https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-islamic-republics-morality-murder-and-us-appeasement/
The killing of Mahsa Amini in Tehran last week should serve as a reminder to the United States about the regime that it’s desperate to enrich with tens of billions of dollars in exchange for another disastrous nuclear deal. And the angry street protests that have erupted around the Islamic Republic since then should signal to the P5+1 that now is the time to help weaken, not strengthen, the grip of the ayatollahs on the populace.
Amini, a 22-year-old woman from Saqez in Iran’s Kurdistan Province, was on a trip with her family to the country’s capital on Tuesday, when she was arrested by the “morality police” for not having her head covered properly. According to eyewitnesses, she was beaten as soon as she entered the van that was transporting her to the station for “education.”
By Friday, she was dead. One can only imagine the kind of torture she endured before she was taken to the Kasra Hospital in northern Tehran. Photos that emerged of her lying in a coma matched the medical center’s statement that when she was admitted on Sept. 13, she showed “no vital signs.”
This notice was removed from the hospital’s social media pages after hardliners called its staff “anti-regime agents.” In parallel, police denied having beaten Amini to death, insisting that she had passed away from a heart attack.
Compounding the lie that nobody bought—least of all her family, who said that she had been perfectly healthy and never suffered from cardiac problems—President Ebrahim Raisi, as much of an Islamist extremist as his mullah handlers, reportedly requested that the Iranian Interior Ministry open an investigation into the incident. The charade would be laughable if it weren’t so typically evil.
Ditto for the response of the regime—a member of the U.N. Women’s Rights Council—to the demonstrations that ensued upon news of Amini’s demise and continued throughout her burial in Saqez on Saturday. During the funeral, women removed their hijabs and mourners chanted “Death to the dictator,” referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Ironically, reports that Khamenei was severely ill with a bowel obstruction, along with rumors that he may even have died, were countered on Saturday with an appearance by the octogenarian cleric at a religious ceremony.
