Yanar Mohammed, Iraqi Women Rights Activist Assassinated In Iraq

Yanar Mohammed, Iraqi Women Rights Activist Assassinated In Iraq

Islamic terrorists have once again committed a heinous crime.

Comrade Yanar Mohammed, one of the prominent figures of the women liberation and communist movement, was assassinated this morning in her home in Baghdad. Yanar Mohammed was the founder and leader of the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq. She was also a member of the Communist Alternative Organisation, influenced by Mansoor Hekmat, leader of the Worker-Communist movement.

For more than four decades, Yanar and our women's liberation movement fought side by side in various campaigns on freedom and equality. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, she settled in Canada.

Several years later, she returned to Iraq, where she played an important role in protests against the Islamic government. She then travelled around the world to join campaigns and deliver speeches about women's lives under Sharia law and the role of Islam in restricting women's rights.

Over the past three decades, Yanar dedicated her life and profession to protecting women living under Islamic law in Baghdad, often under dangerous circumstances. In one campaign against mass femicide committed by Islamic gangs in major cities such as Baghdad and Basra, she launched an international movement challenging chauvinistic, male-dominated interpretations of Sharia law. Thousands of young women and men followed and supported the campaign.

Yanar was also selected as one of BBC's 100 Women in 2018, recognised as one of the world's leading women's rights activists. She saved hundreds of women's lives by establishing and running shelters for survivors of domestic violence.

Yanar was a natural leader, a powerful public speaker, and a resilient women's rights activist who never stopped criticizing the system, religious authorities and their laws, and male-dominated social structures. She was one of the iconic figures among socialist women, and she will be deeply missed.

We at the Middle Eastern Women and Society Organisation (MEWSO) strongly condemn the assassination of Comrade Yanar Mohammed. We extend our condolences to her family, relatives, and comrades. Yanar is not among us today, but the hundreds of young women and men who admired her bravery and her fight against inequality and injustice will remember her and continue her struggle until victory for all.

May our dearest Yanar's memory be honoured by our generation and all freedom fighters.

Halaleh Taheri
Founder & Executive of Middle Eastern Women and Society Organisation-MEWSO
03th March 2026