Happy March 8th, International Women’s Day !
March 8, 1401, International Women’s Day, is different from previous years. We celebrate March 8 this year in a situation where this day is intertwined with the revolutionary movement of women living in freedom. A movement that has inspired admiration from around the world and created fear in the hearts of the oppressive rulers of the Islamic Republic. The most important feature of this revolutionary movement, which began with the murder of Mahsa Amini, is the active participation of young women and men in its participation and organization. This movement has a clear message for the criminals ruling Iran and the world; we the people, we girls and young women, we boys and young men, are no longer willing to live under the rule of the reactionaries and criminals ruling and misogynistic. We have called for an end to the entire disastrous and dictatorial life of the Islamic Republic, its criminal rituals and policies, and gender apartheid. The bearers of this message to the ruling reactionaries and the world are the girls and young women who took off their headscarves, this symbol of their slavery, and burned them in the fire. They have initiated an era in which man is considered the center of existence, the center of attention, the center of power, and also the center of value and equality, a modern and humane era, with the slogan “Women Live Freedom.”
Women have been protesting against the hijab since the beginning of the Islamic Republic, with a march on March 17. 1978 , the regressive ideology and gender apartheid policies of religious fanatics challenged. Women in Iran, both under the rule of the Shahs, especially during the Pahlavi Shahs, and later in the Islamic Republic, have been doubly oppressed. On the one hand, they faced patriarchal patriarchy and tradition, and on the other, class oppression that gave them an unproductive role in the economy, politics, and society; an inferior role alongside other oppressed and exploited.
Iranian women, since the Constitutional Uprising, have fought against both of these oppressions and have played a role in the history of people’s struggles to free themselves from the status quo. The pivotal role of new generations of women in the recent struggles of the masses of the people against the Islamic Republic, especially in the revolutionary women’s movement of Life for Freedom, demonstrates their power to play a role in revolutionary changes in Iran. No social, political, economic, or revolutionary change will be possible without the presence of women in it. The Women’s Movement of Life for Freedom reflects their ability to play a role in social movements, on the streets, in the workplace, and in factories, alongside men who seek equality.
The Islamic Republic can no longer turn back the women of Iran, not by killing them, not by gouging out their eyes, not by arresting, torturing, raping them, nor by poisoning them in schools and student dormitories. By carrying out a chemical-biological attack on female students, the Islamic Republic wants to take revenge on them for their struggle against this criminal regime and to drive them away from the scene of education and social struggle as an effective social force and to house them in the style of the Taliban. The Islamic Republic thinks in vain that it can do so. This act of its criminals, which is carried out with the aim of creating fear in society, was defeated from the very beginning by the enemy-busting slogans of the brave female students who were targeted by chemical-biological attacks, as well as their families, headed by their mothers.
The Iranian Political Prisoners Association (in exile) congratulates all revolutionary and egalitarian women, girls, men, and boys on International Women’s Day who have entered the field of struggle with the two central slogans of “Women for the Life of Freedom” and “Bread, Work, Freedom, Council Administration.”
The Iranian Political Prisoners Association (in exile) calls on all freedom-loving and equality-loving women and men to occupy the streets on March 8th (March 17th), in continuation of their struggle against the gender apartheid of the Islamic Republic, as well as the criminal actions of this anti-people government to poison female students.
Iranian Political Prisoners’ Association (in exile)
March 6, 2023 is the same as Esfand 15, 1401