The proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” is playing out in Iran right now. In September Iran’s morality police arrested 22-year-old Masha Amini for wearing her hijab too loosely about her face. Some of her hair showing. Her arrest and subsequent death in police custody became the straw that set in motion protests and marches that have continued daily in the streets of Iran. As the publicity about the protests has escalated into worldwide attention, it has resulted in more than 1,000 arrests in the city of Tehran alone, as well as throughout other regions of the country. Finally, a death sentence has occurred. A protestor was sentenced to death for setting fire to a government building.

This seemingly innocuous arrest of Masha Amini has now resulted in 330 deaths of people killed in response to the demonstrations calling for women’s rights. That reaction has now continued to escalate into a call for regime change. Now, Western governments are stepping up and putting pressure on Iran to “temper its response to the protests.” Iceland and Germany have called for a special session at the United Nations Human Rights Council to “address the situation of women and girls in In Iran in recent protests.” Human Rights experts are urging Iran to stop charging protesters with death sentences. To illustrate the severity of the charges against protesters, they are being accused of “war against God.”

In its massive response to the protests, government responses have included taking protesters from their homes at gunpoint, carrying some in the trunks of cars, forcing female protesters to stand naked, and threatening to release pictures of them in the media. It remains to be seen how Iran will handle this new worldwide response to its severe punishments for “offenses” that  Western nations do not consider offenses at all, and certainly not worthy of death sentences.

SOURCE:

• Read in The Wall Street Journal: https://apple.news/AKefuSEjNQHuFyuWgLkdUZw