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{"id":12006,"date":"2019-08-10T10:55:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-10T08:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iranfreedom.org\/en\/?p=12006"},"modified":"2019-09-05T21:42:22","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T19:42:22","slug":"yakin-ertuk-mek-iran-albania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iranfreedom.org\/en\/media-gallery\/videos\/2019\/08\/yakin-ertuk-mek-iran-albania\/12006\/","title":{"rendered":"Yakin Ertuk Speech in MEK Free Iran Rally in Albania"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MEK \/ PMOI\u00a0<\/a>Free\u00a0 Iran rally in Albania<\/a> \u2013 Yakin Ertuk, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (2003-2006) supported MEK and\u00a0 Maryam Rajavi\u2019s plan for a free and democratic Iran<\/a>, July 13, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yakin Ertuk: I\u2019m\nimpressed with your energy. It seems endless. Keep it up. I would like to start\nby giving voice to a 12^{th<\/sup> century Persian poet, (Sadi). He said,\n\u201cThe children of Adam are limbs from one another, created from the single\nsubstance.\u00a0 When one limb suffers\nmisfortune the others cannot be addressed. You who do not suffer the pain of\nothers do not deserve to be called human.\u201d And this was written way before the\nFrench Revolution or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which shows\nthat human rights is embedded into the culture of this region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n}

Yakin Ertuk: Now,\nthe testimonies that we received yesterday from the Ashrafi residents put our\nhumanity to test. I was saddened. I felt shame and rage. But I also felt hope.\nSeeing the survivors continue their struggle with determination and a smile on\ntheir face was very empowering. Human dignity, I\u2019m sure will defeat evil. In\n2005, I was in Evin Prison. Fortunately, not as a prisoner but as a UN human\nrights rapporteur to monitor the situation of female prisoners. Of course,\nauthorities were informed of my visit, so the conditions in the prison was very\nimpressive. Very clean, sheets nicely put, etc., and female prisoners with a\nfrozen smile on their faces. But I did manage to talk to the prisoners and they\ndid relay some of their experiences, some of which were very similar to the\nones we heard here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yakin Ertuk: I\u2019m\nfrom Turkey and we share a common history and a common region with Iran.\nSometimes friendly, sometimes maybe not so friendly, but we do share much. We\nlive in a troubled region, unfortunately.\u00a0\nThe geopolitics of the region and its unique strategic position has\nhistorically been a source of attraction to hegemonic powers, a cause of\ninstability for individual powers, the region, and the world at large. We, the\npeople of the region, have aspirations for rights and freedoms which have often\nbeen taken hostage by other concerns such as oil, or security rhetoric, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yakin Ertuk: This\nhas at time provoked or justified repressive regimes and helped them to sustain\ntheir oppression. As a social scientist, like many others I had predicted that\nthe mullah regime would collapse because it has no basis after particularly the\nIran-Iraq War. But this didn\u2019t happen. They continued.\u00a0 The international context was not conducive.\nThe mullah regime prevailed and oppression of Iranian people continued.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yakin Ertuk: The\n1979 Revolution launched a wholesale war on women of Iran and systemically\nbecame institutionalized. A misogyny which may be common throughout the world\nhas become strictly observed in this country. Many human rights rapporteurs,\nparticularly rapporteurs on the situation in Iran, including the late has\nrepeatedly written about the continuing discrimination and violence against\nwomen.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yakin Ertuk: But we\nmust also acknowledge the resilience of women. For 40 years, women resisted the\nregime\u2019s attempt to silence them and transgress their rights, on the street, in\nthe social media, even in the privacy of their homes. Women stood firm and\nbecame the most vocal voice of resisting political and social controls. The new\ngeneration of Iranian women who are the product of the revolution era are as\nbold, if not more, as their predecessors in defying boundaries imposed on them.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yakin Ertuk: Streets\nof Tehran are increasingly more colorful and vocal. Women and men of Iran are\nready, as you said, (hozzair) to claim their freedom and determine their own\ndestiny. Those of us who are supporters of freedom and justice in Iran must\njoin forces in a more determined way to take measures that would empower the\nIranian people\u2019s struggles. We also need to navigate the region\u2019s geopolitical\ntensions and reject projects that can inflame the instability and the conflict\nin the region. I would like to join Mrs. Rajavi who has argued that religious\nfascism can only be defeated by forces that reject misogyny. And in this\ncontext, women are a decisive factor. Iranian people, men and women alike, are\nthe force of change. Until we meet in Tehran, <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"