Statement by the Tudeh Party of Iran on the Fourth Anniversary of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” Uprising: The Struggle for Freedom, Social Justice, and the Liberation of Women from the Chains of Medieval Despotism, for the Establishment of Peace and the Preservation of National Sovereignty in the Face of Foreign Aggression, Continues!
Dear Compatriots!
25 Shahrivar 1405 marks the fourth anniversary of the popular “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising. Four years ago, the killing of “Mahsa Amini” at the hands of the Islamic Republic government’s “morality patrol” agents, and the pressure exerted by the security apparatus and regime leaders to conceal this horrific crime, paved the way for widespread street protests across Iran, led by the country’s courageous women and young people. Although the repressive and anti-people regime of the rule of the Supreme Leader, through the killing of protesters in the streets, the arrest of thousands of freedom-seeking women and young people, brutal torture, and the issuing of death sentences, was able to dampen the flames of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising to some extent, contrary to the expectations of the regime’s leaders, the people’s protest movement not only did not fundamentally cease but gained greater depth. In Dey 1404, we witnessed a major popular uprising across Iran which, according to a report by the United Nations “Fact-Finding Mission,” the regime of the rule of the Supreme Leader sought to control by committing “crimes against humanity.” The report states, among other things: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that, in the course of their response to protesters, the authorities of the Islamic Republic carried out a widespread and systematic attack against civilians, including unlawful killings, torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and severe restrictions on freedom of expression, and that some of these acts amounted to crimes against humanity.”
During the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising, as well as the popular protests of Dey 1404, forces described as agents of U.S. imperialism and the criminal Israeli regime—particularly monarchists—and imperialist media outlets such as the Persian-language services of the “BBC,” “Voice of America,” “Radio Israel,” “Iran International,” and thousands of channels created on “social networks” by “Mossad” and the “CIA,” attempted through extensive propaganda and falsehoods to impose the return of the Pahlavi monarchy, described as a client monarchy, on the Iranian people as a serious alternative to the government of the Islamic Republic. At the same time, they provided a convenient opportunity for the regime of the rule of the Supreme Leader and its supporters to portray a movement that arose from widespread protests within our homeland as externally dependent and to label the protests of a people pushed to the limit as a “foreign conspiracy.”
Dear Compatriots!
This year, the fourth anniversary of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising comes at a time when our homeland faces extremely difficult economic conditions and the continuing danger of war and foreign aggression. Two hundred days after what the statement describes as the criminal aggression against Iran by U.S. imperialism and Netanyahu’s Zionist regime, the killing of thousands of our compatriots, and the infliction of hundreds of billions of dollars in economic damage, tens of millions of Iranians continue to struggle with extremely difficult economic circumstances to secure the bare necessities of life. Meanwhile, through repressive policies—including the widespread execution of young protesters, young people who courageously resisted the regime’s machinery of repression in Dey 1404—the regime is seeking to exploit the people’s patriotic sentiments and their resistance to foreign aggression in order to consolidate its own position. The struggle against the “profiteers of war and sanctions” and those forces within the establishment that believe the continuation of the regime of the rule of the Supreme Leader can be made possible through the continued state of “neither war nor peace”; the struggle against the wave of repression and executions by the Islamic Republic’s judiciary; and efforts to organize widespread popular protests to force the regime to retreat and accede to the people’s demands—including the achievement of an honorable and lasting peace—are tasks that cannot be delayed.
The “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising was one of the most widespread and influential social movements of recent years in Iran. It demonstrated the central and pioneering role of women and received widespread attention in Iran and throughout the world. The movement took shape around women’s demands, but rapidly developed into a broad movement for freedom, equality, human dignity, and fundamental rights, demonstrating that the demand for freedom and equality has become one of the important demands of broad sections of Iranian society.
Another important point concerning the significance of the popular “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising in the history of our people’s struggles against the ruling authoritarian government is that, despite the bloody repression of the uprising, Iran’s courageous women succeeded in forcing the regime to retreat in its enforcement of compulsory hijab. Following what the statement calls the aggression by U.S. imperialism, extremist forces have sought to reverse this achievement by deploying groups to repress women who do not wear the hijab. The significance of the popular “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising is not limited to women’s struggle for the right to choose their clothing. By breaking government-created “taboos” in many social and cultural spheres, the uprising, through the persistent efforts and everyday civil resistance of the women and men of our homeland, succeeded in normalizing within society lifestyles and ways of living different from the regime’s prescribed stereotypes. For the younger generation in particular, this popular uprising helped normalize and expand within society the right to have a lifestyle and way of life different from that prescribed by the regime.
On the anniversary of the popular “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising, the Tudeh Party of Iran honors the memory of the hundreds of activists who lost their lives after being killed by the regime’s agents, and salutes the thousands of political and prisoners of conscience, particularly women political prisoners who continue to be subjected to abuse and torture in the government’s dungeons by the so-called “Unknown Soldiers of the Imam of the Age.” The struggle for freedom, social justice, and the liberation of women from the yoke of medieval despotism, for the establishment of peace and the preservation of national sovereignty in the face of foreign aggression, continues!
Tudeh Party of Iran
27 Shahrivar 1405 (18 September 2026)