The death of a young Kurdish woman at the hands of the morality police of the Islamic and capitalist regime in Iran, generated a great wave of popular indignation, first in the Kurdish region and then throughout the country. Mahsa Amini was only 22 years old and was arrested in Tehran for wearing her hijab (veil) “badly.”
Although the use of the Islamic veil has been mandatory in Iran since 1979, last August the fundamentalist government issued an even stricter control decree, which includes the persecutory use of facial recognition technology. It did so in response to the demonstrations of hundreds of women in the streets and on social networks after July 12, the obscurantist “national day of hijab and chastity.” Women have been holding protests and demonstrations in recent months, however, Mahsa’s murder was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and that led to the outbreak that the world is witnessing today and calls into question the Islamic regime.
Although it has been women who have been at the forefront of this historic struggle, the mobilizations today are nurtured by the strength of youth and workers, joining the fight against male oppression with discontent against the government and its anti-worker measures. In November 2019, major demonstrations took place across the country after the government increased fuel prices. In July 2021, thousands of workers in the oil, sugar and other industries went on strike over demands for wage arrears, raises, better working conditions and freedom to organize. The strike was responded by the government with a bloody repression, just as it did in the face of other social protests over the serious lack of water and electricity in the south and center of the country. Also in December 2021, large strikes by education workers, especially the teachers’ union in which women are at least 60%, who have been fighting for equal wages between men and women, as well as a wage increase for the teachers, construction of schools, academic freedom and other claims against the interference of the Islamic and sexist regime in education.
This social deterioration together with the increase in repression is the basis of the growing discontent, which shows a convergence of action between the working class, popular sectors and women and youth, in defense of economic and democratic rights and the fight against male oppression. Currently, the mobilization is being brutally repressed, hundreds are injured, arrested, tortured and murdered, for this reason, the women and people of Iran need international solidarity.
We call on all organizations that defend women’s rights, workers’, trade union, popular, neighborhood and democratic organizations; the indigenous and black communities to join forces in this call and participation in actions of solidarity with the women and people of Iran. We demand that the government of Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez be truly democratic and pronounce itself against the Islamic and capitalist regime; demanding the end of the repression and the guarantee of collective rights to the Kurdish community. A government that does not speak out in the face of the aberrant situation of Kurdish women, plays an accomplice role in the face of these humiliations; a minimally democratic posture cannot fail to show its rejection of the persecution and harassment to which women are subjected.
Stop the repression, murders and arrests of the Islamic regime!
Down with the Islamic, capitalist and male chauvinist regime!
Return to the path of revolution, led by the working class against the Ayatollah regime!
Victory for the struggle of the Iranian women and people!
