Excerpt from the Book of the Revolution; Dawn or Dusk
The 1979 Iranian Revolution was, according to the Iranian people, hijacked by the mullahs. Iranian people came out to the streets in millions during the months leading to the February 11th, 1979 revolution rejecting the despotic and dictatorial regime of the Pahlavi Shah and crying for freedom and democracy. But due to the absence of an active democratic movement, Ayatollah Khomeini leading a reactionary system of mullahs through mosques, opportunistically exploited the situation and the wave of unrests and finally grabbed the power.
Back then the only active democratic and pluralistic political movement, the PMOI/MEK was absent from the ongoing events in the country and all of its leaders and members were in shah’s prisons.
Due to this vacuum, the despotic mullahs hijacked the revolution and betrayed the aspirations of millions of Iranian people yearning for freedom and democracy. They gradually exerted their fundamentalist and extremist ideology on the society by imposing backward and medieval laws.
One might say, how could a revolution be hijacked or stolen? Or might say that such a phenomenon has never been recorded in the history. Well, by looking at some of these few events in Iran, one could judge himself what label would better suit this tragedy, Hijacking, steeling or…..
– Feb. 11, 1979; Khomeini came to power in Iran.
– 15 days later, while the streets of capital were still the ground for sporadic battles with the remnant of the Shah regime, Khomeini’s waves of attacks began.
– Feb. 26, 1979; the Family Protection Law was revoked.
– Feb. 27, 1979; the women’s social services were revoked.
– Feb. 28, 1979; the sexual discrimination against women in the area of sports was generalized.
– March 2, 1979; women were barred from judiciary and those women judges who were already working, were laid off.
– March 4, 1979; the right to divorce was given only to men and taken away from women
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– March 7, 1979; a Fatwa of mandatory or forced hijab was issued for working women
. Herds of club welders were sent out to the streets carrying the slogan of “scarf or head beating.” From then on the ugly phenomenon of slashing women’s faces with knifes or splashing acid at women’s face materialized which was carried out by basiej militias.
– May 22, 1979; public flogging was carried out against a woman for the first time. This heinous act was never seen in Iran’s contemporary history, not even in rural areas.
– July 12, 1979; for the first time, 3 women were hanged for what the mullahs call “Monkarat” which a labeled against acts of social relations between unmarried couples or consuming alcoholic beverages or other such social behaviors.
– April 19, 1980; women were barred from singing.
– June 29, 1980; for the first time in Iran’s recent history, 2 women were stoned to death in public in Kerman.
– And finally, on Dec. 15, 1986, the state run daily Resalat cited the then head of the judiciary, Mullah Yazdi saying that “YOUR WIFE WHOM YOU OWN, IS ACTUALLY YOUR SLAVE.”
