Salman Rushdie lost sight in one eye in a Islamist terrorist attack. Three brave women from Iran and Afghanistan were blinded under Islamism. I survived three assassination plots of the Islamic Republic on U.S. soil.
Now we stand together in Poland with one question: Why??
The moment I learned that I would be receiving an award in Poland and sharing the stage with Salman Rushdie, I reached out to the organizers with one request: Please allow me to bring women who were blinded under Islamic Ideology onto that stage. Because the real award belongs to them.
Farideh Salavatipour lost both eyes to pellet gunfire during the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising.
Kosar Eftekhari lost one eye when the Islamic Republic shot her in the face with pellets for demanding freedom. And Fahimeh, from Afghanistan, was blinded when her husband threw acid in her face for defending women’s rights.
I want the world to look into their eyes and understand the true cost of normalizing the Islamic Republic, the Taliban, and violent Islamist extremism.
Oppression begins with compulsory hijab, lashes, prison cells, and the systematic humiliation of women. It escalates into torture, mass killings, and executions and public lashes or public hanging. And it does not stop at national borders. These regimes and their networks have also threatened, hunted, and plotted to assassinate their opponents abroad.
Salman Rushdie is a living symbol of how Islamist terrorists reaches far beyond the borders of dictatorships. He was brutally stabbed on American soil and lost sight in one eye. I have survived three plots to kidnap or assassinate me on US soil and I can testify firsthand that the Islamic Republic and other authoritarian regimes use transnational repression to hunt down and silence their opponents abroad.
That is why tonight, I will dedicate my award to brave Freedom Fighters especially these women who were blinded for freedom.
Tomorrow, these extraordinary women will have something rare: an entire one-hour panel to tell their own stories. I will have the honor of interviewing them. Too often, the world speaks about survivors. This time, the world must listen to them.
We also visited Auschwitz together. Standing there, surrounded by the evidence of unimaginable crimes, one truth became painfully clear: “Never again” must never become an empty slogan. We cannot honor the victims of yesterday while turning our backs on those facing atrocities today.
And our solidarity must cross borders.
I have also invited a woman from Africa to stand alongside the women of Iran and Afghanistan, to remind the world that sexual violence is still being used as a weapon of war and repression. Different countries, different forms of brutality, but one shared struggle for dignity, equality, and freedom.
We cannot expect women facing prison, bullets, acid attacks, rape, and execution to defeat these systems of oppression with their bare hands while the rest of the world stands aside.
And here is my message to the world:
South Africa’s apartheid did not fall because its victims fought alone. It fell because courageous people inside the country resisted, and the world joined their struggle.
In the history Poland gave the world Solidarność. Now the women of Iran Afghanistan and Africa need the world to live up to that word.
If the world could unite to help end racial apartheid in South Africa, and end tyranny in Poland, it can unite to end dictatorship everywhere.
The time for solidarity is not after the atrocities. It is NOW.
The dictatorship of Russia killed my husband, Cuba's killed Rosa María's father, and Iran's regime tried many times to kill Masih.
This is what Yulia Navalnaya said, and she is right. The dictators of Russia, Cuba, and the Islamic Republic of Iran have one playbook: murdering freedom fighters.
Rosa María said Cuba is closer to freedom than many imagine, and that the best way to honor those who gave their lives for freedom is not only to remember their sacrifice, but to finish the task they began.
We stood together in Madrid to receive the FAES Freedom Prize. But the real prize belongs to those who are no longer with us. To the blinded women who lost their eyes to regime bullets and were even denied visas by Europe to stand with us. To every prisoner behind bars tonight for demanding freedom.
Our dictatorships are united. They share weapons, they share money, they share torture. Now democracies must be just as united to help the freedom fighters to end dictatorship.
We will finish the task they began. Freedom will win.
Together we are stronger.
@yulia_navalnaya@RosaMariaPaya
Women blinded under Islamic Republic, and Taliban, by shotgun and acid attack!
I invited these incredible heroes to Spain and Poland because I believe the real awards belong to them. The Islamic Republic took their eyes for the crime of demanding freedom. They still do not lower their voices, unlike many Europeans they don’t bow to their oppressors.
Europe is legitimizing the Taliban and shaking hands with the mullahs. Before you sign the next deal, sit with these women. Look into their eyes. Answer one question: Why?
Their stories are not only about Iran. They are a warning.
These women fight so their country can be free, and so your democracies stay safe from the same Islamist terrorists knocking at your door.
Europe talks about values. But then it normalizes relations with the Taliban and Islamic Republic of Iran, the same regimes who kick out girls from schools, ban women from working, from being seen, from existing in public life.
The mullahs hang women and men for speaking up. They hang young people for one post on social media.
One day you will harvest what you have planted.
This is called an Apartheid against women and we are all united against Islamic Republic and Taliban.
Choose your ally! You stand with us or with these terrorist regimes willing to expand their ideology everywhere in the West!
She made it! She couldn’t get a visa to Spain, but this warrior is now with us in Poland.
She survived an acid attack in Afghanistan. I invited her to join me and the brave Iranian women who were blinded by the Islamic Republic.
We will stand together on stage to send a clear message:
If the Taliban and the Islamic Republic are united in their war against women, then the women of Afghanistan and Iran are united in our fight for freedom.
Emotional moment two women blinded under Islamic regimes meeting each other for the first time.
Fahimeh is from Afghanistan. Her husband threw acid on her face because she was fighting for women's rights against the Taliban. As her face burned, he told her: now I have taken your eyes and your face, people will be scared of you, so I dare you to go out and talk to people.
I invited her to come on stage with me and talk directly to thousands of people in Poland.
She met Kosar, an Iranian woman who was blinded by the Islamic Republic during the Woman life Freedom uprising.
We are now together stepping into Jewish history in Poland, including Auschwitz, and understanding the connection between the Holocaust and the Islamic Republic’s massacre on 2026.
If any of you think it’s easy to live under Islamic republic or Taliban just listened to their stories.
These women are not fighting for themselves. They are fighting to protect democracy everywhere from the most dangerous cancer, which is called Islamism.
Thank you, Poland for giving visa to these beautiful woman.
Look at these two faces. One was burned with acid for fighting the Taliban. One was blinded for shouting freedom in Tehran. Now look again. These are the faces the regimes feared most.
Fahimeh is from Afghanistan. Her husband threw acid on her face because of her activities against against the Taliban and told her: now I have taken your eyes and your face, people will be scared of you, so I dare you to go out and talk to people.
I invited them to come on stage with because I want to dedicate my award to these real activists.
She met Kosar, an Iranian woman who was blinded by the Islamic Republic during the Woman life Freedom uprising.
Thank you Poland for giving us visas.
I am taking these two women to Auschwitz before they go on stage.
They will stand on stage in Poland, the face her husband wanted to hide speaking to thousands. I do not see victims. I see heroes. They are not fighting for themselves. They are fighting to protect democracy everywhere from the most dangerous cancer, which is called Islamism.
Meanwhile, women sit on death row in Iran right now, waiting for the gallows. Women are being erased from every classroom, every job, every public street under the Taliban. And the whole world is quiet. Where are the women's marches? Where is the outrage?
This is why I call on universities across Europe and America: open your doors to these heroes. Invite them. Let the new generation of the West hear the truth from women who paid the price of freedom with their eyes and their faces. Books cannot teach what they have lived.
الهه احرار، زن افغانتبار آمریکایی، رسماً نامزدی خود را برای انتخابات مجلس نمایندگان آمریکا از حوزه هفتم ویرجینیا اعلام کرد.
او هدف از ورود به این رقابت را گسترش عدالت، ایجاد فرصتهای اقتصادی، بهبود نظام آموزشی و تقویت همبستگی اجتماعی ذکر کرد.
دعوت همزمان طالبان و مخالف طالبان برای دفن موش علی، آیا جمهوری اسلامی گروه مخالف را مورد تمسخر قرار نداده هست. آیا جمهوری اسلامی دشمن هست و یا دوست و یا یک نظام دو رو.
حمله مسلحانه در ولسوالی انجیل هرات به یک تجمع غیرنظامی شیعیان رخ داده و دهها کشته و زخمی برجای گذاشته است. آمارها متفاوت است و هنوز جزئیات رسمی در دست نیست.
آیا طالبان برای از بین بردن شیعه ها به این عمل دست زدن ،در حالیکه در تلاش بستن و محدود کردن شیعه ها بودن در سالهای اخیر
خمینی زنده است، و مردم ایران را از درون قبر بر کشور ایران حکومت میکند این گفتار یکی از علمای ایرانی است، سوال آیا شما دیوانه هستید و یا مردم را دیوانه فرض میکنید. #جاوید_نام
🔴 سارا کوهری، دانشجوی افغان دانشگاه تهران، در مرز تایباد بدون حکم بازداشت و ناپدید شده است.
او برای تحقیق درباره مهاجران افغان رفته بود و حالا از تماس با خانواده و وکیل محروم است.
حقوق بشر: تلاشی برای سرکوب و انحراف افکار عمومی.
#عدالت#آزادی