Darya Safai is an Iranian women’s rights activist and politician.
Born in Tehran, Safai experienced first hand what it was to live as an oppressed woman in a religious dictatorship. She actively participated in the 1999 student protests and was imprisoned as a result, escaping Iran to Belgium after being temporarily released on bail.
In 2014 Safai founded Let Iranian Women Enter Their Stadiums, a campaign to win Iranian women the right to attend sports games in Iran. She used the stadium ban as a symbol of the broad discrimination women suffer in Iran.
She has published two books, Running Against The Wind and Suddenly I Wasn’t Allowed To Laugh Anymore, and was elected to the Belgian Parliament in 2019, where she sits on the Defence and Foreign Affairs Committees.
