Remembering Yanar Mohammed – News – Women and Gender Studies Institute

It is with great sadness that we share the passing of prominent Iraqi women’s rights activist Yanar Mohammed, who was assassinated on March 2, 2026 in front of her home in Baghdad.

Below is a letter written by former WGSI Director, and Yanar’s former supervisor, Dr. Shahrzad Mojab.

It is with a heavy heart and profound sorrow that I share the horrific news of the assassination of Yanar Mohammed (1960-2026) in her home in Baghdad. Yanar was targeted by militias in front of her house on March 2. I am personally devastated by her loss. She was a dear friend and a former student. In 2013, she entered the MA program in Adult Education and Community Development, where I supervised her outstanding thesis, Theorizing Feminist Struggle in Post-war Iraq (2018).

I first came to know Yanar in 2003, soon after the U.S. occupation of Iraq, when she emerged as a singular and uncompromising radical feminist voice of resistance. I followed her work and advocacy for women’s rights, and her unwavering critique of the NGOization of the women’s movement as an instrument of post-war reconstruction under occupation. For years, she lived under constant threat, as fundamentalist forces sought to silence her activism for human rights, secularism, and democracy.

As the founder of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (2004), she built a durable feminist infrastructure to support women and girls confronting violence, displacement, and systemic repression. She laid foundations for a different future, one grounded in equality and collective struggle. She organized shelters, provided food and protection for survivors of violence, and relentlessly demanded an end to war and militarization.

After a decade of tireless work under severe and threatening conditions, I encouraged her to pause, to reflect on her experiences, and to share her knowledge. She was in my courses on Women and Revolution in the Middle East and War, and Learning. It was both a delight and an illumination to work with her and to learn from her profound understanding of the entanglements of fundamentalism, imperialism, war, militarization, and occupation. These devastating and interlocking relations are rigorously and powerfully theorized in her superb MA thesis.

I mourn Yanar alongside the elementary school girls brutally killed in the U.S.–Israeli attack on Iran. They were told, “Look up, we are bringing you freedom and democracy.” When they did, bombs fell upon them.

I mourn Yanar alongside all those who have been cruelly killed in Iran in recent months.

I mourn Yanar alongside all those killed in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Yanar reminded us that revolutionary feminists must refuse alignment with any force of imperialism or fundamentalism—whether Islamic, Christian, Hindu, or Jewish. Her life and struggle stand as a testament to that uncompromising position.

There is now a global outpouring of grief, rage, and admiration for Yanar. Read more on her incredible life at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanar_Mohammed