Initiated by Katayoon Barzegar and edited by Niloufar Nematollahi, and Jose Rosales.
In Iran, March 8, 1979, marked the beginning of a six-day nationwide protest campaign in which thousands of women marched through the streets of Tehran and other major Iranian cities such as Abadan, Tabriz, Sanandaj, and Isfahan. These six days were the first time women organized en masse against the mandatory use of the hijab in particular and the Islamic Republic in general. Equally telling is the fact that the scale and political significance of these protests only recently became known. The title of the book Monument Zero is inspired by the short documentary Iranian Women’s Liberation Movement, Year Zero (1979) . The book therefore arose from the dual desire to shed light on the International Women’s Day protests of 1979 and to reflect on the complex mechanisms that led to their historical obscuration.
