In the past four decades, Iranian women have been among the first victims of the misogynistic laws and nature of the mullahs’ regime. They have been deprived of their most basic rights and treated as second-class citizens. But contrary to the regime’s desire to subdue them, women have constantly fought back against the mullahs’ rule. And today, they are playing a leadership role in the protests that began in September 2022.
This was a fact that was highlighted across the four-day Free Iran 2023 World Summit of the Iranian Resistance, which was held in France. Politicians, lawmakers, jurists, and activists who spoke at the event acknowledged the courage of Iranian women.
“In addition to being a state sponsor of terrorism, the regime in Tehran continues to suppress the most fundamental human rights of its own people,” said Governor Gary Locke, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and Governor of Washington State. “Women in Iran suffer under a system of discrimination and inequality and, according to the laws of the country, the life of a woman literally is regarded as half as valuable as that of a man. The combined effect is that women and girls in Iran, half the Iranian population, are vulnerable to violence, harassment permeating every aspect of their lives.”
But this discrimination against women has also made them the tip of the spear in the struggle against the regime. This is very evident on the streets of Iran, where women brave the odds every day to break the environment of repression that the regime is trying to establish.
“I believe that the movement we’re seeing led by all of you is clearly different than what we’ve seen in the past,” said former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “These uprisings have been led by women and spearheaded by Iranian youth. They’re not calling for reform. They’re calling for freedom, something that is deeply consistent with Iranian history.”
Of course, this leadership role has not happened over night. It has taken decades of struggle by Iranian women who set an example with their sacrifices.
“It is wonderful that women and the younger generation of girls are at the forefront of protests in Iran. It shouldn’t surprise us that they are, because it is women who have been leading the organized Iranian opposition, the PMOI/MEK, and the NCRI, for the last 44 years,” said Anthea Elizabeth Joy McIntyre, Former Head of UK Delegation at PACE, Deputy Chair of the UK Conservative Party.
In fact, the Iranian Resistance has been the exact opposite to the regime in regard to women. Thousands of women of the MEK have suffered torture, prison, and execution at the hands of the regime. But they have never given up the fight for freedom. Women have been holding leadership roles in the Iranian Resistance movement for decades. For more than three decades, women have been holding the post of Secretary General of the MEK. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is led by Maryam Rajavi, a Muslim woman. Her Ten-Point Plan, which has become a rallying point for thousands of parliamentarians and 120 former world leaders across the globe, is based on equality for all Iranians regardless of gender, ethnicity, and religion.
“The Iranian regime clearly sees women and girls as a serious threat to their grip on power, so they reduce them to second-class citizens in both law and practice. The Iranian Resistance movement, the NCRI, on the contrary, see women and girls as the driving force for change and the guarantors of a free, democratic, and secular Republic,” said McIntyre in her speech at the Free Iran 2023 rally. “Mrs. Rajavi and her 10-point democratic platform will transform Iran and the Middle East if and when it is implemented because it gives women the opportunity to shape the future of their country.”
The regime has engaged in extensive efforts to try to downgrade the entire uprising to a protest against the hijab, the regime’s mandatory veil for women. It has used this as an excuse to crack down on more fundamental demands for freedom and equality. But backed by decades of resistance and struggle, the women of Iran have not been fooled by the regime. And today, in their slogans, they are calling for nothing less than the overthrow of the mullahs’ rule and the establishment of a free and democratic state.
Former Canadian Prime Minister said, “This latest round of protest has been led by the women of Iran. But to be clear, these protests are much more than a feminist movement against the hijab. They are rooted in over 40 years of organized resistance with women like Maryam Rajavi playing a leading role.”
In fact, Maryam Rajavi had foreseen the great potential that the mullahs’ misogyny on one side and the struggle of Iranian women on the other will unleash in one of her speeches 30 years ago:
“The misogynous, inhuman mullahs are intent on destroying the rights and freedoms of women and trampling upon their human dignity in order to bolster the pillars of their despotic regime.
“But to the mullahs, I say, you are gravely mistaken. Not only will you not achieve what you want, but your fate will serve as a lesson to all who think of enslaving and oppressing people.
“If you think that, you can reach your goals because the yearning to live freely and think freely has died in the world, you are gravely mistaken.
“You have done your utmost to humiliate, suppress, torture and slaughter Iranian women, but rest assured that you would receive the blow from the very force you discounted, the very force whom your reactionary mindset cannot allow you to take into consideration.
“Rest assured that these knowledgeable and free women will dismantle your oppression everywhere.”
Today, the spirit of all the Iranian women who laid down their lives for freedom lives on in the girls, women, and youth who take to the streets to reclaim their rights and destiny from the barbaric regime.
