The following is a message by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, to this event:
Dear Friends,
I offer my greetings to all of you distinguished scholars, experts and activists of the equality movement who are attending this conference.
On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, I laud all those who are fighting against the tragedy of suppression and violence against women and who urge others to sympathize and voice solidarity with oppressed women.
Violence against women, which has targeted their livelihood and human rights, is due to gender discrimination and oppression against women. As this tragedy expands, it gives greater cause to the importance of an all-out campaign to ensure that women attain equality in all spheres.
In the course of our struggle against fundamentalism, we recognized the fact that violence and oppression is a natural consequence of inequality. Men can revive their humanity by rejecting violence and respecting women’s rights and freedoms. For when they oppress women, they lose their humanity. Violence must be stopped because it prevents the advancement and evolution of society and takes away men’s human identity.
In the past quarter century, the phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism, espoused by the mullahs ruling Iran, has spread to Islamic countries and led to intensified violence against women. Fundamentalism, whose distinctive feature is misogyny, constitutes a threat to all humanity. Atrocities emanating from fundamentalism have spread to Europe as well.
The experience of fundamentalists’ rule in Iran shows that they have used systematic violence and suppression against women to suppress society as a whole. General crackdown rests on misogyny and this is the source of regime’s survival.
On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, we must take note of the comprehensive and shocking violence perpetrated against Iranian women. In our country, oppression, pressure and persecution not only trample upon the lives, security and dignity of women, but their spirit, soul and human identity.
Governments have tried routinely to enact laws to confront violence against women. In Iran, the clerical regime enacts laws to carry out violence against women. Iranian regime’s officials, agents, judges and courts treatment of women is more violent than the laws. As a result, these policies and laws have not spared the lives of women.
According to the regime’s law of retribution, if a man kills another man, he is punished by execution. Since the law does not recognize men and women as equals, if a man murders a woman, he is not sentenced to death unless the family of the murdered woman pays the man’s family blood money.
A husband would not be punished if he murdered his wife on the mere suspicion of infidelity. If a man beats up and injures and even amputates a women’s limb, he would not be punished. In other words, laws of the state encourage such behavior.
Rape laws are so complex that a rape victim could never prove she was actually raped and might even be prosecuted for adultery. For this reason, according to the Iranian media, "rape has taken on epidemic proportions in Iran."
I should emphasize that none of these laws have anything to do with Islam. They are only enacted to preserve a religious dictatorship.
The Iranian regime’s laws and policies have turned women’s lives into that of detained persons.
In every endeavor, they must secure the agreement of their male guardian. Otherwise, they could not carry out those tasks. They cannot leave the country or travel inside Iran alone. They do not have the right to choose their domicile. They are not free to choose the color and type of their attire and have no right to divorce. For this reason, many women live through forced marriages.
Even when walking in the streets in the company of their families, women are endangered. At any moment, they might be arrested or subjected to degrading treatment by the security forces on the charge of mal-veiling.
The Iranian Resistance is the antithesis and a major obstacle to Islamic fundamentalism. It has found the way to fight violence against women in the ideal of women’s emancipation and equality. Islamic fundamentalism which survives through misogyny will be defeated by the struggle of women. In the resistance against the ruling mullahs tens of thousands of courageous and selfless women have lost their lives or been subjected to torture.
In the ranks of this Resistance, women of all ages, young girls to elderly mothers, share a common ideal: freedom and democracy for the Iranian people, gender equality and resistance against religious tyranny. To achieve these ideals, they sacrifice everything and this is a new phenomenon in our times.
Women enjoy equality in this resistance and have realized in every arena. Their active participation in the resistance’s leadership demonstrates their current status.
In Ashraf City, Iraq, a bastion against Islamic fundamentalism, women play a leading role and have guided perseverance against the clerical regime under the most difficult circumstances.
The leadership of the Resistance’s pivotal force, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, consists entirely of women. In the Resistance’s parliament-in-exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) women hold 52 percent of the seats.
In its platform and plans, the NCRI has underscored women’s freedoms and rights and removal of inequality in all spheres. It has banned any sexual exploitation of women under any pretexts in order to combat violence and suppression of women. It has promoted women’s right to freely choose their clothing, freedom of movement and travel and occupation. The Resistance movement has also rejected reactionary laws such as retribution, whose main victims are women.
On the day when the world expresses solidarity with the victims of violence, I ask for your support and that of all gender equality activists for Iran’s oppressed women. These women are being humiliated under the clerical regime’s pressures, imprisoned, flogged, hanged, stoned to death and have no refuge.
I stretch my hand to you for helping us defend them and support the Iranian Resistance movement that is striving to liberate them.
The liberation of women and humanity is not just a dream. Women’s struggle and solidarity can and will defeat the tragedy of violence.
I thank all of you and wish you the very best for your gathering
