Concetta Giallombardo,Jurist and President of the Association of Female Jurists from Palermo, Italy, attended the 5-day events of the Iranian Resistance’s annual gatherings in Ashaf 3, Albania.
In this video, she has addressed an international women’s conference on July 14, 2019, entitled, “Women in the Iranian Resistance, Defying the misogynist regime, Paying the price for freedom.”
Concetta Giallombardo said:
Esteemed Mrs. Rajavi, dear friends,
I bring you the greetings of my colleagues from Palermo, the lawyers members of the Association of Italian Female Jurists.
It is always a great emotion for me to take part in the meeting with you and with all the extraordinary women that every time I have the chance to meet.
Today’s event was preceded by two days full of facts and emotions, that I will always carry in my mind and heart.
This is not a conventional meeting for me, this is an opportunity to renew a commitment: the commitment to fighting for the fundamental rights of all women.
But what must be defended most of all and above all and sometimes won is the right to self-determination, which is the condition for the exercise all the other freedoms.
It is no coincidence that the self-determination of women has been and still is so obstinately and sometimes cruelly opposed.
In every place, in every society, in every religion that is connoted with a patriarchal structure, countless ideological, normative and also physical obstacles are put in place, so that the female component of society can not freely exercise the fundamental right of the human person to self-determination, that is to say to decide autonomously all aspects of one’s life without being forced into a prearranged role.
I do not know enough about other religions, but as regards the prevailing one in my country, I must say that the Roman Catholic doctrine has moved a long way away from the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, and in particular from his attitude toward women, which, as the Gospels have handed down, was an attitude of great attention, great respect, great consideration.
Let us not forget that over and over again he declared and put into practice the absolute equality between man and woman, and he chose many female figures as his own privileged interlocutors on the foundational themes of Christianity.
In the teaching of Jesus Christ, the perspective of gender equality is historically placed as one of the fundamental rules of civil society, of any civil society.
The subsequent attitude of the founding fathers elaborated instead a male-dominated ideology that deeply penetrated into our social order, making a substantial contribution to an approach to the man-woman relationship deeply vitiated by a prejudice unfavourable to women, causing considerable social discrimination.
It is a situation from which, despite the many laws promulgated, we are not able to emerge. Indeed, in our country, a widespread mental regression is taking place: this retreat would like to bring women back into a state of subordination and is in danger of taking away the fundamental rights that we have fought so hard for.
It is therefore evident that the whole battle is always to be fought, at all times and in all places, as it is also evident that equality and freedom for women are not a matter of gender, but they are the funding principles of democracy.
It is therefore essential to redefine the mindset that governs relations between men and women.
One of the reasons why I am so interested in participating in your movement’s events is precisely the feeling of being in the presence of an experiment of remodulation in this sense, which means that there exists and is practicable a different outlook on life, a new option of life.
In your movement I sense a way to set the relationship between men and women which is new to me. A relationship characterized by the awareness of the value of women, in relying on their intelligence and skills, without setting any limits to and with no mental reservation regarding the great female presence in the making of political choices.
And I would like to say thank you to the President, Mrs Rajavi, for representing, in front of all the world, not only the prestigious leadership of a woman, but also a new choice of life.
Thank you for leading a genuine review and re-foundation of the relations between the two components of society. I truly hope with all my heart that the free Iran will reflect your intellectual system and the political and social structure that you have created, so that it can be an example to all the other nations.
Thank you.