Civil and Professional Activists Support Roya Hashmati: The Punishment of Flogging Must Be Stopped

More than 20 "women's rights defenders, advocates, and supporters of the Woman, Life, Freedom revolution" issued a joint statement on Wednesday, January 17, supporting Roya Hashmati, an opponent of mandatory hijab, and condemning the punishment of flogging and the Islamic Republic's efforts to enforce mandatory hijab. According to professional Telegram channels, Ms. Hashmati is described as an example of Iranian women who, over the past four decades, have persistently advanced through protest and struggle in a difficult and exhausting path, becoming revolutionary symbols for fundamental change towards the liberation of women and society. The signatories of the statement, which includes well-known active women from Tehran to Zahedan and also from outside Iran, strongly condemned "mandatory hijab, Islamic laws, and the heinous ruling of flogging that showcases the savagery and brutality of the Islamic regime." The statement emphasized that "women like Roya Hashmati play a significant role in the expansion and deepening of widespread unveiling as an achievement of the Woman, Life, Freedom revolution." It considered the struggle against mandatory hijab as "the groundwork for a wave of renewed protests in the not-so-distant future." Among the signatories are Ladan Bazargan, sister of the justice seeker Bijan Bazargan, executed in the summer of '67, and Mahsa Pirayi, daughter of the justice seeker Minou Majidi, one of the victims of the Woman, Life, Freedom revolution. Also included are Soran Mansournia, brother of the justice seeker Borhan Mansournia, killed in November 98, Fariba Malazahi, a women's rights activist in Baluchistan, and Mahbubeh Farahzadi, a board member of the Tehran Teachers' Association, Sara Siyahpour, a teachers' union activist, and Koukb Badaghi-Pegah, a teachers' union activist. Other signatories include Nasrat Beheshti, a retired teacher and women and labor activist, Azadeh Davachi, a women's rights activist, Hadis Sabouri, a women's rights activist and former political prisoner, Soheil Arabi, a political prisoner in exile and worker, Mojgan Keshavarz, a women's rights activist, Rada Mardani, an activist in the teachers' movement, and Pouran Nazemi, a women's rights activist. Previously, Narges Mohammadi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and imprisoned human rights activist, described Roya Hashmati's flogging as "a representation of 45 years of gender apartheid by the authoritarian government against the proud and aware women." Many political figures, lawyers, and media activists have criticized the execution of flogging, with some calling for its removal from Iran's penal system. The Mizan news agency, affiliated with the Iranian judiciary, responded to the criticisms regarding the execution of Roya Hashmati's flogging by accusing her of "licentiousness." The United Nations and human rights organizations have described punishments such as finger amputations and flogging as "barbaric," "medieval," and instances of "torture," repeatedly calling for the abolition of such corporal punishments in Iran. Reactions to the flogging sentence of Roya Hashmati and the claims of the judiciary continue; her lawyer provided more details. There has been widespread reaction to the execution of Roya Hashmati's flogging; users praised her "steadfastness and resilience." Mansoureh Hosseini Yeganeh analyzed the 74 lashes on Roya Hashmati's body and her resistance against mandatory hijab. Eleven businesses in Isfahan were sealed for offering unconventional foreign clothing. Narges Mohammadi praised Roya Hashmati's "resistance"; the lashes that struck your body were the lashes of tyranny against the body of freedom. Roya Hashmati, an opponent of mandatory hijab, received 74 lashes for "offending public morality."