Lily Mazahery -- Text of Speech Before Members of Congress on International Women's Day Concerning Human Rights Violations of Women in Iran

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Speech to members of Congressional Women's Caucus and members of the United States House of Representatives re:  Human rights violations of woman in Iran.

Good Afternoon Chairpersons Andrews, Kirk, Brown-Waite, Solis, members of the Caucus.

My name is Lily Mazahery.  I am an attorney here in Washington DC, and I thank you for this chance to speak, and for holding this briefing on the status of women in Iran.  The opportunity to discuss the existing and growing gender-apartheid in today's Iran could not have come at a more critical time.

Since the Islamic fundamentalists officially took over Iran's government in 1979, the Mullah's have systematically deprived women of their most basic human rights.  The Constitution and legal system that were put in place by the Muslim clerics have effectively promoted and justified the state sponsorship of violence and injustice against women.

The results of the systematic violations of women's rights have been nothing less than barbaric. Iranian girls and women have been executed for expressing opposition to the policies of the ruling regime.  Women who are viewed as "disobedient" in any way are attacked and flogged in public.  One of the more barbaric methods of punishing girls and women in Iran today is by stoning them to death.  Under Article 102 of Iran's Penal Code, a girl who is found to have committed acts incompatible with chastity is sentenced to stoning. 

On the day of her punishment, the girl's hands are tied behind her back as she becomes completely covered from head to toe in winding sheets and is placed seated in a pit.  The pit is then filled up to her chest with dirt and the dirt is tamped down.  At that point, people are invited to murder her by hurling rocks at her.  But to ensure the maximum amount of pain and torture, the Iranian government has even mandated the size of the stones that are to be used in this barbaric act of public execution!  By law, the stones must not be too small as to prevent ultimate death, nor must they be too large that they could cause the girl's death "too soon." 

You might wonder how such horrifying and monstrous acts can possibly be tolerated, much less justified in any society at this time in the history of human-kind.  The answer seems to have come directly from the late Ayatollah Khomeni himself.  During a sermon in February of 1984, the transcript of which was later published in a government newspaper, the grand Ayatollah explained:

"Killing is a form of mercy because it rectifies the person.  Sometimes a person cannot be reformed unless that person is cut up and burned.  You must kill, burn, and lock up those in opposition."

Those who have succeeded Khomeni have more than lived up to that view.  Today, Iran is a known state sponsor of terrorism, an astonishing fact considering that Iran is one of few nations in the world where an overwhelming majority of the population is pro-American despite the government's official hostility towards the U.S.

Recently, state-backed terrorist groups, known as the Iranian martyrdom-seeking forces, have launched an organized effort to recruit individuals who are willing to participate in suicide missions to intervene in Iraq and protect the holy sites of the Shi'ites. In an attempt to recruit as many terrorists as possible, the organizers have targeted women as well as men. 

However, because Iranian women are not legally allowed to obtain passports to travel without the express approval and permission of their husbands or male guardians, the leaders of these organizations have had to create a religious exception to those laws.  In a section titled 'A Religious Commandment,' the official website of one such organization claims:  "there is a consensus among clerics that when the enemy attacks one of the Muslim lands, jihad becomes an obligation incumbent upon all. [In such a case,] a woman can participate [in jihad] without her husband's permission,...'"

Perhaps not surprisingly, these terrorist groups have successfully recruited more female than male volunteers!  Because Iranian women, oppressed and terrorized under the barbaric Islamic regime, have little chance of expressing themselves, of living independent lives, or financially contributing to their families, it is not difficult to see why they would choose to join such terrorist organizations. 

As suicide-martyrs, they avoid being forced into "temporary marriages," a concept developed by the ruling government to legalize prostitution under Islamic law.  They escape physical abuse by their male guardians or husbands at home.  They avoid enslavement in a rapidly growing sex trafficking industry that is, in some instances, organized and operated by some of the clerics themselves.  And, perhaps, by sacrificing their lives in the name of Allah, they will finally escape the sexual and social slavery, the degradation, the terror, the humiliation, and the injustice of their daily lives.

Esteemed members of this hallowed institution, the oppressed and tortured women of today's Iran are potentially the next generation of organized terrorists.  Unless we, as Americans, as the most powerful nation in the world, as a society that values the sanctity of human life and dignity above all else, and as a country that faces serious security threats at home and abroad, take immediate and concrete actions to end the human rights violations of Iranian women, we are no better than those who stood by idly as the horrors of the Holocaust took place. 

Let us, as Americans, not go down in history as those who heard the cries of mothers whose daughters were hanged in public, the screams of young girls raped by their "temporary husbands," or the sound of bones shattering in the faces of teenage girls who are stoned to death and merely asked why?  Let us be the ones who actually take actions to ensure that NO ONE will ever have to hear those wretched sounds or experience those horrors ever again.

Thank you.