Invisible repression in Iran: Thousands arrested and 39 executed since US attack

‘Everyone, Donald Trump included, talks about the status of women in Iran, but all the actors involved are acting solely in their own interests.’

“Our rebellion broke out during the reign of Shah Pahlavi, in opposition to the forced assimilation into Persian culture. As Kurds, we refused to be erased.”

Maryam Fathi is an activist with KJAR, the Free Women’s Society of East Kurdistan. “In the Kurdish liberation movement, women have always played a leading role. This is also true in Rojhilat, where the Kurdish people have been demanding rights and self-determination for decades,” she tells us, referring to the Kurdish region of Iran.

In 1946, under the Pahlavi regime, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) founded the Republic of Mahabad, a self-governing entity that also included women’s emancipation. The experiment lasted only 11 months. After the withdrawal of Soviet troops, it was crushed by a bloody crackdown.

The ideas of Mahabad survived within the Kurdish resistance. Between the 1960s and 1970s, parties such as Komala in Iran and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey emerged.

Within these organizations, women formed autonomous groups........

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