Women’s Day

from faking history to insulting Iranian women

International Women’s Day (IWD), originally called International Working Women’s Day, is marked on March 8 every year. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from a general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration of women’s economic, political, and social achievements (Wikipedia).

For a woman who claims to carry the flag of “Revolutionary, Progressive, Moslem Women” in France, the falsification of history would not bother her; she is used to it. What is important for her is a few days of glory in front of a paid audience and that is it. The Mojahedin Khalq (aka Rajavi cult), with no relevance to the cause of women, has yet again chosen to misuse the occasion of 1st March. It may suit the participants and the organisers but what about Iranian women? What do they get out of this and what do they think?

Contrary to what you would expect the shop front of the so-called conference is dominated by the male members of the cult. They are the same ones who were brought out a couple of weeks ago under the label of “Convention of Iranian associations”, the same bunch of people who are, and have for a long time been, under the social and financial umbrella of Massoud Rajavi. The same people who have followed him and Saddam for years in an unjust war against the people of Iran and have carried out armed terrorist activities from Iraq against ordinary men and women in Iran. And the same people who murdered the Iranian scientists in cold blood, and the same people who are plotting for more murder and destruction in training and supporting joint operations alongside the terrorist groups in Syria or the likes of Jaish al Adl, Rigi and others.

What made this gathering even more bizarre and unusual is that in the front row of the audience there were a few big rough men with arms folded over their chests and moustaches and posing as bodyguards! And a few European and Arab women who are known to get paid by Rajavi to attend such meetings and shows in order to applaud her; the ones who turn up each time and never change.

Ironically the title of the meeting is “International Conference on the occasion of Women’s Day – Women in the forefront of the struggle against fundamentalism”. But everything indicates that the meeting is a private gathering. And more than that, it is very clear that there are no independent Iranian (ie non Mojahedin member) women there. Is it not ironic that from the many Iranians living outside Iran not even one of them wanted to participate?

The Mojahedin Khalq’s various websites have claimed: “On Saturday March the first, the participants in an international conference on the occasion of Women’s Day warned about the role of the Iranian regime in spreading Islamic fundamentalism across the region and all over the world. This conference was in the presence of Madame Maryam Rajavi the president elect of the Iranian Resistance and with the participation of a high number of political, social personalities, artists and human rights activists as well as women’s rights activists from 5 continents, also delegations from tens of Iranian organisations and women’s organisations from all over Europe and America”.

From this paragraph it is clear that the “International Conference” as claimed by Mojahedin Khalq has had nothing to do with women but rather is another ill-presented advertisement stunt to whitewash the reputation of a woman who has commanded a terrorist organisation, and ordered both men and women to carry out many operations in Iran and Iraq resulting in thousands of deaths.

Maryam Rajavi, in just this one particular gathering, has gone into overdrive to lie and falsify the social structure of Iranian society and to portray a gloomy face for Iranian women to the extent of claiming that Iranian women are uneducated. This is while according to UN statistics and the international news agencies, Iran has one of the youngest and most educated women populations in the region. Iranian families are generally full of girls and women who have graduated from Iran’s various universities. And every statistic shows that the level of Iranian women’s education and fulfilment of management posts is by far higher than any other country in the region. It is also a well known statistical fact that the number of Iranian female students in Iranian universities is greater than the number of men.

Maryam Rajavi ridiculously goes on to describe the trapped women hostages in Camp Liberty in Iraq “samples and examples of progressive women”, and carries on, “women who have been irreplaceable in the struggle against fundamentalism in the last two decades”, and because of the presence of these women, “Iran on the back of its history and culture of struggle and on the back of 5 decades of Mojahedin Khalq resistance is now the centre of the struggle for justice and women’s rights”.

In this carefully selected meeting, Maryam Rajavi uses vague phrases like, “examples of progressive women”, but never explains who these women are. She does not come clean and say that she means the women in Camp Liberty in Iraq. The same women who have lost their homes and families because of her and her fugitive husband. The same women who have been banned from marriage, having children and barred from contacting their parents or siblings, and the same women who have to stand in front of the pre-staged cameras of the Mojahedin Khalq cult and shout slogans against their own families and reject them with swearing. The same women who have been deprived from their simple needs and forced to wear military uniforms simply because there is no other clothing available to them.

She does not say that these “samples of progressive women in Liberty” under the pretext of the “Ideological Revolution” have been forced to divorce their spouses and leave their children never to contact them again. And if anyone dares to refuse to give in to the “Ideological Revolution”, prison, torture and in some cases death is waiting for them. She does not say that that the women who were forcefully divorced from their husbands have immediately and in some cases collectively been married to her husband Massoud Rajavi and forced to be groomed by her and dance naked for Massoud Rajavi. (In the cult jargon of the Ideological Revolution of the Mojahedin Khalq this is called the “Freedom Dance” – refer to the testimonies of many women survivors of the cult.)

Maryam Rajavi is referring to the women who, throughout their lives have not learned anything but bloodshed, arms, murder and so on. Women who have been working like machines for 18 hours a day without pay; becoming tank commanders under Saddam’s army to attack and destroy Iranian and or Iraqi cities and villages. Women who have soon lost their femininity, lost their children, have no right to love or to be loved, and have to kill and kill till the day they themselves are killed.

The “examples of progressive women” which Maryam Rajavi refers to in Paris, and claims that the rest of the women in the world should accept them as examples, are the women who have seen nothing during the last 30 years except the barbed wire and trenches of the military garrisons given to the Mojahedin Khalq by Saddam Hussein. For the last 30 years they have had no contact with any education whether scientific or otherwise and therefore fall into the category of the most uneducated female population in the world.

Mojahedin Khalq women have never had telephone, Internet, or other contact with the outside world. Their personal transport and cars have been armoured vehicles and tanks from the era of Saddam Hussein. They have never been allowed to leave the perimeter of their garrison and have never had a day off to enjoy themselves. The whole of their belongings in this world is a backpack in which are all their personal belongings and is their only home.

Maryam Rajavi does not say that these “examples of progressive women” have no right to choose anything, even personal issues. They don’t even have the right to meet with their brothers and sisters, even though they are in the same camp or garrison. She does not say that women will end up in prison for even a simple criticism, that they can be subjected to severe torture and in some cases eliminated altogether without even marking their graves. Women who under the 50 degrees heat of Iraqi deserts are force to wear rough and thick military uniforms and boots, wear scarves and obey strict prayer and fasting regimes and take part in religious ceremonies even if they don’t believe in any of it. She did not say in her gathering that the women she refers to have certainly no right to leave her cult and the organisation she and her husband have created.

It is natural for Maryam Rajavi to talk in her male dominated shop front about some unknown women in some unknown place under the sun; a fantasy land covered in mysterious clouds and unfathomable fairy tales.

Surely if just one single independent woman who had some knowledge about the Mojahedin Khalq had been present in this meeting and had had the opportunity to expose the real lives of women in the Mojahedin Khalq cult to Maryam Rajavi’s paid audience, the roof of that building would have fallen in with the shock and amazement of it, and crushed the disgraced liar and murderous woman on the stage.

Amir Hussein Panahi,Translated by Iran Interlink