۸ مارس

Free all political prisoners in Iran!

The People’s upsurge in Iran and the political crisis that started after the presidential election fraud is continuing. The people are still refusing to back down and the Islamic regime continues its extreme brutality in higher scales. The angry reaction of the people did not develop overnight but it is a response to 30 years of oppression, deprivation and repression by a religious regime against women and different sections of oppressed people.

The people started their struggle by demanding their vote to be counted, but in the course of the last two months struggle they have increasingly been challenging the existence of the whole system by shouting ‘death to Khamenei’ (the leader of Islamic regime) and ‘down with the Islamic Republic’, ‘Independence, Freedom, Iranian Republic’.

As the people’s struggle intensified the regime’s brutality and desperation escalated to its highest point. There are undeniable evidences of the harshest torture against those who were arrested in the last two months struggle. So far the name of several youths who died in the custody under the torture are known. There are increasing evidences of rape of young women and even young men by the interrogators and other thugs in the medieval prisons of the Islamic regime. However raping women has a long history in the Islamic regime’s prisons of the women’s political prisoners in the 80’s and after that but the latest horror stories has exposed the regime completely and has enraged the whole population. The Islamic regime in disgrace has resorted to desperate actions. The notorious prison of Kahrizak with many horror stories has been shut down or said to be shut down just to eliminate and hide the evidences of shocking brutalities. The regime has also set up the trial shows of so called confession by the prisoners in order to shake the people’s determination but it has just increased the contempt of a disgraced regime.

There is no doubt that the strong presence of women and in particular the young women in the fro front of these struggles have angered the regime.

Women were the first section of the masses to be targeted when the Islamic regime came to power. The compulsory wearing of the Hijab (the Islamic veil) and other forms of discrimination against women have been one of the daily tasks of the regime’s thugs over the last 30 years. Nonetheless, over the last 30 years, women have never stopped their struggle. Only a month after the establishment of the Islamic regime, women held their first demonstration and ever since have continued to oppose the regime in various ways despite the extreme atrocities against them. Over the last 30 years the hatred of women for this system has accumulated. It is no surprises that we see such a large proportion of protestors are furious women.

Parallel to the people’s struggle the whole world watched and heard of unbelievable brutalities of a criminal regime. The brutality that took the lives of our bravest daughters and sons such as Neda Agha-Soltan and Sohrab Araabi who participated in the protest on 20^th June. The world heard of the viciousness that raped, murdered, burned and then threw away to a remote area the body of Traneh Mousavi the young woman who was arrested on 20^th June and was missing for a month. The world heard of the ferocities of the murders under the torture of at least tens of brave protestors such as Amir Javadifar a University student. There are still hundreds of bodies not identified while the parents are looking for their loved one from one prison to another, from one hospital to another. There are still hundreds in the prisons under the savage tortures while their families have no news from them.

We call on all freedom loving people, all those disgusted by the discrimination against women, all those outraged by these brutalities give their support to the people’s struggle for freedom and equality and join the struggle to free the political prisoners in Iran.

8 March Women’s Organization (Iran – Afghanistan)-UK

14 August 2009

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