Amnesty International is calling for collective action by the international community. This follows the outright murders of young women in support of Mahsa Amini, killed by the regime while in police custody for lack of a hijab.
In a show of solidarity and sisterhood, brave women all over Iran have cut their hair and faced down these officers of the regime without hijabs, all while facing their own brutal repercussions. One witness told a reporter that they, “watched a woman being dragged through the streets by her hair, to the point her clothes had come off, and still they dragged her”.
They aren’t just killing women, they’re torturing protestors
These morality police, so concerned with “morality”, dragging a woman by her hair through the streets until her clothing comes off? Morality, indeed. They aren’t acting on their own, though. It seems that this is the state sponsored response to women fighting back against the ages long oppression and violence against them.
The news from Iran continues to illustrate just how far a nation is willing to go to hold onto the patriarchal power that Islamic extremism has afforded it. To date, 82 confirmed victims, 5 of whom were children, have been documented with Amnesty International.
The death toll is believed to be much greater, however, and the problem is with official “reports” being a far cry from actual reporting. It has been stated in documents obtained by the group that the government of Iran is actively spreading false narratives of the victims, claiming they were “dangerous”, or “violent” offenders, or even that the deaths were caused by “rioters”.
This should come as no surprise, as it has been the policy of the government of Iran to inaccurately report news that paints them unfavorably, particularly in international forums.
In other documents intercepted by Amnesty International, it is confirmed that the Revolutionary Guards, Basij Paramilitary force, Law Enforcement Command of Islamic Republic of Iran, riot police, and plainclothes officers were all ordered to “severely confront troublemakers and anti-revolutionaries”.
It seems the government of Iran has no issue in maiming, killing, and further oppressing its citizens, with zero regard for human life in the oppression of women. A simple hijab. 82 confirmed dead.
Nika Shakremi, 16, was one of the 82. Her body wasn’t even returned to her family for 9 days after she was murdered by the Islamic Regime. They first reported they buried her in an unknown location, but after the family went to every news outlet who would listen, medical documents show she died of blunt force trauma, and her nose was crushed.
The government of Iran is claiming that Shakremi fell off of a building.
Again, the death toll cannot be confirmed at a mere 82, and is suspected to be in the hundreds at this point. There are many agencies calling for international response to these state-sanctioned murders, and also state that there are mass reports of torture at the hands of these same government agencies.
As we watch from the sidelines, let’s continue to focus on the fact that a simple piece of cloth, representing the oppression of women, led to these horrible and unjustifiable deaths. Iranian officials have chosen their side, and it is not the side of human rights.
Iran is willing to murder any man, woman, or child tired of living in the dark ages. They are willing to murder teenage girls, and lie about it to their families, and to the world. If there was ever a time that women desperately needed the help of the surrounding world, that time is now, in Iran. How many women need to die before we say “enough”?
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This post was previously published on April Hawkins, Ask A Bitchface.
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