Revolution #80, March 4, 2007
From A World to Win News Service:
Iranian Women Call for International Women’s Day Actions
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February 12, 2007. A World to Win News Service.
The Women’s Campaign for the Abolition of all Misogynist,
Gender-Based Legislation and Islamic Punitive Laws in Iran is preparing
for actions on March 3 and 8 on the occasion of International
Women’s Day.
The Campaign, known by its Farsi name Karzar, in 2006 organised a
successful series of marches over five days from Frankfurt, Germany to
The Hague in the Netherlands. Approximately 1,000 people took part on
the last day, mostly Iranian women but also women and men from Europe
and around the world, some travelling long distances to give their
solemn support to women in Iran whose oppression is legitimised by the
legal system set up by that country’s rulers.
The Women’s Campaign plans a programme on two levels this year.
They are organising local days of action on March 3 in many major
European cities, including London; Paris; Frankfurt, Bremen and
Gutingen in Germany; Stockholm; Helsinki; as well as Toronto, Canada.
But the main and central demonstration of this year’s
Women’s Campaign will be held in The Hague on March 8,
International Women’s Day itself. People from all over
Europe will join the march that passes through the city centre, then
goes on to the US embassy and from there the embassy of the Islamic
Republic of Iran.
“The Women’s Campaign march past the two embassies is
symbolic,” Leila Parnian, one of the Campaign’s
coordinators, told AWTWNS. “We will march first to the US
embassy to express our opposition to the US threat of war against Iran,
and all that the US has done against women in Afghanistan and
especially in Iraq. We are aware that the US has no intention of bring
democracy to Iran, and that it has no intention of liberating Iranian
women. The situation of our sisters in Afghanistan and Iraq speaks
volumes in terms of how women are suffering under US-established
fundamentalist regimes on both countries. We are also aware of how Bush
is treating women in US itself, where he is doing everything he can to
deprive the women of their right to abortion. We have no illusions
about US intentions and goals in invading Iran.” Explaining why
the protest will also be taken to the Iranian embassy, she continued,
“Our main slogan this year is: ‘No to reaction, No to
imperialism, Advance toward a new world’, so we do not want to
lean toward either side, neither relying on the US imperialists for
ending women’s oppression nor supporting the reactionary Islamic
regime that has been a major oppressor of women in Iran since its birth
and has made the discrimination against women legal and a religious
duty.”
The Women’s Campaign has defined itself by its clear position
against both the Iranian Islamic regime and US imperialism. Another
important aspect has been its efforts and some degree of success in
uniting a broad section of women’s organizations and individuals
around that position.
This is a necessity in a situation where, on the one side, the US
imperialists are increasingly beating the drums for a war against Iran.
The US will not hesitate to take women’s oppression in Iran as
one of its excuses to invade that country, in the same way it did with
the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Bush has already demanded
approval of more than $75 million in his budget to be allocated to
promoting “democracy in Iran,” in other words stepping up
funding for the American Farsi language propaganda apparatus. On the
other side, the Iranian regime, despite its desperation and attempts to
exploit the national pride of the people through deceit and rally as
many people as possible in order to save its own skin, has shown no
sign of concessions on democratic rights and especially women’s
rights. This is the nature of a reactionary regime whose interests are
in sharp conflict with the liberation of women.
Nevertheless, there has been some erroneous thinking that would require
the people to at least temporarily stop fighting against their
oppressors and immediate exploiters in the face of the threat of a war
launched by the US. Some people, Parnian says, “have made
this a precondition for supporting the Campaign. This is especially
strong within the left movement in the Western countries among people
who are disgusted by the bullying of the oppressed countries by the US
and other Western imperialists. This line has been a concrete obstacle
to stronger support for the women’s struggle. But we are also
facing another trend, particularly within the Iranian movement, that
tends to lean towards the US against the Islamic regime.”
She emphasized the importance of the Women’s Campaign maintaining
an independent line as the only way to build a stronger resistance
movement and the dangers that erroneous lines pose for that movement.
“Such (erroneous) views oblige the people to take sides either
with the brutal Islamic rulers or deadly US military aggression. These
lines do not give a chance to the people’s independent struggle,
a struggle that relies on the power of the people alone. The only way
to fully unleash the oppressed against reaction and imperialism, the
only way that can make it possible to really stand up against US
aggression, is the independent struggle of the people united against
both the imperialists and the reactionary Iranian ruling power, not
only in Iran but with active support from around the world, a movement
that has a vision of a new world where all discrimination against women
has been brought to an end and the democratic rights of the people
ensured.”
Finally, in reply to a question about how much support for this
year’s march the Women’s Campaign foresees winning from
progressive forces, Parnian said, “The situation is more
polarised this year, but the success of the Women’s Campaign last
year certainly effected and influenced those forces we were in contact
with. Many of the groups that supported the Women’s Campaign
march last year have already given their support this year too, and
messages of support are still coming in. Now we have become a
recognised force that is willing to unite the women’s movement
around a revolutionary slogan – No to imperialism, No to
reaction, Advance towards a new world. In addition, Iran’s women
have experienced another year of the regime’s oppression of
women. At the moment there are many women awaiting execution, most of
them very young, such as Kobra Rahmanpour and Delara Darabi, whose
death sentence has generated much protest. From the other side, the
huge crimes of the US invaders and their puppet regimes in Iraq and
Afghanistan, especially against women, have made many people think
twice about the possibility of uniting with one kind of reaction
against another. We feel that this has weakened these erroneous ideas,
especially among individuals. Every day more people are coming to
conclusion that an independent movement is necessary and are supporting
such a movement.”
For more information: Web site – www.karzar-zanan.com. E mail – Karzar2005@yahoo.com
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