sisters in Europe and the United States who endeavor for the expansion of the
peace movement to rise up and not allow the mullahs to take advantage of your
efforts to preserve their regime in Iran. With every slogan for peace, we must
chant "no nuclear arms in the mullahs’ hands," said Maryam Rajavi,
president-elect of the Iranian Resistance, to one thousand women gathered in a
conference in Paris, on March 3, 2007.
celebrate the Women’s International Day, and listen to Mrs. Rajavi and many
eminent speakers coming from United States, Canada, Norway, Italy,
Great-Britain, France, Algeria, Spain as well as representative from the
Iranian Resistance. Sponsored by dozens of NGO and women associations, the
conference was organized by the International Federation of Women against
Fundamentalism and for Equality.
Mrs. Rajavi:
Dear sisters,
and gentlemen,
the activists of the equality movement on International Women’s Day.
rekindles the great hope for equality, we hail all women who are fighting for
the realization
think of all women who have fallen victim to oppression, discrimination and
violence.
commend such great women as Clara Zetkin and Olympe de Gouges, each of whom
took giant stride to advance the ideal of equality.
Fatemeh Amini, Marzeih Ahmadi Oskoui, Mehrnoush Ebrahimi and other brave women
who fell in the path of the struggle against the Shah’s regime.
who was slain 25 years ago by the Revolutionary Guards and who today is the
source of inspiration of a great resistance where the Iranian Resistance is
headquartered.
heroic women who have been either hanged or murdered under torture in the
struggle against the fundamentalists ruling Iran in the past 25 years.
women in Tehran, who on two occasions last year, on March 8 and June 12,
ignored the mullahs’ savage repression and staged a daring demonstration in the
heart of the capital, chanting "the cry is freedom and the voice is a
revolt for awareness."
the brave women who this very day staged a demonstration in Tehran to protest
against the oppression and crackdown by the Ahmadinejad regime. Some 15,000
dignified teachers, including many of our sisters, displayed their anger and
disdain for the religious theocracy by staging a protest outside the mullahs’
Majlis. They warned the regime’s leaders that they will get nowhere with murder
and clamping down on voices of opposition.
suffering and bereaved sisters in Iraq, and especially the brave Iraqi women
who played a special role in organizing the campaign to publicize the
declaration by 5.2 million Iraqis against the Iranian regime’s meddling in
Iraq.
pioneering women in Ashraf City, who lead the resistance against religious
dictatorship and for freedom and equality.
International Women’s Day, we have gathered here to say that equality is
women’s right. And I have come to say that across the world we have many
responsibilities, far beyond women’s rights, which we must carry out. Otherwise
peace, security and democracy in our world would be endangered.
light on women, their achievements and future responsibilities. I think that
women’s movement has come a long way.
1920s, the equality movement won the right to suffrage for women. By the end of
1960s, this movement had major advances toward attainting legal equality for
women.
decades of the past century, the equality movement has struggled against
obstacles in the path of women’s freedom and equality in various ways.
is that what objective should the equality movement pursue today. And why there
is the need to ask this question in the present era.
developments have brought many opportunities and threats for the equality
movement: the opportunity to play a role in the future course of the world and
the threat of denigration of the equality movement to a lower position.
question is that what status the equality movement is searching for.
power as isolated individuals and submit to the continuation of the status quo?
Or do we want to suffice by engaging in some reform in women’s rights?
of the current circumstances faces us with another strategy. We must overcome
this crossroads and assume our role to change the world.
active participation in the political struggle in order to cast aside the
obstacles to equality and freedom.
must not limit itself to the present objectives. Only through advancing toward
higher horizons can freedom be achieved.
Second Sex," Simone de Beauvoir considered this reality so important that
she stressed that any time advancement is confined to the status quo, there has
been a downward spiral.
owing to women’s struggle in the past decade, much has been achieved, but
nothing is permanent. No social progress, even when drafted in law, could be
definitive because discrimination and oppression continues to affect women as
the dominant culture of our world today.
taught us that nowhere the oppressors voluntarily give up their privileges.
Neither do they voluntarily respect women’s privileges and true position.
agree on the fact that women’s entry into the realm of an active political
struggle is inevitable.
which this premise immediately confronts us with is that in which direction
women’s struggle in this era should be pointed.
campaigns for the right to employment, against violence and aggression and
against victimizing children and women in sex-slave trade be expanded?
for abortion and defending the rights of oppressed women be promoted to the
next level?
objective in the works?
of course, quite valuable and must continue. On International Women’s Day, all
such activists must be commended.
in the current circumstances, a cyclone of blood, bombing, terror, rape and
poverty which is destroying the lives of the people in the Middle East, should
compel the equality movement to engage in an all-embracing and multi-faceted
struggle.
is burning in the inferno of fundamentalism. The dangers of this ominous
calamity have gone beyond the Middle East and from time to time victimize
innocent people in Western countries.
does not leave us with many choices.
it and allow the achievements of mankind, especially the accomplishments of the
equality movement, to be sacrificed under its feet? Or should we rise to resist
it with all our might?
everybody’s minds is that while the fundamentalists target women’s freedoms and
rights in countries with Islamic orientation, how could women elsewhere in the
world, including in Europe and the United States, be affected by them?
three reasoning:
fundamentalists’ devastation in Islamic countries, especially regarding the
rights of women, benefits the global patriarchal culture. Three decades ago,
Susan Brown Miller, the distinguished American feminist, explained an important
fact about violence and rape [against women]. She said that because of any
violence and rape against a woman, the domination of men who have not
themselves taken part in that violence, is strengthened. Similarly, even women
who have not been the target of that violence will be intimidated.
important rule from which one can understand the retrogressive impact of
fundamentalism on the equality movement the world over.
in Muslim communities of Western countries has emerged as a challenge whose
dimensions are spreading by the day.
the fire of terrorism and the danger of a nuclear war around the globe?
explosions in different countries which have victimized many innocent people
represent the first flames of a huge fire raging in the Middle East at present.
equipped with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons complete their domination
of the Middle East, the fire of this ominous calamity will have engulfed
European countries as well.
conclusions from these arguments.
involvement in a serious political struggle to remove the obstacles to equality
is an imperative that could no longer be ignored.
circumstances, the substance of this struggle is confronting the fundamentalist
wave that has been roaming the Middle East today.
remarks, today we want to reply to a fundamental question. Has the equality
movement done what is necessary in the struggle against fundamentalism? Has it
assumed its pioneering role? We will get the answer in due course.
elaborate on different aspects of the fundamentalist onslaught which at the
same time forms different dimensions of today’s struggle.
Iranian people, especially women;
2. Efforts to acquire nuclear weapons;
3. Dominating Iraq and Lebanon and warmongering in other Islamic countries;
4. The West’s policy of appeasement acting as the de facto ally of
fundamentalism.
atrocities the fundamentalists have committed against women in Iran.
around the world have been informed of a very small portion of the tragedy that
has affected women in my country. As you might know, misogyny is distinctive to
the fundamentalist ruling Iran.
women have experienced body and soul this misogyny.
down on women’s rights, liberties, culture, family and private lives like a
huge avalanche.
of female opponents, which is unprecedented anywhere in the world;
– Torturing tens of thousands of women political prisoners;
– Executing pregnant women, the torture of mothers in front of their children;
– Degrading women’s social and economic standing to second class citizens;
– Imposing gender apartheid;
– Controlling women’s presence in the streets;
– Imposing compulsory veiling, controlling the color and forms of women’s
attire;
– Lacerating and splashing acid on women’s faces because of their clothing and
make up.
– Systematic assault on women in prisons;
– Denial of the right to divorce and the right to custody of children;
– Promoting polygamy and temporary marriage, justified by the mullahs’
disgraceful Sharia;
– Applying medieval and painful punishments such as stoning, whose victims are
primarily women;
– Injustice and discrimination in economic participation, employment and
education;
– The sale of small children by impoverished families and their trafficking to
other countries by the mullahs’ criminal gangs in a country as rich as Iran;
– Selling innocent girls’ body parts due to impoverishment, hunger and many
other calamities;
parts of the tragedy women have been experiencing under the rule of the
fundamentalists. I must emphasize that these come at a time when the Iranian
Resistance movement has been waging a relentless struggle against this regime
for 27 years. Imagine what the fundamentalist mullahs would have done to women
if this resistance did not exist.
these appalling conditions that have prevailed for 28 years relates to the
equality movement across the globe and presents us with the question that I
mentioned earlier: Has the equality movement done what is necessary in the
struggle against fundamentalism? And has it assumed its leading role?
sisters across Iran that although the pain of inequality, humiliation and
insult is crushing your very existence, and although the mullahs have trampled
upon your individual, familial, social and political rights and freedoms, and
are hell-bent on denying your human identity, you, nevertheless, possess such
power that has turned Iranian women into the force that will overthrow the
mullahs.
the heart of Tehran, when in any gathering you target the mullahs’ nuclear
deception and shout that nuclear program serves the rule of the Velayat-e faqih
(absolute clerical supremacy), when you say that liberty and minimum means of
subsistence are the undeniable rights of the Iranian people, you shake the
mullahs’ regime to its foundations.
realize the demands of the Iranian people and you are Iran’s future.
and crimes against you is because they are afraid of you. Iranian society is
thirsty for a new way of life and for change.
Iran is compressed in you as the pioneers of this struggle. You can
definitively defeat fundamentalism. You are Iran’s future.
thousand Mojahed women in Ashraf City, Iraq, have arisen from your ranks. They
are the embodiment of your resolve for equality and freedom. They have proven
that you will shape the future of Iran.
free-thinking men who are standing with you shoulder to shoulder in this
struggle.
important issue: the urgent danger of the regime obtaining nuclear weapons.
the clerical regime is working rapidly to obtain the atomic bomb.
fundamentalist regime can only preserve its survival through warmongering and
export of terrorism. The moment the mullahs acquire the bomb is the moment when
an uncontrollable war will begin.
critical juncture. A sense of urgency surrounds us.
and go back to 1938, on eve of the Second World War. Assuming that we knew of
the tragedy that was in the offing, would we have spared any sacrifice and
effort to prevent such a war then? Our reply to all of this is definitely no.
that the mullahs’ regime, its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and its Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei are the source of warmongering. Yet, simultaneous with
building nuclear weapons as well as meddling and perpetrating atrocities in
Iraq, the mullahs regime projects itself a an advocate of peace. This is where
the importance of women’s movement becomes apparent. Women are the main force
of the peace movement. You have the power to engage in campaigns throughout the
world to block the path of the mullahs to nuclear weapons and demand that your
governments not stand with the fundamentalists ruling Iran.
deception is that they portray defending peace as defending their own regime.
allies are saying that you must support the Iranian regime or war would be
inevitable.
the Iranian Resistance has put forth the Third Option. Meaning, neither
appeasement, nor foreign military intervention is the answer. Change by the
Iranian people and Resistance is the viable option. This is the very solution
that is intrinsically compatible with the equality movement, for which reason
women have a decisive role to play in realizing that option.
which advocate peace and human rights, especially the equality movement’s
activists to support this solution.
sisters in Europe and the United States who endeavor for the expansion of the
peace movement to rise up and not allow the mullahs’ to take advantage of your
efforts to preserve their regime. With every slogan for peace, we must chant
"no nuclear arms in the mullahs’ hands."
here with us today to use the peace movement to rise against the mullahs’ crazy
insistence to acquire nuclear weapons.
the outbreak of an ominous war and stop the bloodshed in the Middle East and
the barbaric theocracy ruling Iran.
address the situation of a wounded Iraq, where millions of human beings around
the world are distressed when witnessing the occurrences in that country.
painful experience of Iraq before it. As part of the appeasement policy, the
Coalition forces bombed the centers of the Iranian opposition at the behest of
the mullahs. They paved the way for the mullahs’ rapid penetration into Iraq.
The horrific consequence of this policy is now seen in the bombings which are
tearing apart Iraq.
the 650,000 Iraqis murdered in the past four years have been murdered by the
mullahs’ death squads. Iraqi democratic parties and even the insurgents who
vehemently oppose the US presence in Iraq are saying loud and clear that the
mullahs’ regime is the main occupier.
to draw your attention to the painful plight of Iraqi women. Thousands of
female Iraqi students have quit their studies because of the attacks and
threats by the Iranian regime’s operatives. Girl schools are completely shut
down. Many women have become impoverished and homeless. The gang rape of Iraqi
women by the militias on the mullahs’ payroll, one example of which was
revealed on February 19, dismayed everyone.
of Iraqi women is concerned, we are again faced with the basic question: Has
the equality movement done what is necessary in the struggle against
fundamentalism? Has it assumed its pioneering role?
draw the attention of the equality movement the world over, and especially you
free thinking women, to another issue, namely a major obstacle in the path of
change in Iran: the policy of appeasement.
this policy has blocked the path of the movement for freedom and women’s
equality movement in Iran. The issue is simply this: shackling a movement that
is seeking freedom and democracy by including it in terrorist lists.
mullahs, Western governments included the Iranian opposition movement in their
terrorist lists. For many years we challenged the decision of Council of
Ministers of the European Union.
allegation was completely unwarranted and targeted the main opposition
movement.
social, political and legal campaign in the course of this challenge.
struggle finally achieved a historic victory when in its ruling last December,
the European Court of Justice annulled the terrorist label against the People’s
Mojahedin. Surprisingly, in line with appeasing the mullahs’ regime, the EU
Council defied the court’s ruling.
before us an obstacle: the policy of appeasement. I want to elaborate on this
issue as it has been the practical policy of the West in recent years. The
policy of appeasement has four components:
crackdown on the opposition and preventing change in Iran;
2. Paving the way for the spread of fundamentalism and terrorism;
3. Providing political opening for the mullahs to go nuclear; and
4. Violating law, democracy and trampling upon justice in Western countries.
these components, I want to explain why the struggle for appeasement should be
placed on the agenda of the equality movement urgently.
appeasement, which supports religious fascism, impedes the struggle of Iranian
women for freedom and equality. If in the distant past pioneering women, who
held aloft the flag of resistance for emancipation and equality, were few in
numbers, today, 1,000 brave and selfless women are advancing a progressive movement
which espouses noble demands and objectives and is the focal point of the
face-off with religious dictatorship ruling Iran.
appeasement has blocked the path of these women. By paving the way for the
mullahs, their headquarters in Ashraf City is encircled and under an assortment
of conspiracies. Today, they face the threat of expulsion, quid pro quo and
various restrictions and shortages.
that would rise up across the world and support the bastion, where the flames
of resistance for freedom and equality are burning, and herald something new to
the world.
Iranian women confront religious fascism, you, free-thinking women in Western
countries, challenge the policy of appeasement and policy makers who support
the mullahs’ religious fascism. This is a humanitarian and conscientious
responsibility.
the Council of Ministers of the European Union that pursue the policy of
appeasement are directly at fault in solidifying religious dictatorship in Iran
and in the spread of terrorism and fundamentalism.
that the Iranian opposition was placed on the terrorist lists at the request of
the clerical regime. When they ignore European justice and allow this
designation to continue unlawfully, when they deny the opposition movement the
right to the freedom of expression in European capitals, they are allowing the
values and demands of the fundamentalists have primacy.
blatant injustice that has made a mockery of European values, has the equality
movement done what has been necessary in the fight against fundamentalism? Has
it assumed its pioneering responsibility?
sisters here, and all equality movement activists across the world not to allow
Europe’s fundamental values, which your societies cherished and upheld, to
become the victim of deals which strengthen fundamentalism.
the face of European government’s totalitarianism and institutions which crush
the achievements of humanity, especially those of women.
compel the dictatorship in Iran to give way to the rule of freedom and
democracy and when Iranian women achieve freedom and equality, we will see a
giant leap for the equality movement worldwide, especially as a challenge to
the fundamentalists.
our sisters in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Somalia, Afghanistan and other countries
are facing a single danger. We must form a united front in the face of
fundamentalists and appeasers.
merely an expression of sisterhood with oppressed women in Iran, Iraq and other
countries in the region. The matter goes far beyond that: it has to do with
world peace and security.
of women’s movement is not complementary to the fight against fundamentalism
only. The fact is that without the pioneering role of women, we cannot overcome
this monster.
thank courageous women who have in all these years have been the leading force
in the anti-fundamentalist front. I mean Madam Elizabeth Sidney and my dear
sisters in the Women’s International Federation Against Fundamentalism and for
Equality. I also thank the efforts of women parliamentarians and organizations
in different countries around the world.
leading role in the struggle against fundamentalism has been proven manifestly
in the history of the Iranian Resistance in the past quarter century. Without
women’s determining role, our movement lacked the capacity to survive against
religious fascism.
fight against religious dictatorship grew more serious and more profound, the
role of women became more imperative. The need for greater perseverance and a
more hardnosed and serious struggle made women’s assumption of responsibility
more indispensable.
dictates. This is an era that the solutions and thinking which solidify the
male-dominated regime have come to an end. This era requires a new solution
based on the values of equality.
1,000 courageous and selfless women in Ashraf City, the headquarters for the
Iranian Resistance, 50 kilometers from the Iranian frontier, have persevered
against the mullahs’ regime.
withstood enormous conspiracies in the past four years has been led by brave
women such as Mojgan Parsaii, Sedigheh Hosseini and hundreds of other women in
positions of responsibility.
Iranian Resistance is the source of many achievements and advances each of
which require lengthy discourse.
Resistance have put into practice many ideals of the equality movement. These
experiences could only be defined as a "new birth", "creating a
new culture" and "human epics."
women’s historical lack of disbelief and fragility. In theory and in social and
political praxis, they have come to believe in women’s enormous capabilities.
fear of failure and weakness in the face of difficulties. Instead of breaking
apart, they learned to develop the power to overcome failure. Instead of
hopelessness, they opened their eyes and discovered the opportunities and
solutions for victory.
the extent to which their independent and responsible role offers a
breakthrough in the struggle against dictatorship, they stepped into the world
of responsible women who assume the leadership of a struggle with all its
implications from the world of irresponsibility, passivity; the world of women
who have to lean on the other (gender).
and had to employ all their ability to attain their goals, they realized that
they had to change, learn and teach constantly; that they must discover new
solutions and new methods.
a world with new set of rules and laws that was not static. Any stoppage was
tantamount to returning to the previous world.
a world where if they did not grapple with all its contradictions and
difficulties everyday, they would have gone backwards. Thus, from fragility,
they attained steadfastness. They turned the struggle against difficulties into
their constant spirit.
pledged that under no circumstance and in no way, would they give up the ideal
of freedom, democracy and equality and that they would challenge to the very
end any form of dictatorship and pay whatever price it requires, be it their
flesh and blood, their emotions, family, father, mother, husband, children or
even changing the culture and even the archaic system of patriarchy.
phenomenon, the new creation and a generation that has a wealth of experience;
a generation that has overcome many difficulties in traversing this long and
historic path with astounding speed; a generation that has turned into a
treasure trove of experience for the people of Iran and especially for all
free-thinking women in the world.
at it may be, to laud a generation of men in the Iranian Resistance movement,
who believed firmly in the ideal of equality and distanced themselves from the
patriarchal culture and created unmatched values. Those, who by looking at
women as equal human beings, attained their true human identity.
tremendous, yet untapped, capacity to change the world toward freedom and
equality; an evolutionary capacity that steers mankind toward genuine freedom.
this struggle, they discover their forgotten powers.
our real power to the extent that we engage in a serious struggle.
attaining new status and new births.
will overcome the devastating disbelief in themselves and realize that they are
not only worthy in this struggle, but that it is they who could be the leaders
and the guiding light for freedom.
can now respond to the main question: Does the world need the equality movement
to enter the vast spheres of the struggle with fundamentalism?
women are the leading force in the fight against fundamentalism. Without
women’s participation, the world cannot overcome the danger which threatens
humanity. The crux of the matter is that the defeat of fundamentalism could
only be achieved with the leadership of women.
movement is the source of our power and the basis of our unity in an active
struggle.
– It is a movement which enflames the resistance and restores the dignity of
human living.
– And it is a movement that constitutes the force of progress, today’s victory
and tomorrow’s hope.
together and assume our idealistic and historic responsibility. This is our
duty, it is within our capacity. Today’s generations and those of the future
expect us to realize those ideals.