On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25), Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Iranian Resistance, gave a statement in support of the brave women in Iran who are protesting gender-based discrimination and violence, whilst explaining that the elimination of violence against Iranian women depends solely on the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Iran.

Maryam Rajavi said: “I salute all my sisters in Iran and around the globe who have risen for equality and freedom to end oppression and violence against women. I salute all women who have suffered in this struggle or have been tortured or hanged. The glorious ideal of equality in a world devoid of all forms of gender exploitation, violence and discrimination will undoubtedly be realized through a relentless and unwavering struggle and by paying its heavy price.”

While life under the Iranian Regime is tough for everyone, it is especially difficult for women who lack even more rights and face even more oppression. This does not stop Iranian women from rising up though, Maryam Rajavi noted.

Despite the fact that thousands of women’s rights advocates have been tortured or even executed for their political activism, they have only inspired more women to come to the front of political movements about democracy and human rights. Even the Regime has been forced to acknowledges that 28% of the protesters during the December 2017 uprising were women.

The executions of female political prisoners in the 1980s, most notably in the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, including those who were elderly, teenagers, or even pregnant at the time, show that the Regime holds a “special enmity” towards women who oppose the Regime, said Maryam Rajavi. This can be further seen in their use of rape as a method of torture and in the violence against peaceful female teachers who protested the Regime in May.

Maryam Rajavi said: “This ubiquitous violence is enforced against women in all aspects of our country’s social, economic, and political existence. For this reason, it is structured, pervasive, and all-inclusive. The regime promotes, strengthens and preserves it. Therefore, this violence against women has never subsided despite public resentment.”

Maryam Rajavi is no stranger to the Regime’s misogyny, with the mullahs often publically undermining her because of her gender, whilst privately admitting that she is the leader most capable of overthrowing them.

Maryam Rajavi explained in her speech that the mullahs, despite vague promises of reform, will never be able to it abandon the violence and inequality institutionalized in the regime’s Sharia laws, for if the Regime did not exert so much energy into oppressing women, the women of Iran would be able to overthrow the mullahs in a heartbeat.

In our next part, we will be looking at how the Iranian Regime suppresses women.