Protests erupted around Iran over the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Mahsa Amini who was detained Sept. 13 and returned dead by the Basij “moral police” militia, given unlimited reign by 83-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Irans was transformed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei into the dark ages of Islam in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. All the reforms under the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi letting women become educated and allowing them to shed the burkas and hijabs of the old Islamic customs. Once the Shah was evicted in 1979, the U.S. embassy seized and Shiite radicals taking over Iran, the otherwise progressive Iran was turned back to Medieval times. Watching the young Kurdish girl arrested for improperly wearing he hijab, then beaten to death with truncheon by the Basij militia, shows the kind of barbarism practiced behind closed doors in Iran.
Amini died Sept. 16 sparking riots around the country with young women burning hijabs and cutting their hair. Iran insists the 22-year-old died of a “heart attack,” something so improbable it defies explanation. Amini’s family and activists claim that she was beaten to death by the “moral police” for not meeting guidelines for wearing head-scarves. Watching protests around Iran reminds a watching world that Iran remains, with North Korea, one of the most brutally oppressive regimes on the planet. Protests spread to 80 towns and cities around the country, prompting Iranian police to crack down, killing at least 31 protesters, despite the official count of 17. Khamenei’s response was to order a nationwide Internet crack down, including shutting down cell phone networks, punishing anyone involved in government protests, including women burning hijabs and cutting off hair in public.
No one believes that the 22-year-old Kurdish girl died to natural causes while in Basij custody. Amini’s family and journalists covering her death believe she was fatally struck with a truncheon. “Mahsa Amini was a courageous women whose death in Morality Police custody was yet another act of brutality by the Iranian regimes security forces against its own people,” said 76-year-old Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Yellen announced sanctions on senior Iranian officials, unofficially scuttling any attempt by the Biden administration to reinstate the 2015 Iranian Nuke Deal AKA the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA. President Donald Trump cancelled Obama’s JCPOA May 8, 2018 because Iran had gone to war with Saudi Arabia, using Yemen’s Houthi rebels to attack the Kingdom. Biden had wanted to spite Trump and reinstate the JCPOA with its EU partners.
Amini’s brutal death makes reinstating the JCPOA next to impossible, especially that two signers, Russia and China, are at war with the White House. Biden decided unilaterally he would adopt Ukraine, trash U.S.-Russian relations and start a proxy war against the Russian Federation. Biden’s war against Russia has caused worldwide inflation, plunging the U.S. and EU economies into recession. Yet if you listen to Biden he wants no part of any ceasefire or peace talks because Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Volodymr Zelensky has lost 25% of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. Biden and Zelensky want to keep fighting until 69-year-old President Vladimir Putin returns every inch of Ukraine’s territory and leaves the country. When it comes to Iran, Biden has now condemned the Islamic Republic for brutally killing the 22-year-old Kurdish girl, slapping Iran with new sanctions.
U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada al-Nashif called on the human rights body to fully investigate Amini’s death. “Miss Amini’s tragic death and allegations of torture and ill-treatment must be promptly, impartially and effectively investigated by a an independent competent authority, that ensures, in particular, that her family has access to justice and the truth,” said U.N. High Commission for Human Rights. If Iran’s past dictates anything about today, the Ayatollah will not allow any outside body to sit in judgment of the Islamic Republic. Amini’s father, Amjad, told BBC that Iranian authorities refused to have the body examined, leaving only the head and feet exposed wrapped in a burial cloth. “There were bruises on her feet,” said Amjad, saying his daughter did not suffer from ill health before taken into custody by the Basij militia for violating Iran’s strict dress code.
Iran’s authorities have a lot of explaining to do over the unexpected death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. “She has not been in any hospital at all in the past 22-years, other that for a few cold-related sicknesses,” said Mahsa’s father Amjad. Iran’s extreme dress codes for women, requiring head scarves, prompted Iran’s President Ibrahim Raisi to demand that CNN’s Christiane Amanpour put on a head scarf in any interview. When Amanpour refused, the interview was cancelled But whatever the extreme dress code imposed on Iran’s young women, the Basij militia went over the top beating Mahsa to death in custody. “And for 40 years, women have been resisting it through individual collective acts of resistance . ..” said Kuwait researcher Tara Zepehri Far from Human Rights Watch. Iran will have to make amends for Mahsa Amini’s death or face more ostracism in the world community.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
