A Joint Action on the Occasion of International Women’s Day
This year, on the eve of March 8, International Women’s Day, we stand in circumstances far more different than before. It has not yet been two months since the large-scale massacre of people during the uprising of Dey 1404 (December–January 2025–2026), when people rose up for bread and freedom—an uprising that the Islamic Republic crushed in blood. We had just commemorated the fortieth day of the beloved lives lost—those who stood for freedom and the right to life and were killed—when the military attack by the United States and Israel on Iran began.
We strongly condemn this military aggression. War and military intervention are not a path to liberation, but rather the continuation of the same logic of death and destruction—a logic whose heaviest burden always falls on women, children, and defenseless people.
Even before this military attack, and only three years after the revolutionary uprising of “Woman, Life, Freedom”—an uprising that linked gender-sexual oppression, class oppression, national oppression, and other forms of injustice—priorities in parts of the dominant discourse and narrative, especially in political and media representations, had shifted in directions that distanced themselves from the emancipatory spirit of “Woman, Life, Freedom.” As a result, demands such as women’s freedom, social justice, the rights of oppressed nations and ethnic groups of Iran, the struggle against environmental destruction, and the defense of the right to life, were in many cases diminished or pushed to the margins.
In today’s wartime conditions, there is a serious concern that this process of marginalization and erasure will intensify under the logic of “security” and “emergency.” At the same time, the ruling dictatorship, by mobilizing its forces in the streets and city squares and demonstrating its organized presence under wartime conditions, signals its readiness to suppress any protest.
Without doubt, this year’s March 8 must be dedicated to the resistance of the grieving mothers of this nationwide massacre and to the acts of resistance that emerged in the early days of the uprising. Mothers and families seeking justice, by breaking with religious traditions and with extraordinary courage, turned the funerals of their loved ones into scenes of struggle against dictatorship. Many of them first became narrators of their children’s struggles to build a free Iran without the Islamic Republic, and then themselves became subjects of resistance and justice-seeking.
Today, while internal repression continues and the military attack by the United States and Israel on Iran has begun, the shadow of war and bombardment weighs heavily on people’s lives, placing forms of resistance under severe pressure. The student movement, which had once again begun to regain momentum and organize itself, has in many universities been forced, in order to protect lives and in response to the danger of bombardment, to withdraw from campuses and gatherings and return to their homes. Nevertheless, this necessary security-driven retreat does not signify the end of resistance; rather, it demonstrates how war itself becomes another tool for restricting the space for collective action.
Our response to the rise of fascism, to the normalization of military intervention, and to the replacement of one “leader” with another, lies in building a collective discourse and finding sharedstrategies to break free from the repetitive cycle of “defeat” and “despair.” This discourse must stand against the patriarchal system—a system that, under the slogan “Man, Homeland, Prosperity,” seeks to reproduce patriarchal authority and shape an oppressive order—an order whose signs are already visible in the elimination and death of its opponents and in the denial of the agency of Iran’s nations and ethnic groups. It is no coincidence that the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom,” because of its anti-domination nature, continues to be the target of the anger of reactionary forces.
We, the 23 independent Iranian women’s organizations abroad, while expressing solidarity with the ongoing struggles of the people for freedom, social justice, and human dignity, believe that we must amplify the voices of the grieving mothers and families seeking justice, the student movement, the teachers’ movement, retirees, workers, the queer community, and other civil movements. We must also amplify the struggles of the oppressed nations and ethnic groups of Iran and stand against any process that erases or marginalizes these demands. We will do everything in our power to draw the attention of feminist institutions, unions, Amnesty International, and independent organizations to the defense of the lives of political prisoners, as reports coming from inside Iran contain deeply alarming news.
We resist gender-based inequalities and the marginalization of women’s demands. We strive for the freedom of all political prisoners and demand the halt of the Islamic Republic’s killing machine. At the same time, as war and military intervention unfold, we emphasize the necessity of solidarity with feminist organizations around the world and with anti-war and anti-fascist movements.
No to the Islamic Republic
No to War
Woman, Life, Freedom
March 6, 2026
Signatories:
Together for Women’s Health Foundation
Free Iranian Women’s Association – Italy
Dallas Iranian Women’s Association
Iranian-German Women’s Association in Cologne, Germany
Iranian Women’s Association of Parto
Iranian Women’s Association Montreal
MeToo Movement Iran
Iranian Circle of Women for International Networking (ICWIN)
Women for Sustainable Freedom and Equality
Iranian Women Activists in Exile – Berlin
IKERO Women’s Rights Organization
IWIN Iranian Women in Network
The Organization for Emancipation of Women
Everyday Feminism
Forum of Iranian Women in Vienna
Collective of Woman, Life, Freedom – Rome
Campaign to Stop Honor KillingsGender Equality Committee of Solidarity of Iranian Republicans
Left Unity of Women
Zanan Group in Northern California
Orange County Women’s Study Group
Mannav LGBTQ Community – Sweden
Iranian Women’s Assembly in Hanove