success in generating an unprecedented amount of candidates.