On the occasion of the second anniversary of the Women- Life- Freedom Movement
Campaign to Stop honor Killings
Two years have passed since the state-based murder of Mahsa/Zhina/Amini and the formation of the Women-Life-Freedom movement. In September 2022, Mahsa/Zina Amini was arrested by the Islamic Republic’s Guidance Patrol for “Improper hijab” and transferred to the Guidance Patrol base in Tehran, where she was beaten up and later died in hospital.
The murder of Mahsa/Jina Amini sparked the largest protest movement since the 1957 revolution inside and outside the country, against the forced hijab, torture and repression, imprisonment, executions and the anti-human rights policies of the Islamic regime in Iran and created the lasting name of Women- life- Freedom. Women removed the compulsory hijab that had been imposed on them for more than four decades, burned their scarves in public and demonstrated all kinds of civil disobedience which shook what were the foundations of the Islamic regime in Iran.
The Islamic Republic authorities, instead of responding to the mass protests and arresting and punishing the perpetrators who murdered Mahsa/Jina Amini, resorted to violence against demonstrators, invaded the people’s gatherings, arrested many and killed many more teenage boys and girls or blinded them by shooting directly into the eyes. The nationwide protests, especially by women without the compulsory hijab, and the protests of Iranians outside Iran, attracted the attention of the public, the world media and the people in other countries. Many artists, civil society activists, writers and politicians expressed their support for the Women-Life-Freedom movement by joining the Iranian protests. In Iran’s neighbouring countries, women saw a bright future for women’s regional cooperation for freedom and equality by supporting the Women-Life-Freedom movement.
At present, and nearly two years after the birth of the Women’s-Life-Freedom movement, the Islamic government has done everything in its power to suppress the people and put pressure on women but has not been able to silence and force the movement to retreat. The movement has continued its way despite the heavy price people paid by their eyes, and their lives. The protests of teachers, nurses and the female political prisoners, who for weeks have been on strike every Tuesdays against repression, torture is a stark example of civil resistance and the continuation of the women’s movement for freedom, a movement which is the result of more than four decades of struggles against the theocratic and totalitarian regime in the country.
The Campaign to Stop honor Killings, which was born with the murder of Romina Ashrafi by her father, has now become one of the strongest arms of the Women-Life-Freedom movement. Although the murder of women by men for protection of their “honor” has always existed in the Islamic societies, but with the implementation of anti-woman policies of the Islamic Republic government and the enactment of anti-woman laws, the murder of women by men in the family has increased.
On the second anniversary of the birth of the Women-Life-Freedom Movement, stronger than ever, we make a covenant for the freedom of the Iranian people, equality of women and men, elimination of all laws, traditions and beliefs against women.
#Stop_honour_killings campaign/ September, 2024
