We protest not only against Rouhani’s visit but also against the entire patriarchal  imperialist system!

Hassan Rouhani is visiting Europe (France and Italy) as the representative of the anti-woman, oppressive regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is visiting Europe hand-in-hand with the patriarchal imperialists, pursuing their interests to impose austerity, poverty, oppression, and the exploitation of the working class and laborers, women's enslavement, etc., on the people of Iran.

Since the day the Islamic Republic regime first took power in Iran, it has launched an ideological and political war on the whole society by enforcing women to put on the hijab and by enacting different laws against women according to the Islamic Sharia, all in order to stabilize its rule. During the last 37 years, this anti-woman regime has imposed total oppression on women and has destroyed countless women’s lives.

Rouhani, as a representative of the medieval Islamic regime in Iran, is traveling to Europe while, at the same time, thousands of political prisoners languish in the regime's prisons and are being tortured, and their families threatened. Workers' strikes have been suppressed and many of their representatives arrested or executed. The teachers' movement is also being suppressed and its leaders imprisoned.

Since the beginning of Rouhani's presidency, at least 1900 people have been executed in Iran. Iran, under Islamic Republic rule, is a scene of suppressed opposition voices, arrested and imprisoned workers and toilers, executions, unprecedented levels of unemployment and poverty, an enormous gap between the social classes, addiction, the prostitution of thousands of women, and acid attacks and intensified violence against women.

Iran is a place where thousands and thousands of children have to do hard, dangerous and underpaid jobs in a struggle to survive and support their families. The average age of addiction among women is 13, and within the last 10 years, the number of those addicted has quadrupled. Iran is a prison-house of nations and a slaughterhouse of progressive thought and of those who fight against ignorance.

During Rouhani's presidency, Iran's parliament has established more reactionary laws and policies against women. According to these laws women are now just machines for incubation. Some proposals such as for a "population increase" and "preserving the Hijab and chastity" have been approved which intensify women's degradation. This ensures that women live lives of semi-slavery economically and socially.

Behind their “generous” invitation to Rouhani, Europe's patriarchal imperialists are craving for more economical and political interests. They support Iran's oppressive regime just as they have fueled and supported the reactionary wars in the Middle East and North Africa, in which millions of people have been killed or forced to flee their homes. Even the destruction of the whole environment in pursuit of their own interests would not satisfy their thirst.

In order to solve its deep structural crisis, capitalism currently needs to involve the most reactionary and fundamentalist forces in its game. Iran’s government, as a reactionary regime, has done its best during all these years to become a powerful player in the Middle East region. For this reason, when Rouhani became the president of Islamic republic of Iran, he began executions on a more extensive scale than the former government, in order to ensure the US and European imperialists of the regime's ability to help them to overcome their crisis, including in the Middle East. They can now count on Iran's government to be a “legitimate” and powerful government.

In return, the US and European imperialists have chosen to be silent in the face of the massacres by the Rouhani government and the increasing intensification of women’s degradation, the imprisonment of all the opposition forces and the suppression and jailing of workers and toilers. 

This is a continuation of their same supportive silence over the last 37 years during the suppression of the opposition, in particular the mass murder of political prisoners in the early 1980s and the summer of 1988.

Today, for the imperialists, the most important issue in reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran is not the interests of the Iranian people or the women, but overcoming the bottlenecks and crises of their own system so as to ensure their global hegemony, particularly in the Middle East. This is why governments such as those of Italy and France are striving to increase their political and economical influence in Iran, so as to maintain their own interests. This is their real reason for inviting Rouhani.

Militant women and men and all freedom lovers!

Europe's patriarchal imperialists talk about "human rights and democracy", which is nothing but a lie! What is most important issue for them is to maximize their profits, and it is indeed this pursuit of profit which makes them support Iran's anti-woman regime.

We ardently call on you, on all women and men militants, to join us in amplifying the voice of Iran's women, one of the most oppressed groups in that society.

We call upon you to stand up for the Iranian people and to expose the real face of the European imperialists, their policies, and the nature of the oppressive Islamic Republic regime in Iran, which is doing nothing but intensifying austerity, poverty, misery and women's degradation, imprisoning the opposition, and executing the country's political and other prisoners.

We call upon you to stand with us to build a world in which there will be no oppression and exploitation. We can surely build this society by our struggle, with the aim of the revolutionary overthrow of the Islamic republic regime of Iran and its imperialist allies. 

8 March Woman's  Organisation (Iran- Afghanistan)

November 2015

www.8mars.com

zan_dem_iran@hotmail.com

https://facebook.com/8Mars.org