If you consider what could be the worst a government could do against its own civilians, the Iranian government and parliamentarians have approved the execution of 15,000 people for anti-Hijab and anti-government protests.
Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was detained by morality police in September for allegedly not wearing her headscarf correctly. She was arrested and beaten. She died a few days later as a result of a fatal blow to the head. Protests erupted across the country as a result, and many women burned their hijab headscarves in bonfires to advocate for women’s rights. In order to protest the tyrannical regime, some women even cut their hair in public.
Now, in response to Iranian parliamentarians’ calls for harsher punishments for protesters and as a “important lesson,” the Iranian Parliament approved the death penalty for approximately 15,000 people by a vote of 227 out of a total of 290 members.
“We, the representatives of this nation, ask all state officials, including the Judiciary, to treat those, who waged war (against the Islamic establishment) and attacked people’s life and property like the Daesh (terrorists), in a way that would serve as a good lesson in the shortest possible time,” said an open letter signed by parliamentarians.
The lawmakers went on to say that the punishment would “prove to all that life, property, security and honour of our dear people is a red line for this [Islamic] establishment and that it would show no leniency to anybody in this regard.”
Hundreds of children have been arrested, including young girls fighting for their futures. Iran is one of the last countries in the world to execute “juvenile offenders,” with girls reaching the age of criminal responsibility at nine, compared to 15 for boys.
However, under Iranian law, if a minor is a virgin, they cannot be executed.
That roadblock has previously been overcome by marrying the girls off to prison guards to be raped the night before their murders – a practise documented over decades by journalists, families, activists, and even a former leader.