The Islamic Republic of Iran is a gender apartheidist and misogynist regime that has imposed the most severe discriminatory laws, the most brutal and insulting rules and regulations on women, and has deprived them of their basic rights. Women under Islamic rule are officially and legally considered sexual slaves to serve men. But women in Iran have not given in to this unfairness and have always been on the front lines of the fight against the regime of gender apartheid and misogyny. According to official documentation, every year hundreds of thousands of women are arrested and either punished or fined, or even executed or stoned. Their crimes are mainly disobedience against the unfair laws and regulations, wearing improper clothes, or having had sexual relations outside of marriage. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who was sentenced to death by stoning for having had extramarital sex, is a clear example.

The scale of women’s suppression is a vivid sign of the mass struggle women are leading that has truly exhausted the Islamic regime. Fighting full force and with all their might against gender apartheid and for their human rights has made women a great and influential social movement. In the recent uprising, women were in the vanguard in opposing the Islamic regime. In the past few years many organizations have been formed and lots of schemes and plans have been drawn up to further suppress the women’s movement and impose Islamic rules on them, but the scale of women’s resistance and struggle is such that all these plans have faced defeat one after the other.

This year on International Women’s Day you should show your solidarity with women in Iran. Women in Iran deserve the warmest support worldwide. Condemn the regime of gender apartheid and the misogynist Islamic Republic. Send your solidarity messages to Iranian women. Along with women and people of Iran, demand that the Islamic government be expelled from all international bodies and the United Nations. Demand all diplomatic ties with the Islamic government be broken by the west. Organize demonstrations wherever you can and when you go to your demonstration, bring banners in support of women’s rights in Iran.

The overthrow of the Islamic regime will be a great progress for women and people in Iran, for secularism and women’s liberation in the region, and a great step against Islamic terrorism and the political Islam movement in the world. People of the world must treat gender apartheid in Iran the same way as racial apartheid was treated in South Africa.

Join or intensify the fight! Together we can make a difference!
Please contact us and let us know of any plans you have to stand in solidarity with women’s struggle in Iran!

Equal Rights Now –
Organisation against Women’s Discrimination in Iran

Sohaila Sharifi
sohailasharifi@yahoo.co.uk 0044-771 911 1738