Middle East Research and Information Project

@merip.bsky.social

6032 Followers 82 Following

The Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) has provided critical, alternative reporting on the Middle East since 1971. www.merip.org

Author’s note: This piece was completed on June 10, 2025. On June 13, amid an ongoing genocidal war in Gaza, Israel initiated a major attack on Iran’s military infrastructure and civilian sites in its capital of Tehran and various other parts of the country. Iran responded with drone and missile attacks, indefinitely suspending any nuclear negotiations. As of this writing, an unprecedented war is unfolding between the two countries, resulting in the killing and injuring of mostly civilians, many of whom are women and children.
Many Iranian women’s rights advocates and civil society groups had long feared such an escalation and its potential negative consequences—particularly for the grassroots-driven demands for radical change discussed in this MERIP article. Within hours of the onset of the war, Iranian Feminist and Equality Activists issued a statement in Persian titled, “No to War, No to the Islamic Republic,” publicly condemning all violence and conflict, and “calling on all Iranians to recommit to the principles of Woman, Life, Freedom.” On June 16, the Iran Writers Association similarly issued a statement, condemning “Israel, which has been killing the people of Gaza for months and forcing the survivors to die of famine and starvation,” and “has now extended its war-mongering and aggression to the people of Iran.” The statement warns that the achievements of the post-Jina movement risk being erased in the wake of this aggression and that, in its aftermath, extreme nationalism, radicalism and neo-fascism could take root. As they write, “The world’s silence in the face of this aggression, under the pretext of the recklessness and tyranny of the Iranian regime, will only magnify the dimensions of the disaster.” Iran’s civil society groups are not silent in their condemnation of war-mongering forces and call for the amplification of the country’s freedom-seeking movements, recognizing that real democratic change must come from within