Call feminist organizations for solidarity with Iranian women

Iran in fight

Calling feminist organizations around the world to raise 8 march a day of solidarity with Iranian women. This call is notably supported by WLUML (WLUML), South Asian Women in Media (Pakistan), National Collective for Women's Rights (France), CADAC (France), the Union de l'Action Féminine (Morocco), the Democratic Association of Women (Tunisia), etc.

To put an end to violence and repression, to obtain the freedom of all political prisoners in Iran, we call on feminists and women's rights defenders in all countries to organize, throughout the month of March which will celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women's Rights Day, solidarity and protest actions claiming freedom and gender equality in Iran.

Call for freedom and gender equality in Iran

In Iran, the women's movement is, for the last thirty years, at the forefront of the struggle for democracy. As sexist discrimination is closely linked to other discrimination : social, policies, religious and ethnic, women's peaceful resistance, their fight against violence and discrimination played an important role in the development of democratic movements within Iranian society. Since many years, individually or in groups, Iranian women fight for freedom and equality, in particular through the organization of various campaigns against discrimination. They suffer repression : insults, violence, arrests and imprisonments. Many are now imprisoned.

Eight months have passed since the last presidential election in Iran and the popular protests that ensued. Meanwhile, in a context of permanent repression, the movement for citizens' rights has grown, with the massive and increasing presence of men and women day by day. Civil society movements such as the women's movement, the student movement, the ethnic and workers' movement laid the groundwork for this popular revolt.

As the movement for democracy expands, state repression is strengthening. The crackdown on Iranian civic and political activists grows : psychological violence, physical and sexual, arrests, insults, heavy penalties of imprisonment and execution. Today, dozens of feminist activists, actors from other civil society movements and political actors have been arrested or imprisoned and heavily sentenced. Every day, the blacklist of victims of repression grows longer with new names. Along with the ever-increasing arrests of women active in feminist movements or other civil society movements, new laws encouraging gender discrimination are being passed.

On the 30th anniversary of the International Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) that Iran has not signed, we live, in this same country, the 30th anniversary of the affirmation of sexist discrimination advocated by Sharia. On the threshold of Beijing + 15, in March 2010, Iran has not fulfilled any of its international human rights commitments.

In this context of harsh repression, the development of international solidarity towards feminists, women and men who defend freedom and equality are needed more than ever. In the presence of total censorship, Iranian civil society movements have become, from their start, their own media to challenge defenders of freedom and equality around the world and call on them to stand together.

To end the violence and repression in Iran, we, Iranian feminists, ask all feminists to stand in solidarity with the women's movement in Iran and the movement for democracy. To this end, we ask you to organize in march 2010, in all countries of the world, protest actions calling for "Change for Freedom and Equality" in Iran.

Invitation of feminists, women's groups and networks to act in solidarity with Iranian women

To end the violence and repression in Iran, we, Iranian feminists, call on all feminists to stand in solidarity with the women's movement in Iran and the popular movement for democratic citizenship. To this end, we ask you to organize in march 2010, in all countries of the world, protest actions calling for "Change for Freedom and Equality".

Action proposal

We call on feminists around the world to devote to the demand for “Change for equality and freedom” an important place in their actions during this centenary of the International Day for Women's Rights and the 3rd World March of Women for peace, against violence and poverty.

We will set up a blog to inform about all these solidarity actions. This blog will broadcast our various demands. Short interviews with Asian feminists, from the Middle-East, d’Europe, from America and Africa on the need for solidarity with Iranian women, will be broadcast on the blog and possibly on youtube.