International
Women’s Day
The
choice is ours! The choice is yours!
In 2008, on the 8th
March we intend to exclaim ‘Enough is enough’! We no longer want to
tolerate
the hell created by the patriarchal systems stretching from Kosovo to Iraq, Afghanistan to Philippines, the USA to France, Britain to Turkey and Iran to Pakistan.
The year behind us
was a bitter year for majority of women in the world:
- ‘Doa’ a young Kurdish woman was brutally battered,
trampled and stoned to death by her tribe and became the code-name for
hundreds of Kurdish women who were cruelly murdered to preserve the
men’s ‘honour’ under the protection of the American-backed Kurdish
government in Iraq.
- Thousands and thousands of Iraqi women sought refuge in Syria only to find themselves
dancing in Damascus’s night clubs . Their frail
bodies exploited to attract preying
clients for pitiful survival money.
- Afghan women were repeatedly raped in ‘Pol charkhi’
prison by the police trained by the so-called ‘peace keeping’ forces.
- The Western countries had a fierce competition with each
other to win the trophy for ‘domestic violence’. In the USA, a woman was raped every
four minutes and in France a woman was killed every
three days as a result of domestic violence.
- In Tabriz, a woman was barbarically
left suspended on a loosely fastened rope from gallows, she torturously
struggled until death. Afterwards, the Islamic regime exhibited her
body in a prominent location so that other women would learn a lesson
and stop challenging the Islamic regime.
- The Islamic patrol guards arrested Zahra, a young Iranian
woman, raped and murdered her. She joined thousands of other women who
have been raped in the Islamic regime’s prisons in the last 28 years.
- As Iranian women intensified their struggles against
their unequal status, the regime also stepped up its suppression and
violence against them. Tens of women activists were arrested and sent
to prisons charged with the fictitious crime of ‘unlawful conduct’.
- Thousands of women in Iran were beaten up
and arrested for not following the proper Islamic code of
dressing.
In spite of all
these atrocities women of Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Turkey and Afghanistan were not
silenced. In the heart of the Middle East, the Iranian
women endeavour to send the news of their struggles against the
misogynist and
religious regime in Iran to the
progressive forces all over the world. They try to connect their
struggles with
the global struggles of women.
The
reactionary regimes in the USA and Iran are each offering different
versions of
hell to us: either stoning to death, the gallows, forced veil
and rape
by the ‘Revolutionary Guards’ in Iran or, like Iraq, a regime
supported
by the USA and its allies under the economic sanctions, bombing and
military
attacks and the obvious enslavement of women. Should we allow the
ranks
of the women’s movements to be shattered by the two dreadful options of
imperialists and the reactionary Islamic regime in Iran? Or should we
rely on 28 years experience, knowledge and struggles of Iranian women
to prove
that both hostile poles are the two versions of the patriarchal and
anti-woman
systems and any support for one will inevitably strengthen the other?
Can we convey the
demands of the majority of Iranian women who are determined to get a
future,
independent of both the Islamic regime and the patriarchal forces of
the USA and its allies to
the people all over the world? Can we be the bearers of the positive
news that
the Iranian women have chosen a separate path independent of the
dominant
reactionary world order?
The
choice is ours! The choice is yours!
On 8th
March, we will be on the streets to proclaim our choice: We are
determined to make
our mark in Iran’s contemporary
history by achieving emancipation and
equality. Our minimum demands are abolition of all barbaric and unequal
laws
against women including stoning, forced veiling, gender apartheid and
securing
right to divorce, right to keep children after divorce, total control
over our
bodies, right to choose our partners as heterosexual or lesbians and
elimination of any religious control over or interference in various
aspect of
women’s lives. We demand women’s freedom and emancipation from any
oppression
and exploitation. These demands are achievable only with the overthrow
of the
Islamic regime in Iran.
The presence of
each one of us at the 8th March demonstration will reinforce
our
demands and determination to achieve those demands. Our Campaign is
planning a
march in Belgium the details of
which will be announced later.
The Campaign for
abolition of all misogynist gender based legislation & Islamic
punitive
laws in Iran
Karzar2005@yahoo.com
http:/www.karzar-zanan.com/