International Women’s Day arrests in Tehran.
On Thursday March 8th 2018 activists demanding equal rights for Iranian women and an end to sexual discrimination gathered outside the Iranian regime’s Labour Ministry.
The protest began at 11:00 with large numbers of police, plain-clothes intelligence officers and so on attacking the activists. Some reports say that the demonstrators were outnumbered by 10:1. Nevertheless, the protesters chanted slogans like “The right of assembly is an inalienable right!” and held up placards against sexual discrimination in Iran.
Reports from Tehran say that 84 people were arrested (59 women and 24 men). The women detainees have been handed over to the Ministers’ Security Police and the men have been taken to a police station. One person was taken to hospital and so far there is no information about her (or his) condition.
During the past few months many women have taken individual action by taking off their headscarves in public. These have become known as the ‘Girls of the Revolution Street’ acts. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called the act of removing one’s hejab in public as “madness”(!) and the original protester has now been sentenced to two years in prison.
Since the Islamic Republic of Iran was established the regime has curtailed nearly all of the rights that Iranian women have won since the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11. Iran’s women are now taking action to begin rolling back this repressive regime’s medieval laws.
Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign
8 March 2018
Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign 