Maryam Rajavi calls for urgent action by international bodies to secure release of detained demonstrators
NCRI – June 12, 2005 – Hundreds of brave women held an anti-government protest outside Tehran University today, protesting against the ruling mullahs’ repressive and misogynous policies and calling for a boycott of the upcoming presidential election.
As thousands of passers-by and local inhabitants joined the protest, thousands began chanting “freedom, freedom is the cry of every Iranian,” “taking part in the sham election is a betrayal of Iran” and “freedom, equality, down with dictatorship.”
Many of the slogans chanted by the protesters targeted the theocratic regime’s policy of promoting gender discrimination. Protesters chanted, “Unequal law, inhuman justice must end now”, “human rights means liberation of Iran”, and “Misogyny is the root of tyranny”.
Hundreds of repressive agents from the State Security Forces, the paramilitary Bassij and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) quickly sealed off the streets near the site of the protest and beat up some of the protesters to prevent thousands more joining their ranks.
Protestors tore down campaign posters of all election candidates and urged passers-by to boycott what they called “the election masquerade”.
Security agents arrested a large number of demonstrators, particularly women and girls, and took them away in vans and patrol vehicles of the State Security Forces and the MOIS.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian Resistance’s President-elect, hailed the courageous women and girls in Tehran and said, “Misogyny is the most central feature of the religious tyranny in Iran. It is the lifeline of this medieval regime.”
She urged all international human rights and women’s rights movements to condemn the clerical regime’s misogynous policies and take urgent action to secure the release of protesters who were detained in Tehran’s demonstration today.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
June 12, 2005
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