Iran: Godfather of ISIS
Sometimes reading the news coming from Iran, I wonder if we really are living in 21 century; are we experiencing a nightmare or passing through a wormhole, as some sophisticated physicists explain in science-fiction moves, we have traveled back in time to medieval ages. On the eve of the Iran twin elections on February 26 where the candidates for both Parliament and the Assembly of Experts ought to be elected, Khamenei, the Iranian regime’s Supreme leader, is desperately trying to conceal frantic Iran society seeking basic democratic rights and economic improvement by resorting to barbaric, degrading public punishments.
In one case of this sickening measure on February 10th, security forces paraded two boys under the age of 18 in Farhang Street, City of “Sari” (North of Iran), as punishment for an alleged crime. The children were forced to wear adult-size prisoners’ clothing and were paraded in the city center with their hands tied and a text on their clothes reading: ’Under supervision.’ State-run news outlets reporting the incident claimed the two boys had broken the windows of some luxury shops using slingshots. The boys who were from poverty stricken families made their living by searching through trash cans for broken items to sell for petty earnings.
In another incident, repression forces in the northwestern city of Tabriz on Tuesday cruelly pulled four men out of police cars in a crowded street and paraded them while they were blindfolded and their hands were tied to each other.
The degrading and inhuman punishment of parading offenders in crowded streets has become a routine in Iran, often immediately after the suspects are arrested, even before being officially charged or taken to a court. For years, the Iranian regime carried out such degrading treatment against adults, and now during Rouhani’s tenure this has been taken to a new level and includes children.
Execution of ’juvenile offenders’ has been a trademark of the theocracy ruling Iran, and on January 29, 2016 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a scathing report on how the clerical regime mistreats children, in particular young girls,
Tehran that is fearing eruption of public protests by the Iranian people particularly the youth who are fed up with poverty, unemployment and suppression, has escalated repressive measure including antihuman punishment of parading young men in the streets to increase fear and terror in the society.
This very viewpoint towards human dignity is form the same fundamentalist root that grows to hideous brutal terroristic measures ISIS practices. Mullahs have been ruling Iran with this theocracy for more than three decades and have nourished the fundamentalism in Middle East and all around the world wherever they saw a positional and that makes them “rightfully” ISIS’s Godfather!
Ramin Jalali tweets on @raminjalali25