Iranian opposition calls for protests on International Women's Day

03/05/11 Source: Radio Zamaneh

Iran's opposition coalition, the Coordination Council of the Green Path of Hope, has called on people to join next Tuesday's protests for women's rights on International Women's Day.

In its fifth announcement published on Kaleme website, the Council said it is co-operating closely with women's rights activists in advance of March 8 and it welcomes the transformation of these protests into a demand for the release of Zahra Rahnavard, Fatemeh Karroubi and their spouses, the opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.

The Coordination Council of the Green Path of Hope, which has taken over organizing protests following the house arrest of the Iranian opposition leaders, had called on people to rally every Tuesday leading up to the Iranian New Year on March 21, to protest the detention of the Mousavi and Karroubi households.



Gathering of women activists in Tehran in March 2010

In its last statement, the Council had failed to mention International Women's Day as a day of protest this coming Tuesday, but admonitions from women's rights activists appear to have prompted the opposition to officially announce its solidarity with the women's movement in Iran.

According to the council's latest statement: "This movement is working towards a society where women, alongside men, enjoy every human, social and political right, and where women are not barred from active presence in public by any form of discrimination."



Activists demanding women's rights - Tehran, June 2009 (report)

The council also thanks all of the people who joined protests on March 1 calling for the release of the opposition leaders, saying: "We must continue protests in every way possible until these leaders are released and until the authorities realize that the thoughts and principles of these leaders are circulating in our minds and lives, and their incarceration will do nothing but add another dark page to the report card of this autocratic government."



The Green Convergence: Third Session of Iranian Women's Movement Gathering