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Although the International Women’s Day is prohibited in Iran, Iranian women on the occasion of 8. March have again raised their voices. Inside and outside the country the day was marked by peaceful protests against the politics of gender-related apartheid.

The lawyer, women’s rights activist and publicist Mehrangiz Kar says that for Iranian women, the 8. March is not only the International Women’s Day, but also a day of civil and peaceful protests against the human rights violations of a regime that has grown out of the Revolution. [*]

The 8. March 1979 marked the beginning of the protests of Iranian women, targeting the forced hejab ordered by Ayatollah Khomeini. These protests never stopped, until after 30 years they evolved into a civil movement.

Mehrangiz Kar reminds us that Iranian women under conditions of “religious despotism” have for years celebrated the 8. March in private. Under the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, the women’s movement took to the streets, and under Ahmadinejad it became so strong that it even caused former intelligence minister Mohseni Ejei to say that this movement pursues a “gentle and velvet revolution”, and the feminist movement with its demands for equal rights was just a pretext.

According to Mehrangiz Kar, many Iranian women have been educating and informing themselves in private throughout the years in order to develop the movement into a social movement. Their demands for reforms have gradual... >>>