Speech of Leila Parnian at ‘Million Women Rise’ Demonstration

I want to thank the ‘Million Women Rise’ and all of you that gave me this opportunity to talk briefly about the violence against the women in Iran, our country and express my sympathy and solidarity with the women who fight violence, discrimination and inequality all over the world.

Many of you may have heard of what the Iranian women have gone through in the last 3 decades since the founding of a religious regime, the Islamic republic of Iran.

Iranian women not only have been victims of the various domestic and social violence like their many sisters all over the world, but Iranian women and women in other countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and many countries in the Middle East live under a religious regime.

What we the Iranian women have learned and experienced with our flesh and blood is that a religious regime means the harshest possible oppression and suppression against the women.

For last thirty years the regime has used all kinds of violence, guns, prison, rape, lashes, beating, to force women to cover their head and body.

They have strengthened their oppression by the reactionary and anti-women laws which have strengthened the cruel male chauvinism and domestic violence against the women.

Here I just want to remember the memory of hundreds of women who were stoned to death because their crime was to love the wrong man, to choose their own man.

To remember those who spent years under the brutal violence of torture, rape in prison and finally many who were executed by the regime.

I want to remember thousands of women like Atefeh the teen age girl who was abused by the men including the judge who sentenced her to death.

I want to remember the women who are victims of honour killings and other backward relations and traditions, relations and traditions that have been strengthened in the last 3 decades under the Islamic republic rule.

However among all this there is good news that I want to tell you all, the good news is that the women of Iran never gave in to these atrocities and never stopped fighting back from the beginning.

This is more evident in the recent uprising of the Iranian people against the reactionary anti-women regime. These women are fearlessly taking part in the struggles against the Islamic regime of Iran, a reply to 3 decades of state violence and oppression against women.

I mainly talked about the women’s situation in Iran,

But the reality is that the women’s oppression is not limited to Iran and all sorts of discrimination and oppression and violence affect women on a world scale.

So women all over the world should fight and are fighting for a common cause and the fight of the women anywhere in the world belongs to all women and should be fully supported.

To sum up we fight for a society where religion is separated from the state and a society in which no more women will be victims of state and domestic violence.

Glory to the women’s struggle all over the world

Victory to International Women’s Day

6March 2010-London