8 March demonstration in Brussels

25 February 2008. A World to Win News Service. At the end of January, it was reported that an Afghan woman in Loghman Province burned herself in the court just minutes before the verdict. According to the local authorities, she had gone to court because of “family problems” and had demanded a divorce from her abusive husband. What she had witnessed in that courtroom left her no doubt that the verdict was going to be against her. She must have decided that there was no way she could go back to a life that was worse than death for her. The “liberation” of women was one main excuse for the occupation of Afghanistan that had no goals other than imperialist interests. Women still have no rights and are heavily discriminated against by laws greatly influenced by Islamic law.

This is true not only in Afghanistan, but in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and many other third world countries, especially those ruled or influenced by religious rulers.

This is why “The Women’s Campaign for the Abolition of all Misogynist and Gender-Based Legislation and Islamic Punitive laws in Iran against Women” (Karzar) was formed around three years ago by Iranian women activists in exile. The campaign has been supported by hundreds of Iranian and international revolutionaries and progressives who are disturbed by the discrimination against women in Iran and other Islamic countries.

This year, for International Women’s Day (8 March), Karzar is working together with the Left Socialist Party of Belgium to organize a march through the streets of Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union. The march will start at 1 pm in front of the US embassy (27, Boulevard du Regent). Protestors will show their opposition to a possible U.S.-led attack against Iran, and expose American hypocrisy about support for women rights, as can be seen in U.S.-occupied Iraq, where anti-woman legislation has been a central feature of the U.S.-installed regimes.

Then the demonstration will pass by the European Parliament to express their opposition to this gang of imperialist powers. It will continue towards the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, where protestors will show their disgust for the oppression of women and the severely discriminatory laws there. The march will end at Brussels University (UBL), where speakers from different countries and organisations will speak about women’s oppression and International Women’s Day.

The strength of this march is that while protesting against the brutal oppression of women by the Iranian regime and other Islamic fundamentalists, it clearly opposes any US intervention against Iran or any other country in the region and the world. The march will also emphasize that it is not only Iranian or Afghani women who are oppressed and discriminated against, but also women as a whole in the imperialist countries such as Belgium, France, the US and others, where women may have won equality under law but are discriminated against by the society and the system and still suffer from male supremacy. It shows that removing discriminatory laws is not the end but the start of the battle for the liberation of women.

Following are excerpts from the call for this march. For more information, contact Karzar2005@yahoo. com

http:/www.karzar- zanan.com/

International Women’s Day – The choice is ours! The choice is yours!

On 8 March 2008, we intend to proclaim, “Enough is enough!” We no longer want to tolerate the hell created by the patriarchal systems stretching from Kosovo to Iraq, Afghanistan to Philippines, the USA to France, Britain to Turkey and Iran to Pakistan.

The year behind us was a bitter year for the majority of women in the world:

Despite all the atrocities, women of Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Turkey and Afghanistan are not silenced. In the heart of the Middle East, Iranian women endeavour to send the news of their struggles against the misogynist and religious regime in Iran to the progressive forces all over the world. They try to connect the stream of their struggles to the global sea of women’s struggles.

The reactionary regimes in the USA and Iran are each offering us different versions of hell: either stoning to death, the gallows, forced veil and rape by the “Revolutionary Guards” in Iran, or, like in Iraq, a regime supported by the USA and its allies brought in by economic sanctions, bombing and military attacks – with the obvious enslavement of women. Should we allow the ranks of the women’s movement to be shattered by the two dreadful options of the imperialists and the reactionary Islamic regime in Iran? Or should we rely on the 28 years of experience, knowledge and struggles of Iranian women to prove that both hostile poles are the two versions of the patriarchal and anti-woman systems and any support for one will inevitably strengthen the other?

Can we convey to the people all over the world the demands of the majority of Iranian women, who are determined to get a future independent of both the Islamic regime and the patriarchal forces of the USA and its allies? Can we be the bearers of the positive news that Iranian women have chosen a separate path independent of the dominant reactionary world order?

The choice is ours! The choice is yours!

On 8 March, we will be in the streets to proclaim our choice: We are determined to write new pages of Iran’s contemporary history by achieving our emancipation and equality. Our minimum demands are the abolition of all barbaric and unequal laws against women, including execution by stoning, forced veiling, gender apartheid. We are determined to obtain the right to divorce, to keep our children after divorce, to achieve total control over our bodies, the right to choose our partners as heterosexual or lesbians, and the elimination of any religious control over or interference in various aspect of women’s lives. We demand women’s freedom and emancipation from any oppression and exploitation. These demands are achievable only with the overthrow of the Islamic regime in Iran.

The presence of each one of us at the 8 March demonstration will reinforce our demands and determination to achieve those demands