Skip to main content

Iranian Women Mark International Women’s Day with Protests in Half Dozen Cities 

On March 8, in at least a half dozen cities, Iranian women and men marked International Women’s Day with protests in defiance of the Islamic regime’s bloody crackdown. They called for freedom, women’s rights, and denounced the government’s response to the poisoning of thousands of schoolgirls.

In western Tehran, women and men called for an end to attacks on women and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, chanting “Death to the dictator” (referring to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) and "Woman, life, freedom." In eastern Tehran, security forces wielding tear gas and shotguns dispersed a group protesting discrimination against women.  

"Women, Life, Freedom"—Rasht, Iran, March 7, 2023

There were also protests in Ahvaz in southern Iran, Rasht and Karaj in the north, and the Kurdish cities of Sanandaj and Saqqez. In Rasht, women shouted out, "Whether with hijab or without hijab, we’re moving toward the revolution."1

And on March 8, five girls in Tehran issued a 40-second video coinciding with IWD.  Dressed in loose fitting clothing and without headscarves, they danced in a public area (dancing in public is illegal in Iran) to the tune of "Calm Down" by Rema and Selena Gomez.  The video went viral and the authorities are reportedly trying to identify and perhaps arrest them.2

These actions demonstrate real defiance in the face of a regime willing to violently suppress protesters: Between September 2022 and March 2023, the regime arrested at least 3,953 women during protests and killed 66 women, according to human rights activists.3

Many different forces in Iran issued or signed statements in support of International Women’s Day. Internationally, there were moving examples of support for the struggle of Iranian women on March 8, IWD. For example, there was a silent "Handmaids" march down Piccadilly Street in London. In Germany, Mariam Claren, the daughter of Nahid Taghavi, a political prisoner in Iran, organized a powerful call for freedom for Iran’s political prisoners, with the stories of different prisoners read on Instagram by prominent German-Iranian activists.

At the IWD rally on March 11 in Los Angeles called by the revcoms, a statement from the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran's Political Prisoners Now highlighted the call from Colombia to stand with the uprising in Iran:

We call on you, the people of our planet, to support the uprising in Iran, to join your own longing for a radically new and better world with the hope that beats in the hearts of the heroic women and men of Iran. The women and the people of Iran have risen up. Their struggle is our struggle!”

Tweet URL

Iran, a group of women in Tehran with placards, banners and slogans condemn gassing young women students.

Thousands of Women Continue to Defy Mandatory Hijab Rules

In a form of ongoing protest, thousands of women across Iran are openly defying the Islamic Republic’s dress code, publicly going without hijabs (head scarves). This is very significant: it was the September 16 murder of Mahsa Amini for not “properly” wearing her hijab, that triggered the uprising against the regime. The New York Times reports:

Women are suddenly flaunting their hair: left long and flowing in the malls; tied in a bun on the streets; styled into bobs on public transportation; and pulled into ponytails at schools and on university campuses, according to interviews with women in Iran as well as photographs and videos online. While these acts of defiance are rarer in more conservative areas, they are increasingly being seen in towns and cities…. [M]any acts of civil disobedience continue daily, including chanting "death to the dictator" from rooftops, writing graffiti on walls and tearing down and setting ablaze government banners. And women have been going out in public without their hijabs.

At the same time, some high-ranking clerics have warned that the hijab rules are still in effect and will be aggressively enforced. There are some reports that the regime may be debating exactly how to proceed on this front. This underscores the need for ongoing support for the Iranian people in the just struggle against this vicious, misogynist regime.4

 

_______________

FOOTNOTES:

1. "We’re Moving Toward Revolution": Iranians Mark Women's Day With Fresh Protests, IranWire.com, March 9, 2023 [back]

2. Iranian Security Forces Seek Girls Who Danced In Public Without Hijab, IranWire.com, March 10, 2023. In January, an Iranian court sentenced a two bloggers, Amir Ahmadi and his partner Astiaj Haghighi, to a total of 21 years in prison for publishing a video of themselves dancing in Tehran's central Azadi Square.” [back]

3. https://twitter.com/HRANA_English/status/1633160872716812288 [back]

4. Uncovered and Unbowed, Women Keep Iran’s Protests Alive, Bloomberg, March 8, 2023; Their Hair Long and Flowing or in Ponytails, Women in Iran Flaunt Their Locks, New York Times, February 25, 2023; Hardliners Trying To Reclaim Control Over Hijab As Women Remain Defiant, Iran International, March 10, 2023 [back]

DONATE to revcom.us
DONATE to the revolution.

From the genocide in Gaza, to the growing threat of world war between nuclear powers, to escalating environmental devastation… the capitalist-imperialist system ruling over us is a horror for billions around the world and is tearing up the fabric of life on earth. Now the all-out battle within the U.S. ruling class, between fascist Republicans and war criminal Democrats, is coming to a head—likely during, or before, the coming elections—ripping society apart unlike anything since the Civil War.

Bob Avakian (BA), revolutionary leader and author of the new communism, has developed a strategy to prepare for and make revolution. He’s scientifically analyzed that this is a rare time when an actual revolution has become more possible, and has laid out the sweeping vision, solid foundation and concrete blueprint for “what comes next,” in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

The website revcom.us follows and applies that leadership and is essential to all this. We post new materials from BA and curate his whole body of work. We apply the science he’s developed to analyze and expose every key event in society, every week. Revcom.us posts BA’s timely leadership for the revcoms (revolutionary communists), including his social media posts which break this down for people every week and sometimes more. We act as a guiding and connecting hub for the growing revcom movement nationwide: not just showing what’s being done, but going into what’s right and what’s wrong and rapidly learning—and recruiting new people into what has to be a rapidly growing force.

Put it this way: there will be no revolution unless this website not only “keeps going” but goes up to a whole different level!

So what should you give to make 2024 our year—a year of revolution?
Everything you possibly can!
DONATE NOW to revcom.us and get with BA and the revcoms!

Your donations contribute to:

  • Promotion of BA on social media and the Bob Avakian Interviews on The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show
  • Strengthen revcom.us as an accessible, secure, robust website able to rise to the challenge of meeting the extraordinary demands of navigating the storms and preparing for revolution in this pivotal, unprecedented year
  • Fund revcoms to travel to national “hotspots,” where extreme contradictions are pulling apart the fabric of this country and creating the possibility of wrenching an actual revolution out of this intensifying situation
  • Expand the reach and coverage of revcom.us
  • Printing and distribution of key Revcom materials including the Declaration “WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM” and the Proclamation, “WE ARE THE REVCOMS (Revolutionary Communists)