photo by: Alastair Grant/AP

Demonstrators hold placards outside the Iranian Embassy in London on Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. They were protesting against the death of Iranian Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in Iran while in police custody; she was arrested by Iran's morality police for allegedly violating its dress code.

The University of Kansas’ Iranian Community is holding a rally on the KU campus to bring attention to continued human rights abuses by the government of Iran.

The rally will occur Wednesday, which is International Women’s Day, from 1 to 2 p.m. in front of Wescoe Hall.

Organizers say the event is meant to show solidarity with a nation that is being terrorized by its own government — to show solidarity “with our fellow Iranians, who have been denied for decades … even most basic liberties, such as the liberty to speak their thoughts fearlessly, the liberty to dress in the attire of their choice, or the liberty to drink a bottle of beer under no threat of public flogging.”

The rally will honor Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who died last September in police custody after she was arrested for violating the country’s hijab laws. Amini’s death has sparked massive public protests — featuring the rallying cry of ‘For women, for life, for freedom’– across Iran against the so-called morality police and the fundamentalist Islamic government.

The KU organization will also honor the many other Iranians who have been oppressed, imprisoned and even publicly executed by their government.