Fattaneh, a 38-year-old resistance fighter based in Tehran, says that despite arrests, torture, and executions carried out for even the smallest acts of defiance, she will never give up her struggle. Living in a society where women are deprived of choosing their clothes, jobs, or fields of study, she insists that resistance is not an option but a necessity.
Recalling her friends who were arrested and executed simply for writing slogans or distributing leaflets, she explains that the regime brutally punishes even the slightest expression of dissent — from writing anti-regime graffiti to blocking a street in protest. Yet, despite these dangers, she continues her fight, believing that true life only exists in freedom.
“As a woman, I have two choices: surrender and be oppressed, or stand up and fight,” she says. “To surrender means to die a little every day — so it’s better to fight for real life, for freedom.” Her words echo the decades-long struggle that began after the 1979 revolution, when the clerical regime seized power and began stripping women of basic rights under strict religious laws.
In recent years, Iran’s hardline parliament has passed new legislation imposing severe penalties on women accused of “promoting nudity, indecency, or improper dress.” Under certain interpretations of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, such actions can even lead to a death sentence under the charge of “corruption on earth.” Human rights groups and the Iranian diaspora note that executions, particularly of women, have sharply increased — not as acts of justice, but as tools of fear and political control.
Dr. Ela Zabihi, a lecturer at St George’s, University of London, and a member of Women for a Free Iran, told reporters that the clerical regime has been “the main driver of terrorism, hostage-taking, and oppression at home and abroad.” She believes that a free Iran could one day become “a beautiful, vibrant nation that the world can visit, learn from, and admire.”
Fattaneh, however, grounds her hopes in the harsh realities of daily life. Despite the country’s vast oil and gas reserves, around 80% of Iranians live below the poverty line. They suffer from water shortages, power cuts, environmental destruction, and economic collapse. She believes this social and economic desperation could ignite the next uprising.
“Our goal as Resistance Units,” she explains, “is to break the atmosphere of fear the regime enforces through executions and repression. Every day, we work to organize protests and prepare for the next uprising. Even regime officials admit on state TV that the people’s patience has run out.”
According to her, the divide in Iran has never been clearer — on one side, the people and the resistance; on the other, the regime and its enforcers. “The clerics respond to every call for freedom with bullets and gallows,” she says. “But the people have nothing left to lose. Their only demand is a free Iran.”
In closing, Fattaneh sends a message of defiance:
“We will not stop until this bloodthirsty regime is overthrown.”