Yanar Mohamed (1960-2026) was murdered on March 2 in Baghdad, Iraq. Iraqi religious fanatics have been trying to kill her for decades for her brave, creative struggle for women’s freedom. The name of the organization she formed—Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI)—reveals that for her the struggle was not limited to women’s rights. She made explicit that women were fighting for full Freedom.

‘WOMEN’S FREEDOM IS THE MEASURE OF FREEDOM’

She wrote in the paper published by the Iraqi Women’s Rights Coalition, Equal Rights Now!: “Women’s freedom is the measure of freedom and humanity in society. Not only in Iraq, where women endure the most severe types of discrimination and injustice, but also in the more developed countries in the world today, the realization of full equality among women and men still requires continuous struggle and serious and rapid steps. OWFI considers itself basically an indivisible part of the great, historic, and universal struggle for women’s liberation.”

In 2024 Mohamed waged an unsuccessful fight against an amendment to Law No. 188 that would force those who wish to marry to be represented in “all matters of personal status,” by either Sunni or Shia clergy, making decisions religious rather than civil. Previous versions of the bill enshrined “sectarianism in family relationships, hand[ed] more power in family matters to clerics and open[ed] the door for marriage to be legalized for children as young as nine years old.”

Of the amendment, she wrote that the Iraqi leaders’ “most efficient tool for this distraction [from their own failings] is to terrorize Iraqi women and civil society with a legislation that strips away all the rights that Iraqi women gained in modern times, and force archaic Islamic sharia on them that regards women as bodies for pleasure and breeding, and not as human beings with human rights.”

Yanar worked continuously to make women’s lives better. In 2003 she created the first women’s shelter in Iraq, necessary to protect women from sex trafficking and so-called honor killings. Eventually, shelters she founded were in several cities and helped more than 1,300 women.

‘SEPARATION OF MOSQUE AND STATE’

Yanar stated clearly that she was for the separation of mosque and state and that “real change must come from the people; it cannot be imposed from above.” She didn’t separate the struggle for women’s freedom from that of other progressive forces in Iraq, like the unemployed. She successfully organized women in one of the most dangerous places to do so. Her report of their 2004 International Women’s Day protest showed the self-development of women involved in the struggle and she said that “we want socialism instead” of capitalism: “We emphasize human rights, women’s rights, a future of workers’ rule.”

In 2007, 133 women were killed and mutilated, their bodies dumped in trash bins with notes warning others against “violating Islamic teachings.” Ambulance drivers hired to collect the bodies said the actual numbers were much higher. Activists from OWFI, who visited city morgues to determine the scale and pattern of the killings, say most of the murdered women were “professionals, activists and office workers.” Their “crime” was opposition to the transformation of Iraq into an Islamist state. Yanar Mohamed called these killings a campaign “to restrain women to the domestic domain and end all female participation in the social and political scene.”

News and Letters Committees had an ongoing relationship with Yanar Mohamed, including sponsoring a talk for her in New York City in November 2003. If readers would like more of Mohamed speaking for herself, you can find a few of her News & Letters articles if you click here and here. Also more information by Julia Neumann can be found here.

In this time when women’s freedom is being undermined and destroyed in multiple places in our world, including here in the U.S., the best way we can mourn her is to continue her struggle and learn from her passion for freedom, for the work necessary to bring it about, and for women’s lives, hopes and dreams.

–Terry Moon

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Here we reprint the report from OWFI of Yanar’s death (machine translation from Arabic):

Report about the murder of our dear friend Yanar Mohamed.

With great sadness and grief, and with a shock that words cannot describe, the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq mourns the loss of a fighter for liberation, and for feminist and the human rights movement in Iraq and the world, the passing of our president and our dear companion Yanar Mohamed, who was murdered this morning Monday 2/3/2026 in Baghdad.

At nine a.m., two men shot her in front of her residence, leaving her with serious injuries. Despite being rushed to the hospital and attempts to save her life, she passed away from her injury.

Yanar Mohamed devoted her life to defending vulnerable women and survivors of violence and trafficking, and contributed to the founding and running of Safe Houses that embraced hundreds of women fleeing oppression and exploitation. She was an uncompromising outspoken feminist voice, taking a firm stance in the face of all forms of violence and discrimination, and she didn’t back down despite repeated threats and incitement campaigns.

We at the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq condemn this cowardly terrorist crime, and we see it as a direct targeting of the women’s struggle and the values of freedom and equality. We demand the authorities immediately identify the perpetrators and the parties behind them, ensure they are held accountable according to the law, and end the evasion of punishment of those who threaten the defense of human rights in Iraq.

The passing of Yanar Mohamed is a tremendous loss to the feminist movement, but her legendary legacy will live on in every woman whose life was restored thanks to her support, and in every situation that refused violence and discrimination. We pledge to keep the Safe Houses open, and the organization’s voice remains loud defending women and their right to a safe, dignified life.

Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq