On March 8, 1979, some 100,000 women took to the streets of Tehran in furious protests against the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ruling making it compulsory for women to cover their hair. Photo: social media
A powerful and insightful statement for International Women’s Day was posted by OSYAN, a collective of Iranian and Afghan women, Burn The Cage/Free the Birds movement in Europe and others on March 5, 2025. Currently, it is signed by six groups and 52 individuals. The post calls for groups and individuals to add their names to the call. As of March 7, it has been posted in Farsi, English, German, and Italian.
On one side, "We will turn Gaza into a resort area" and "We prefer making a deal with Iran over bombing it!" (Trump). On the other side, "If they threaten us, we threaten them. If they carry out their threat, we will also carry out our threat." (Khamenei)
Who are you, to sit at the top of world power, making decisions for the future and lives of millions of people? What is this system of domination that, in the forced division of the world among a few great powers, considers the mass killing of humans in war as just a game, while threatening the existence of humanity and the Earth itself?
What is this ownership system that has monopolized the highest technologies and collective knowledge of humanity, using them against the people of the world? Who can consider this system legitimate?
The situation of women is not only worsening due to these threats of war in Iran, the Middle East, and across the globe, but the war against women is at the core of fascist and Islamic fundamentalist agendas. In Iran, women have forced the Islamic Republic to make a temporary and relative retreat on mandatory hijab, but maintaining this position and making further progress requires daily struggle. This is happening under conditions where the Islamic Republic, in desperation, has only managed to stay in power through brutal repression and executions.
The lives of our people are threatened both by executions and by imperialist and reactionary wars! Women are threatened both by the ruling class in Iran and by the fascist ruling class at the head of global capitalism! In fact, war and patriarchy are inseparable parts of this system, which in times of crisis like today, intensify and are openly imposed.
Today is the time to have courage and to fight. It is the time to ask the big questions and seek the big answers. It is the time to draw clear and firm lines against the small and large criminals of the world who make decisions about the future of humanity. Nothing is as it once was, and our struggle cannot follow the usual path!
The struggle of women on International Women's Day, alongside all their comrades and allies of any gender and sex, is not a narrow identity fight for some rights within the confines of this system, which crushes the life and hope of humanity. A system that, with every breath it takes, reproduces patriarchy, racism, xenophobia, hatred of LGBTQ, war, genocide, poverty, hunger, displacement, and more in every corner of the world.
Women have lived under patriarchal oppression in class societies for thousands of years, and now, along with billions of others on this earth, they need to move beyond that. The oppression of women is so deeply woven into the fabric of the capitalist system that this old order can only be preserved through rabid patriarchy. The struggle against patriarchy has the capacity to uproot this entire system, along with all other forms of oppression, and its roots in the exploitation of humanity.
In these globally critical times, women must become the liberators of humanity, transforming from fighters in one arena to fighters in all arenas.
We, the rebellious women of Iran and Afghanistan, call on our comrades across the world to unite and stand together against the new wave of war against women and the imperialist and Middle East wars. Let's raise our political awareness about the roots of these tragedies and organize with greater strength to fight against this system and its agents.
8 MARCH 2025
Groups Signatories:
Osyan (Revolt) collective1
Uxan media2
Afghanistan Women's Social Equality Organization3
Me Too Movement Iran4
Burn the Cage5
Daadkhast6
Individual Signers (52):
Angela Ghayour
Ashraf Ghiasi
Elahe Ejbari, feminist
Iraj Ommati
Bahareh Soleimani
Jalal Seraji
Hojat Saangwa
Hossein Derakhshan, social activist
Hamid Saljuqhi
Khalil Abiyat
Raha Askarizadeh
Zaman Masoudi, international women's movement activist
Somayeh Kargar
Susan Golmohammadi
Simin Esfahani
Shabbir Saberi
Shamsi Riasatian
Shoresh Karimi, political activist
Shahrzad Arshadi, artist and anarchist feminist
Shahrzad Mojab
Shahla Zendegani
Sabra Najafi
Sedighe Haj Mohsen, women's rights activist
Atefeh Hosseini, women's activist and former political prisoner in Afghanistan
Ezzat Mosala Nejad, researcher and senior expert at the Canadian Center for Support for Victims of Torture
Faramarz Jafari Behbahani
Fariba Borhanzehi
Farimah Habashizadeh (Justina)
Kaveh Milani
Maryam Sabetnia, radio presenter of Woman, Life, Freedom (WLF) on Radio Free Stuttgart
Maryam Jazayeri
Maryam Hatef
Maosoum Hatami
Mansoureh Bekish
Mona Roshan
Monica Soltani
Mahnaz Matin
Mina Khani
Nazi Oskouei
Nasser Mohajer
Nahid Taghavi
Negin Shiraghaei, Azadi Network
Vahed Roznord, Survivor, shot/blinded in one eye by police during WLF uprising
Hasti Amiri
Farzaneh Raji
Sareh Seddighi
Iman Nouri
Sedigha Mirzaei
Maryam Claren
Daniela Sepehri, journalist
Mehri Shahmoradi, feminist activist
Parvaneh Ghasemian