25/04/2021
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For the time being or forever FEMEN Sweden end this page and chapter in herstory with the death of FEMEN Farideh Arman who passed away this Thursday 22/04 2021 after a brave long fight.
Here below is her 2018 speech for The Girls Of Revolution Street about how the enormous resistance against the islamofascist War on Women was started on Women's Day 8th of March 1979 in Iran, with her and more 15.000 women protesting in Tehran the following days, and is still ongoing unbreakable after 42 years.
WOMEN'S REVOLUTION
MLF's French feminist movement filmed this together with Iranian women for freedom and equality, and managed to smuggle out this epic documentation, making history letting the world no what the Islamic regim in Iran lied about and tried to hide, and still lie about and try to hide.
The Islamic Republic came with a hijab and will be overthrown without a hijab.
Here is the film proving what happened in Iran.
What happens in Iran,
doesn't stay in Iran.
Solidarity! Stay strong!
is for forever part of this revolution for freedom and equality, and is forever with us, since the beginning of FEMEN Sweden in Topless Jihad 04/22/2013, our first action. Here are her words about what happened in Iran:
"I want to tell you about the path of the 39-year-old movement against the veil in Iran that is now being carried forward by the Girls of Revolution Street.
I was born in 1956. I remember that in the city where I grew up and afterwards when I came to Tehran, the hijab was not common among the younger generation. It was used more by the generations before us.
Iranian society was not Islamic. The society was relatively modern. In Tehran and other big cities, the hijab was gradually vanishing. Young people like me, were following European fashion, mini skirts were gradually becoming fashionable. We young people danced in mixed crowds in the disco and listened to the latest western music. We wore make-up and dressed as we wanted to. Most of the office workers didn't wear a hijab, neither did female students. If a young person wore the hijab they were considered fanatic and backward and were isolated from the crowd.
When we had the revolution, no one could have imagined that some day we would have to wear a veil. The day I was forced to wear a veil, it was a total shock for me. It was not just a political issue against society, it was a personal shock. It was an attack on all my feelings and on my private sphere. It wasn't just me, it was a shock for millions of women. The Islamic regime was pathetic and unsuitable for this society. Society did not want to accept this government and its Islamic rules. The Islamic regime was against this society and the cultural values that had been established over decades. We had joined the revolution with a thousand hopes for a free and humane society, in the end we got nothing and the only thing we still had was our choice of what to wear and the Islamic regime wanted to take this last bit of freedom from us too. It is clear that they couldn't have imposed the veil without repression and imprisonment, razor blades, acid and stoning.
Two weeks after the Islamic regime took power, Khomeini ordered in March 1979 that veiling must be compulsory and ruled that any part of the family protection law must be scrapped if it's not compatible with sharia law. The family protection law was ratified in 1974 during the Shah's time but even in this law there was absolutely no talk of equal rights for men and women.
In various parts of Tehran, women immediately began to protest against it. Their first reaction to the decree of compulsory veiling was the massive 8th of March demonstration in Tehran in 1979. Thousands of people came out with banners saying 'No to compulsory veiling'. About 15000 women and men marched from Tehran Technical University to the prime minister's office. One of their slogans was 'We did not have a revolution to go back'. There were demonstrations in all major cities, including Kermanshah, Bandar Abbas, Sanandaj, Uromia and Esfahan. In most offices and hospitals, women stopped working. In girls schools they stood up against compulsory veiling. The debate about the hijab was happening throughout the country.
Government officials and a number of Ayatollahs began to retreat and said that the veil isn't compulsory but that it is a good thing for women. The big newspapers wrote on their front page that the veil was not mandatory. The protest was so big that Khomeini didn't dare to say anything about the veil for the next one and a half years until July 1980. Even Khomeini's office announced that if somebody harassed women they were going to punish them.
The degree of freedom society had made it difficult for the Islamic Republic to impose the hijab. Everywhere people began to resist, all refusing to follow this ruling. In schools, universities, on the street and in the workplace. The regime thought they could impose compulsory veiling immediately, but it took them 5 years to enforce the law of mandatory veiling in their parliament. This was after five years of beatings, punishments, imprisonment, the use of of acid and literally stapling the hijab to women's scalps. It was clear that Khomeini and his government intended to enforce the wearing of the hijab at the first opportunity possible.
On July 6, 1980, the Revolutionary Council, headed by Bani-Sadr, ordered that all women not following the Islamic dress code are forbidden to enter offices. Immediately thereafter, the salaries and benefits of unveiled female clerical workers were cut and many women lost their jobs. But the hijab was still not compulsory on the streets. But hideous propaganda began against women not wearing the hijab on the radio and television, in mosques and at Fridays prayers. For example, on June 3, 1981, the Revolutionary Prosecutor issued a warning to women without hijab, and declared it a betrayal to the revolution and the martyrs.
The war between Iran and Iraq began in 1980. This war militarised the atmosphere, the suppression of society increased and in 1981 they started killing many political prisoners. All of this significantly increased the pressure on women. During the fasting month in 1981, they ordered public places and shops to display a sign at their entrance that read: 'We can not accept guests and customers who do not observe Islamic dress code.'
Finally, on August 5, 1983, the parliament of the Islamic regime ratified a punishment of 74 lashes for unveiled women in public places.
My sister who worked at a hospital told me that the hospital heads distributed veils and all the nurses had to wear them or they would get fired or suspended. They took away the nurses' caps and gave them the veil instead. In many workplaces there were officers at the entrance who stopped and prevented unveiled women from entering. On the street guards would come and insult and beat you in a very humiliating way if your hijab didn't cover enough of your hair.
My friend's three-year-old son became very afraid and was shaking when he saw these guards on the street and he lowered his mother's veil because he had seen how they had treated her previously.
In this context, the opinion of some of the regime's opposition is also interesting. Their thoughts were influenced by Islam. They defended the hijab in different ways. They said that the hijab is a symbol of anti-imperialism. They said that now is the time for fighting against anti-revolutionary forces and not the time for discussions about the hijab. Among these forces I can name the pro-Russian Tudeh Party and Aksarijat Party and anti-Western 'intellectuals'. The famous writer Simin Daneshvar wrote in the well-known Keyhan newspaper: 'The hijab is a minor issue.' She told the advocaters and opponents of the hijab: 'Don't give any opportunity to anti-revolutionary forces to attack us. Deal with more important issues.'
The Mujahideen organization's political views were the same as the Ayatollahs of the Islamic regime. On March 23, a statement by the organization was published in the Etelaat newspaper, which said: "Hijab is nothing but the social effort to protect and preserve the community's moral well-being."
Women had to stand up against the government and parts of the opposition. They all said that the hijab was not important now. For example, Shirin Ebadi and people who thought like her, always wanted to show us the 'good' face of Islam. We always said to them that the hijab is not just a minor issue, but a big issue. Don't you see that the government is using all its power to force the hijab on women. We knew that if the regime could force the hijab on women it was going to attack more and more of everyone's rights. We said that the hijab is the Islamic regime's identity. Without the hijab the Islamic regime can't be in power.
In May 1986, Ayatollah Rafsanjani said at a Friday prayer: 'Some women are satisfied with their hair showing, or standing in front of the door to let someone see their naked body. We told Hezbollah that these women could be human too, it just needs some violence to correct them.'
In May 1988, he said: 'Because our focus was on the war, the unveiled women in the streets of Tehran are becoming impudent.'
However, in 2003, after 15 years, Rafsanjani became 'human' himself. He began to criticize the religious extremists and said 'these harsh rules about the hijab made society and especially women turn away from us'.
Despite all the pressure, women used every opportunity to resist. The government did not succeed in imposing a full veil. When Ahmadinejad was president from 2005 to 2013 he brought in a policy to focus on women having to observe the Islamic dress code. They put a budget, propaganda and a lot of manpower behind it.
They placed a mullah in each school and they had patrol forces in the parks and at every crossroad. According to official reports, each year between 2 to 3 million women were reprimanded for being badly veiled, or fined or imprisoned. This alone reflects the dimensions of the war on women and women's resistance.
In 2015, the Islamic parliament reported that the 'Social Security Plan' to control women's dress code was unsuccessful.
I am ending my speech with a short reference to the Girls of Revolution Street. I hope that the image of the movement against compulsory veiling will help to understand the importance of the work of the Girls of Revolution Street. They are at the forefront of a campaign that has been around for 39 years. They took this fight an important step forward. They issued an effective blow against the government, its ideology, Islamic culture, nationalist Islamists and all of the big and small Islamists groups. The reaction of Girls of Revolution Street is the reaction of our society against the Islamic regime, the Taliban, ISIS and all Islamist forces.
Mansour Hekmat was right to speak of a women's revolution in Iran. The Girls of Revolution Street should be replicated more. The Islamic Republic came with a hijab and will be overthrown without a hijab." / Farideh Arman
Alliance des Femmes pour la Démocratie
Espace des femmes - Antoinette Fouque
made this documentary video, with subtitles in English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulJwXHji6f4
FEMEN FEMEN sweden
Mouvement de libération des femmes iraniennes année zero - English Subtitles
