It is with great sadness that I share news of the killing by two terrorist men of feminist revolutionary activist, Yanar Mohammed. I was blessed to meet and speak with her many years ago. I am devastated by her loss.
Yanar Mohammed was a prominent Iraqi woman human rights defender and feminist, and the co-founder and director of the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI).
Since 2003, she had worked to protect women facing gender-based
violence, including domestic abuse, trafficking, and so-called ‘honour
killings.’ Under her leadership, OWFI established a network of safe
houses across several Iraqi cities, providing protection and support to
hundreds of women. Yanar Mohammed led these efforts despite all the
ongoing impediments and risks. She was a strong advocate for secularism
and women’s equality. Throughout her activism, Yanar Mohammed faced
death threats and, at times, was forced to restrict her movement. (Source: https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/killing-woman-human-rights-defender-and-feminist-yanar-mohammed)
What follows next is from MADRE, here: https://www.madre.org/media-item/yanarmohammed/
On the Assassination of Feminist Leader Yanar Mohammed
Media:
Statement
Region:
Iraq
___________________________________________________________
What follows is from here: https://marxist.com/assassination-of-yanar-mohammed.htm
We publish here a statement sent to us by the Communist Alternative
Organization in Iraq on the tragic death of their comrade Yanar
Mohammed, who was assassinated this morning in a criminal terrorist
attack at her home. We send our sympathy and solidarity to Yanar’s
comrades, family and friends.
Statement on the assassination of dear comrade Yanar Mohammed
With
profound sadness, grief, and immense pain, we announce the passing of
our dear comrade Yanar Mohammed, President of the Organization of
Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) and member of the Central Committee of
the Communist Alternative Organization.
At 9:00 AM Iraq time this
morning, Monday, March 2, 2026, two terrorist criminals on a motorcycle
opened fire on Comrade Yanar Mohammed at her residence in Baghdad,
inflicting severe injuries. Shortly after arriving at the hospital, she
tragically passed away.
While we condemn in the strongest possible
terms this brutal terrorist crime against a great fighter for the cause
of women’s liberation and equality, and a firm, persistent communist
militant for human emancipation, we hold the government responsible for
uncovering the perpetrators and bringing them to justice.
The
memory of Comrade Yanar Mohammed will remain a shining beacon for us in
the struggle for women’s liberation and the communist struggle for a
world free from all forms of injustice, discrimination, and oppression.
We
will issue a later statement regarding the details of the life and
struggle of our dear comrade Yanar Mohammed and will announce the dates
for memorial services to honor her memory in Iraq and abroad.
The Central Committee of the Communist Alternative Organization in Iraq
March 2, 2026
[We
also publish below a biographical note about Yanar Mohammed, sent to us
by her comrades in the Communist Alternative Organization in Iraq. What
stands out is the figure of a comrade who stood up bravely for the
liberation of women and the oppressed, against the barbarism into which
imperialism has plunged Iraq since 2003. We salute Yanar Mohammed, a
fallen comrade, murdered by the reactionary forces she bravely stood up
to all her life.]
The Assassination of Yanar Mohammed: When the Voice of Freedom Is Targeted in the Heart of Baghdad
By Nazar Akrawi,
3 March 2026
At
dawn on March 2, 2026, Iraqis awoke to shocking news: the assassination
of feminist socialist activist Yanar Mohammed inside her home in
Baghdad. This was not an ordinary political crime, but a bloody
milestone in a long-standing social and class struggle between two
opposing projects: a liberationist, egalitarian vision that links
women’s emancipation to a comprehensive socialist revolution, and a
sectarian capitalist–religious order seeking to reproduce domination in
its most brutal and regressive forms.
A Feminist Icon Confronting a Return to the Dark Ages
For
more than three decades, Yanar Mohammed stood as one of the most
prominent leaders of the liberationist feminist movement in Iraq. As the
founder and head of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq she did
not confine herself to theoretical advocacy. She fought daily battles
on the ground: organizing demonstrations, establishing shelters for
abused women, and exposing the sectarian patriarchal structure that has
governed society and the state since 2003.
She was the only Iraqi
socialist feminist activist to deliver a speech on the situation of
women in Iraq at the headquarters of the United Nations carrying the
voices of Iraqi women to the world and affirming that the women’s
question is not an isolated “cultural” or “religious” matter, but a
fundamentally social question of liberation.
The Class Roots of the Hostility
From
a Marxist perspective, this assassination cannot be understood outside
the framework of class struggle. The post-2003 order was not merely a
political transition; it was a social re-engineering along
sectarian–capitalist lines. Civil and secular structures were
dismantled, while political Islam, both Shia and Sunni, rose on the
ruins of the state, backed by local and global capital.
This alliance between parasitic capitalism and sectarian religious forces required ideological tools to discipline society:
- Reinforcing male authority within the family.
- Subjugating women in the name of “Sharia” and “identity”.
- Presenting poverty and unemployment as moral fate rather than the result of class exploitation.
From
this context emerges the intense hatred toward egalitarian ideas. The
call for women’s liberation effectively undermines the patriarchal
structure that sustains the reproduction of the class system. The call
for socialism directly threatens property, privilege, and power.
The Battle Against the Jaafari Personal Status Law
Yanar
Mohammed was at the forefront of those who confronted the so-called
Jaafari Personal Status Law, which would have permitted the marriage of
girls as young as nine and restricted mothers’ rights to custody and
divorce. She did not see it as a mere legal amendment, but as a
patriarchal and class assault on the bodies of poor girls in
particular—who are most often forced into child marriages that
perpetuate poverty and dependency.
Her position provoked a fierce
campaign against her by influential Shiite religious forces, which filed
multiple lawsuits accusing her of “opposing Sharia.” She insisted,
however, that women’s liberation cannot be achieved within sectarian
legal frameworks, but only through a secular civil state aligned with
the working classes.
A Principled Stand Against Militias and ISIS
During
the expansion of sectarian militias and the rise of ISIS, Yanar
Mohammed adopted a principled stance against both, considering them two
faces of the same reactionary violence. She refused to be deceived by
sectarian “resistance” slogans and rejected the blackmail of fear in the
name of fighting terrorism. At the last conference of her organization,
she reaffirmed her rejection of the militarization of society,
stressing that women’s weapons are organization and consciousness—not
alignment with new repressive axes of power.
The Struggle Over Women’s Shelters
One
of her fiercest battles was the defense of shelters for abused women
and girls. Sectarian authorities and Shiite militias repeatedly demanded
that these shelters be handed over to the state or shut down under the
pretext of “protecting morality.” Yanar categorically refused, arguing
that returning women fleeing domestic violence to a complicit authority
was tantamount to a death sentence.
The issue became the subject
of prolonged legal disputes, yet she continued to operate the shelters
despite threats, affirming that protecting women is a revolutionary duty
before it is an act of charity.
Why So Much Hatred?
The
hatred harbored by the sectarian capitalist order and religious parties,
particularly Islamist Shiite forces toward Yanar Mohammed and others
like her was not personal. It was class fear:
- Fear of a feminist consciousness that links women’s oppression to capitalist exploitation.
- Fear of an independent women’s movement that refuses to be subordinated to ruling parties.
- Fear of a socialist project that exposes sectarianism as a tool for dividing the working class.
When
an activist links women’s liberation to socialist revolution, she is
not calling for partial reforms, but for a radical alternative. That is
what structures of domination cannot tolerate.
A Legacy That Cannot Be Assassinated
The
assassination of Yanar Mohammed was an attempt to terrorize women and
silence the socialist feminist voice. Yet, in the balance of history, it
reveals the fragility of a system that fears a woman whose only weapons
were words and organization.
Yanar Mohammed will remain a global
icon of liberationist feminist struggle and a symbol of linking women’s
emancipation to class struggle. In an Iraq exhausted by sectarianism and
corruption, the question remains: can women’s liberation be achieved
without the liberation of society as a whole from exploitation?
Her
life offered a clear answer: there is no genuine equality without
socialism, and no freedom for women within a system founded on class and
sectarian oppression.
