Twenty-four Iranian labor, social and support organizations said in a joint statement on Monday that the Woman, Life, Freedom movement sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 would not be silenced, pledging to continue their struggle for political and social change.
The groups, ranging from teachers’ and oil workers’ councils to environmental and cultural associations, issued the statement in the days leading up to the third anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death on September 16, which ignited months of nationwide unrest.
“The struggle will not stop,” the statement said, describing the protests as the product of “more than four decades of resistance.”
The groups called for three central demands: “an end to gender apartheid,guaranteed public welfare, and unconditional political, social and cultural freedoms.”
The signatories said the 2022 protests, which began after the 22-year-old Kurdish woman’s arrest by morality police for allegedly violating hijab rules and her consequent death, embodied wider grievances over poverty, corruption, repression and inequality.
“The uprising of Woman, Life, Freedom arose as a deeper cry against poverty, economic pressure, discrimination, repression and humiliation,” the statement read.
The groups cited a list of crises they said were rooted in “the authoritarian, discriminatory and despotic structure of political Islam.”
These included “a deep wealth gap, gender discrimination, concentration of power in the hands of a small ruling minority, systematic corruption, mass unemployment, structural poverty, forced migration, environmental destruction and organized repression.”
The statement also linked Iran’s foreign and security policies to domestic hardship. “The specter of war over society is constantly increasing, the result of warmongering policies, proxy forces and insistence on nuclear armament, which have drained people’s lives,” it said.
The organizations said protests over inflation, utility shortages, lifestyle restrictions, political prisoners and executions were all part of the same continuum of struggle.
“No reform from above can heal these wounds... The true force of this revolution is in the streets, in strikes, in the solidarity of workers, women, youth, teachers, retirees, students and marginalized groups,” they wrote.
They voiced demands for the release of political prisoners, an end to executions and for social justice. “We declare loudly: no power from above, no behind-the-scenes compromise and no imposed order has the right to decide for the people,” the statement said.
The anniversary comes as Canada-based activist Hamed Esmaeilion has called for rallies in more than 20 cities worldwide, including Toronto, Berlin, London and Sydney, between September 13 and 16 to mark Amini’s death. He said the demonstrations would commemorate those killed or imprisoned since 2022 and demand accountability from Iranian authorities.
Rights groups say at least 551 people, including women and children, were killed during the protests that followed Amini’s death, while thousands were arrested. Amnesty International has described Iran’s crackdown as crimes against humanity, and a UN fact-finding mission has said systemic repression, particularly against women and girls, continues.
“The revolution is not only for a change of political structure,” the Iranian groups’ statement concluded. “It is to end centuries of oppression, exploitation and backwardness, and to open a path where welfare, freedom and equality are a daily reality.”
Esmaeilion, a human rights activist and member of the board of the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims, said demonstrations will be held simultaneously in more than 20 cities across the globe.
In a video posted on X, he confirmed he would join a Toronto rally on September 14, marking the third anniversary of the 2022 protests that erupted nationwide following the death of Mahsa Amini.
He said similar gatherings were being organized in Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, Nuremberg, Geneva, Gothenburg, London, Barcelona, Turku, Ghent, Ottawa, Montreal, Houston, San Francisco, Sydney, Wellington and Christchurch. Events are scheduled between September 13 and 16.
Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was arrested by Iran’s morality police on September 13, 2022, for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict hijab law. She collapsed in custody and died two days later, igniting months of nationwide unrest that rights groups say left at least 551 people dead, including dozens of women and children.
In his video, Esmaeilion said he would also attend a marathon in Toronto in memory of political prisoners and victims of executions, naming Sharifeh Mohammadi, Varisheh Moradi and Pakhshan Azizi among those he wished to honor.
He also expressed solidarity with Kurdish teachers dismissed or exiled in recent months, prisoners on hunger strike, and Mehran Bahramian, who was executed earlier in the month.
Last year, the second anniversary of Amini’s death saw protests from Melbourne and Tokyo to European capitals, with diaspora groups chanting Woman, Life, Freedom and calling for international sanctions on Iran’s leadership. The Los Angeles City Council renamed an intersection in the city’s Iranian district to mark the anniversary.
Rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have said Iran’s crackdown on the protests amounted to crimes against humanity. A UN fact-finding mission said widespread and systemic repression, particularly against women and girls, has continued since 2022.
Esmaeilion, whose wife and daughter were killed when Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane in 2020, has become a prominent voice among the Iranian diaspora.
He urged Iranians abroad to use the anniversary to amplify calls for justice and to ensure, he said, that “the world does not forget.”
“For licenses for women, certain bylaws, laws and regulations must be revised. We are awaiting an official notification on women’s motorcycling so we can proceed,” said Brigadier General Teymour Hosseini, head of traffic police.
The current legal framework blocks issuance, Hosseini added, pointing to a traffic law that designates the police as the licensing authority for men and makes no reference to women.
He said any implementation would require a statutory amendment and a written directive from competent authorities.
Despite the legal bar, more women have taken up motorcycling in Iranian cities in recent years, especially after protests linked to the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody. Officials say the trend has spread from Tehran to other provinces, reflecting practical needs for mobility and work.
A 2010 change to the traffic code left women riders in a gray zone: riding without a license is an offense, but enforcement has been uneven, with officers alternately warning or seizing bikes.
The president’s parliamentary affairs deputy, Kazem Delkhosh, said in August that the government is working on a way to legalize women’s motorcycling. “We are preparing legislation for women who want to ride, and the women’s affairs office is also working on a bill,” he told the state-run Iran newspaper.
Conservative clerics often argue that public motorcycling by women could invite unwanted attention or offend social norms, positions that have helped keep the licensing door closed.
“These devices should be used on thieves and fraudsters, not for a teacher who simply demanded her union rights,” says one teacher and union activist.
She recounts how, in the silence of the night, the short beep of her device awakens her five-year-old daughter—a constant reminder that miles away, someone is watching. Barred from stepping more than a kilometer from her home, she must wear the virtual shackle at all times.
She is one of dozens of teachers, artists, students, writers, members of religious minorities and labor activists who, after months or years in prison, now serve the remainder of their sentences under electronic surveillance.
Their names have been withheld due to the likelihood of official retaliation for telling their stories.
The devices are fastened to the leg and tracked around the clock by Iran’s Prisons Organization. In theory, they modernize punishments and reduce prison costs. In practice, they are applied not only to financial, drug or theft offenders but increasingly to civil and political activists.
Bruised—and paying for it
“I am having to pay just to have a shackle strapped to my leg,” one activist remarks.
For many, the devices are humiliating, painful, and financially crushing. Lawyers describe them as tools of harassment, combining physical restriction with constant control.
The locally manufactured monitors are poorly designed: heavy, sharp-edged and often causing wounds or inflammation.
To add insult to injury, users must pay for their shackle: an upfront fee of about $25 and roughly $9 a month thereafter—sums that weigh heavily on activists who are out of work or barred from working.
Restricted lives
“From the hairdresser to the grocery store, people call me a hero and say: ‘Respect for your courage.’ But I’m glad my mother isn’t alive to see me wearing this shackle,” says a female teacher."
The devices typically restrict movement to a 1,000-meter radius around the home, though the exact distance is determined by a judge. The impact is immediate: disrupted jobs, missed family events, lost opportunities and even obstacles to medical care.
Protest singer Vafa Ahmadpour, known online as Vafadar, announced that he lost the chance to travel to the US as an honorary judge at an arts festival because of his ankle monitor.
Some wearers try to hide the device under socks or trousers to avoid stares. Others leave it visible and say most reactions are sympathetic.
Arbitrary power
Some lawyers say monitors allow prisoners to return to a normal life, but others stress the selective and arbitrary way monitors are used against protesters.
“In other countries, these devices are used for actual financial or violent crimes; but in Iran, they’ve become tools for controlling and humiliating protesters and civil defenders and union activists,” says another.
He notes that law enforcement agencies wield wide discretion in deciding who qualifies and under what conditions—leaving activists especially vulnerable.
The stigma of ankle monitoring often blocks people from resuming their jobs. Some have even been forced to move homes so their workplace remains within the permitted radius.
“After my release, the school principal said I needed an official letter from the judge to return to teaching,” a teacher explains. “The judge confirmed I wasn’t legally banned from working, but the school still refused to take me back. I suspect the Intelligence Ministry put pressure on them.”
An invisible prison
Another teacher describes the constant anxiety: “Even going for a jog in the park makes me anxious. Once, I stepped outside the boundary. At 6:30 in the morning, they called and threatened to send me back to prison.”
It’s a recurring theme in conversations with those wearing monitors.
“I went out to buy a book I loved. At the intersection, the device beeped—I remembered I wasn’t allowed to cross. I looked at the book with longing and turned back,” says one author.
“The painful part is that only you can see this invisible boundary. Everyone else can cross it—except you.”
“In Shiraz Adelabad Prison, my cellmates were murderers and dangerous criminals. For me, the ankle monitor was a choice between bad and worse,” says a teacher from Shiraz.
For many, the device remains preferable to the harsh conditions of Iran’s prisons—but only barely.
“This is the least we pay for demanding our rights,” one teacher says.
“The ankle monitor has limited my physical movement, but it hasn’t stopped me from thinking and writing,” says another author. “I still write—and that’s something the government can never take away from me.”
