Prominent Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad and Narges Mohammadi, the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner who is imprisoned in Tehran, both called on Monday for the criminalization of gender apartheid in international law. A tool that would help undermine theocratic regimes, such as those in Iran or Afghanistan, that are waging a war on women, they claim.
“If the sexist apartheid regime of Iran and the Taliban [en Afghanistan] is criminalized, we will win this battle,” said Mr.me Alinejad in an interview at Duty on the occasion of the second anniversary of the outbreak of the Iranian movement Women, Life, Freedom.
On September 16, 2022, an unprecedented popular revolt broke out in Iran following the death of Mahsa “Jina” Amini, a young Iranian Kurd arrested by the morality police because she was not wearing her hijab correctly.
In the weeks that followed, thousands of Iranians took to the streets in open defiance of Ayatollah Khamenei’s authoritarian regime. He responded with a brutal and bloody crackdown.
According to the Iran Human Rights (IHR) organization, as part of the Women, Life, Freedom movement, at least 551 protesters were killed, 10 demonstrators were executed, more than 30,000 others were arbitrarily arrested and hundreds of people were intentionally blinded.
At the same time, IHR denounces a general increase in the climate of fear in Iran with the execution, in the first eight months of the year, of 402 people for other types of offences.
With the repression having done its work, hopes of an overthrow of the Islamic Republic, high in the first weeks of the uprising, have since faded.
“Coming out of silence”
In a message relayed by her relatives on Monday, Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi – imprisoned in Evin prison for her commitment against the compulsory veil and the death penalty – called on the international community to take legal action to put an end to the state-controlled system of oppression of women.
“I urge the United Nations to end its silence and inaction in the face of the devastating oppression and discrimination perpetrated by theocratic and authoritarian governments against women, criminalizing gender apartheid,” she said.
The 52-year-old, who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, announced that she was starting a hunger strike with 34 fellow prisoners to highlight the “murder” of Mahsa Amini and denounce “theocratic despotism.”
Mme Mohammadi also states in his message that “nothing will ever be the same again” and that “change is shaking the foundations of religious tyranny.”
Distrusts
Revolutions sometimes take time, notes Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist living in exile in the United States. Even though the popular uprising has not yet yielded the results hoped for, women “will not go back,” she says. “Yes, [le régime] This time they succeeded in emptying the streets, but they did not succeed in silencing the women. The flame of revolution still burns.”
Since Mahsa Amini’s death, more women have been walking the streets of Tehran without covering their heads. “It’s not because women have more freedoms. These are acts of civil disobedience, and women are paying a high price for it.” According to the journalist, three women are currently on death row because they joined the Women, Life, Freedom movement.
The Iranian theocracy also last year strengthened sanctions against women who do not respect the obligatory wearing of the veil in public places – one of the ideological pillars of the Islamic Republic. The Iranian parliament should also soon adopt a bill aimed at “supporting the culture of chastity and the hijab”.
According to Amnesty International, there has been a “visible increase in patrols by foot, motorcycle, car and police vans in public spaces.” Iranian authorities are also reportedly using facial recognition technology to identify women not wearing the hijab.
“War against women”
“We are witnessing a war against women,” denounces M.me Alinejad: On one side, there is the Islamic Republic, with its weapons, bullets and money. On the other side, there are women with empty hands. Where are the democracies? What are they doing?
According to the dissident, the West is being fooled by Iranian rhetoric that the new president, Massoud Pezeshkian, is a reformist. He promised on Monday that he would “ensure that [la police des moeurs] do not disturb [les femmes] “But the Islamic Republic cannot be reformed,” Mr.me Alinejad, adding that this idea is at the very foundation of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.
With Agence France-Presse