Statement by the Campaign Stop “Honor” Killing the occasion of the The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

We are honoring this international day amongst widespread protests by the Iranian women and girls in the country against the continued state, as well as domestic, traditional and gender based practices of violence and discrimination.
Four decades after an Islamic regime came to power in Iran, women have now reached at a junction, where they want to decide their own way of life and for freedom and equality. They are standing tall and decisive against the forces of darkness and are demonstrating to the world that they want “To break the ceiling and design a new chapter”. They want to be in control of their lives.

After the murder of Mahsa/Jina Amini in the custody of the “Morality police” for not having a “proper Hijab”, women tore down the barriers of decades of fear, when they protested in silence, and came to the streets en-mass to tell the world that enough is enough. They will not be intimidated by the state apparatus anymore. They freed their hair from the forced veiling and let their hair sing the song of freedom with the wind.
The murder of Mahsa amini, which was a state sponsored murder sparked such wide-spread anger, accumulated during the 43 years of the Islamic regime among women and young girls. In this campaign, large number of young men joined in to demand freedom and equality.
The Islamic government, afraid of such mass presence, which swiftly spread into the schools and universities across the country resorted to the usual method of terror and intimidation by attacking and kidnapping demonstrators and taking them to unknown detention centres, where torture and murder of the opponents is a normal practice.
Yet, Iranian women told the world that their bodies are no more the fertile grounds for men to do what they wanted with them. They will be no one’s “honor” , and they will be the ones in control of their lives and bodies. They will take back their rights and dignity by saying “NO” to the Islamic regime.
Women and young girls, who have watched the world outside Iran moving into the future, want to make a better world for themselves and let the practices of the ancient times stay inside the history books.
Women of Iran want to tear down the archaic laws and traditional practices which have sanctioned men the owner of their bodies and their lives. Mahsa and Nika and many other young women lost their lives for women to reach this end.
We, in the Campaign to Stop “Honor” Killings walk along side these women and strive to eliminate all forms of centuries-long violence against women and girls which had been practiced in the name of preserving “Honor” of men or the clan or else, the Islamic regime. Future belongs to those women and men who have broken down the bridges of archaic thinking and thrown them into the rivers of the new eras.
On this International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women, we, in the Campaign to stop “honor” killings in Iran would like to tell the world in one voice that we are not anyone’s’ “honor”.
No one is anyone’s “honor”.
Woman-Life-Liberty
Campaign to stop “Honor” killings in Iran.
November 2022ve