Press release
Mayor of Ixelles refuses demonstration of Iranian women on the 8th of March!
On the 8th of March Iranian women, refugees from all over Europe, demonstrate to let hear their anger at the reactionary regime in Iran. In this country women have got no rights. They can’t leave the house without their husband’s permission. Being seen with a man who isn’t your husband of for instance not wearing your headscarf, are enough reason to be punished by being whipped several times. Not equality before the law but legal inequality is the rule.
The Iranian women’s coalition who wants to demonstrate in Brussels this year, together with other organisations of Belgian, but also of Turkish en Kurdish women, has been demonstrating for years on the 8th of March. It is the first time that they are confronted with a refusal in a European city. Ixelles will go into history as the only city in the “democratic west” where women are forbidden to demonstrate on the International Women’s’ Day! The Mayor of Ixelles, W. Decourty (PS), is thus apparently agreeing with the Iranian regime that opposition of women is unacceptable and that women have to be muzzled. In any case he’s acting as an ally of the reactionary regime in Iran.
Decourty gives “problems of traffic” as a reason to prohibit the demonstration on his territory. Problems of traffic! All demonstrations gives more or less problems for traffic – what remains of our constitutional right to express our opinion (non-existing in Iran) if a mayor can refuse a demonstration for such a reason? It also makes us worried about the support women in Ixelles would get from their city council if they want to fight oppression…
Thielemans, mayor of Brussels-City, gave us permission, but for the last part of the demonstration – the way to the Iranian embassy – our right is refused by his party member in Ixelles. This decision will not only be looked at in Belgium. In Iran the higher circles will react with joy: even a democratic country as Belgium refuses the Iranian women to express their protest!
The demonstration on the 8th of March is announced at 2 pm, starting point being the American embassy, where women will speak out against the occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, occupations which didn’t bring any improvement to women, even on the contrary. Through the European quarter, where we want to protest against the asocial policies of the EU, we want to go on to the Iranian embassy, end point of the demonstration.
But the mayor of Ixelles refuses this! Even the unlikely and already totally unacceptable proposal of the police services to do part of the demonstration by metro (!) is refused to us by W. Decourty. A protest action will take place on Thursday 28 February at 5 pm before the town hall of Ixelles, with at the same time a press conference in L’amour Fou (Place Fernand Coq).
We are determined to express our opinion, even if it means that we have to use the side walk to get to the Iranian embassy. We invite the press to come to our demonstration, which will be unique by the partly subterranean part of the route that is imposed on us. Help us make known this scandalous situation to a wider public!
Azar Behrouz, plateforme de femmes iraniennes Karzar (0486 48 43 65)
Anja Deschoemacker, commission femmes du Mouvement pour une Alternative Socialiste, MAS-LSP (0473 92 28 33)
Laure Miege, travail femmes des Etudiants de Gauche Actifs (0497 92 12 63)
Nadine Mertens, membre du Comité exécutif du Setca Bruxelles-Hal-Vilvorde
Ivy Meert, femmes du Comité pour une Autre politique (CAP)
Mayor of Ixelles refuses demonstration of Iranian women on the 8th of March!
On the 8th of March Iranian women, refugees from all over Europe, demonstrate to let hear their anger at the reactionary regime in Iran. In this country women have got no rights. They can’t leave the house without their husband’s permission. Being seen with a man who isn’t your husband of for instance not wearing your headscarf, are enough reason to be punished by being whipped several times. Not equality before the law but legal inequality is the rule.
The Iranian women’s coalition who wants to demonstrate in Brussels this year, together with other organisations of Belgian, but also of Turkish en Kurdish women, has been demonstrating for years on the 8th of March. It is the first time that they are confronted with a refusal in a European city. Ixelles will go into history as the only city in the “democratic west” where women are forbidden to demonstrate on the International Women’s’ Day! The Mayor of Ixelles, W. Decourty (PS), is thus apparently agreeing with the Iranian regime that opposition of women is unacceptable and that women have to be muzzled. In any case he’s acting as an ally of the reactionary regime in Iran.
Decourty gives “problems of traffic” as a reason to prohibit the demonstration on his territory. Problems of traffic! All demonstrations gives more or less problems for traffic – what remains of our constitutional right to express our opinion (non-existing in Iran) if a mayor can refuse a demonstration for such a reason? It also makes us worried about the support women in Ixelles would get from their city council if they want to fight oppression…
Thielemans, mayor of Brussels-City, gave us permission, but for the last part of the demonstration – the way to the Iranian embassy – our right is refused by his party member in Ixelles. This decision will not only be looked at in Belgium. In Iran the higher circles will react with joy: even a democratic country as Belgium refuses the Iranian women to express their protest!
The demonstration on the 8th of March is announced at 2 pm, starting point being the American embassy, where women will speak out against the occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, occupations which didn’t bring any improvement to women, even on the contrary. Through the European quarter, where we want to protest against the asocial policies of the EU, we want to go on to the Iranian embassy, end point of the demonstration.
But the mayor of Ixelles refuses this! Even the unlikely and already totally unacceptable proposal of the police services to do part of the demonstration by metro (!) is refused to us by W. Decourty. A protest action will take place on Thursday 28 February at 5 pm before the town hall of Ixelles, with at the same time a press conference in L’amour Fou (Place Fernand Coq).
We are determined to express our opinion, even if it means that we have to use the side walk to get to the Iranian embassy. We invite the press to come to our demonstration, which will be unique by the partly subterranean part of the route that is imposed on us. Help us make known this scandalous situation to a wider public!
Azar Behrouz, plateforme de femmes iraniennes Karzar (0486 48 43 65)
Anja Deschoemacker, commission femmes du Mouvement pour une Alternative Socialiste, MAS-LSP (0473 92 28 33)
Laure Miege, travail femmes des Etudiants de Gauche Actifs (0497 92 12 63)
Nadine Mertens, membre du Comité exécutif du Setca Bruxelles-Hal-Vilvorde
Ivy Meert, femmes du Comité pour une Autre politique (CAP)
To: Mr. Decourty, mayor of Ixelles
Email: w.decourty@brutele.be
Copy to: info@8maart.be
No to the refusal of the right to demonstrate! Iranian women should have the right to hold a demonstration on the road to the Iranian embassy!
To m. Decourty,
With indignation we’ve heard that you, as PS-mayor of Ixelles, have refused Iranian women to demonstrate to the Iranian embassy. And that on International Women’s Day – a day which has been put on the agenda by the predecessors of your party! It’s your predecessors, then clearly more socialist than you are now, who’ve given life to this international day of protest for women’s rights!
But Iranian women, who haven’t got the right to demonstrate in their country of origin, nor the right to leave the house without permission of their father or husband for that matter, are being refused the right to make their voices be heard by you!
I’m asking you to change this decision and to not give the Iranian regime the excuse that women’s rights are refused even in a European country, for it is the reactionary regime in Iran that will be overflowing with joy over your unconstitutional and totally undemocratic decision. In stead of showing the women’s movement in Iran that there is a support in the international community for their struggle, you are giving the completely opposite signal.
I sign with diminished hope on reason and democratic sense from your part,
Email: w.decourty@brutele.be
Copy to: info@8maart.be
No to the refusal of the right to demonstrate! Iranian women should have the right to hold a demonstration on the road to the Iranian embassy!
To m. Decourty,
With indignation we’ve heard that you, as PS-mayor of Ixelles, have refused Iranian women to demonstrate to the Iranian embassy. And that on International Women’s Day – a day which has been put on the agenda by the predecessors of your party! It’s your predecessors, then clearly more socialist than you are now, who’ve given life to this international day of protest for women’s rights!
But Iranian women, who haven’t got the right to demonstrate in their country of origin, nor the right to leave the house without permission of their father or husband for that matter, are being refused the right to make their voices be heard by you!
I’m asking you to change this decision and to not give the Iranian regime the excuse that women’s rights are refused even in a European country, for it is the reactionary regime in Iran that will be overflowing with joy over your unconstitutional and totally undemocratic decision. In stead of showing the women’s movement in Iran that there is a support in the international community for their struggle, you are giving the completely opposite signal.
I sign with diminished hope on reason and democratic sense from your part,
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