To: All Women & Human Rights Organisations and Activists

On Monday, June 12, Iranian women gathered in Tehran to demand rights, including equality of women before the court and in family law, the banning of polygamy, an increase in the age of legal responsibility for girl and boy children to 18 years old, and the reform of employment laws which disadvantage female employees.

The gathering was savagely attacked by the Islamic republic’s police and up to hundred of demonstrators were arrested. During last night the harassment and intimidation by the regime has continued and the captured activists are still in prison.

The laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran continue to treat women as second-class citizens, and deem the value of the life of a woman as half that of a man's. Women are denied equal rights in many elements of family life, including marriage and divorce, child custody, and inheritance laws.

We call upon all human and women’s rights activists and organisation to take stand against these brutalities towards women in Iran. Demand their release and ask for ending the terror and intimidation of the activists and their families.

Send a message of solidarity to the Iranian women and support their struggle for freedom and equality. Women in Iran need your support and solidarity for exercising their basic rights to freedom of expression and assembly from all kinds of brutality and repression to which they have been and continue to be subjected in the past and present.

The Organisation for the Emancipation of Women

www.rahai-zan.org

13/06/06