About Medusa

Medusa is the journal of the Centre for Women and Socialism, which was first published in 1998. The Centre was established by several left activists who had fled the oppression and persecution of political Islam and the Islamic Republic in Iran and were engaged in women's issues and defending women's rights. We decided to give a more clear and pronounced voice to our trend and our point of view in the women's liberation movement. Thus Medusa was published.
Medusa has given voice to the radical trend in the women's liberation movement with a special focus on political Islam and the plight of women in the Middle East in general, and Iran in particular. Medusa has advocated the unconditional freedom of women and total equality of the sexes, secularism, and a society where all citizens are free and equal regardless of their gender, race, nationality and religion. Our activities are diverse and international. Medusa's contributors are mainly originally from Iran but are in the forefront of civil rights and women's liberation movements in their adopted countries.

The issues we deal with, especially political Islam, are burning international issues. Our stance vis-à-vis political Islam has been received warmly and with great interest by progressive and freedom-loving people. We, therefore, saw it as our duty to publish a special issue in English to reach as many readers as possible in order to familiarize them with our point of view and trend and ask them for their support and solidarity in this immense task we have before us - to work to bring about a more just and liberated society in Iran and the Middle East and to ensure that women and young girls in Islamist communities in the West enjoy a freer life.

In this issue you will read articles of an analytical and theoretical nature about political Islam and its role in oppressing women and cultural relativism. You will also read about the diverse activities led by our colleagues in the West, particularly in Scandinavia.

In this issue we have also paid tribute to Mansoor Hekmat, the great Marxist thinker and leader of the worker-communist movement, who passed away on 4th of July 2002 after a yearlong battle against cancer. This tribute is to commemorate the life of a person without whom this movement would not have taken the shape and momentum it has.