In this statement, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) condemns the Iranian regime’s violent crackdown on protesters since 28 December 2025 and stands in solidarity with the Iranian people in their decades-long struggle against structural oppression, inequality, and neoliberal policies.
The statement denounces the use of force, including killings, arbitrary arrests, and internet shutdowns, situates the repression within a pattern of militarised governance, and rejects both foreign intervention and militarised state control as paths to peace and freedom. Centering the Iranian feminist movement, WILPF calls for accountability for human rights violations and respect for the Iranian people’s right to determine their own future.
WILPF Statement on the Protests in Iran, 15 January 2026
WILPF condemns the Iranian regime’s violent crackdown on protesters since 28 December 2025. The current protests represent a continuation of a decades long struggle by the Iranian people to challenge deeply rooted structural oppression, inequality, and neoliberal policies. We stand in solidarity with the Iranian people against the hegemonic, violent and oppressive regime.
Instead of addressing the demands of protesters, the Iranian authorities have responded with force. The violent crackdown against protesters echoes the deadly tactics used by the authorities during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests. Amid reports of unlawful use of force, killings, and arbitrary arrests of protesters, the Iranian regime has also shutdown internet access, undermining the ability of protesters to access information and the documentation of human rights abuses.
The protests arose out of legitimate and organic responses to militarised and harmful governance in Iran, and a deepening economic crisis that has been shaped by international sanctions. In the face of international interference and threats from global powers such as the United States and Israel, the Iranian regime has invested in militarism, mass surveillance, arrests, and shutdowns, rather than providing for the people. The only ones that have the right to determine their governance is the Iranian people; foreign intervention and militarised state control cannot deliver peace and freedom.
The Iranian feminist movement has been critical in mobilising women to address the patriarchal nature of the regime and build a narrative to link public and private violence, within the borders of the state and without, and provide feminist alternatives to militarised violence. They have repeatedly called for a transformative approach to promote freedom and end structural oppression. It is time for us to heed their calls. The Iranian people deserve an end to the violence and oppression they have endured for decades.
We call on the international community to condemn the violent crackdown against protesters, call for accountability for all human rights violations, and to reject militarised state responses to lawful protests, as well as external interventions of any kind or the use of force by the United States.
