Iran's Defenders Have Much To Forget

Atefah Sahaaleh was 22, married, and an adultress, so the Iranian revolutionary government hung her.

That's what these pillars of morality said, anyway. But BBC reports that Saahleh was actually a 16 year old unmarried girl. Both her birth certificate and death certificate say she lived just 16 years.

She was not a moral pillar. She had had three previous run-ins with Iran's moral police, which operate under the Mullahs, not the so-called democratic Iranian Parliament. The first arrest was for walking alone on the street. The second was for being in a car with a boy. It got her 100 lashes and abuse by the moral police scum that ran the prison.

The third run-in came to light during her trial for her fourth run-in. It indicates the downward spiral Sahaaleh was locked into:

Soon after her release [from the second charge], Atefah became involved in an abusive relationship with a man three times her age.

Former revolutionary guard, 51-year-old Ali Darabi - a married man with children - raped her several times.

She kept the relationship a secret from both her family and the authorities. fourth charge for contributing to the immorality of other girls. The petition leading to that charge had no witness signatures; just moral police signatures.

The affair with Darabi came out during her trial and the court's rath was one-sidedly directed toward her. Seeing that she was being railroaded, she yelled at the judge and threw off her veil. Routine teen behavior here; a fatal mistake in Iran:

She was sentenced to execution by hanging, while Darabi got just 95 lashes.

Shortly before the execution, but unbeknown to her family, documents that went to the Supreme Court of Appeal described Atefah as 22.

"Neither the judge nor even Atefah's court appointed lawyer did anything to find out her true age," says her father.

And a witness claims: "The judge just looked at her body, because of the developed physique... and declared her as 22."

Judge Haji Rezai took Atefah's documents to the Supreme Court himself.

And at six o'clock on the morning of her execution he put the noose around her neck, before she was hoisted on a crane to her death.

The Mullahs of Iran and their followers at home and elsewhere -- like in Hezbollah -- believe themselves to be the moral representative's of Allah's law and Mohammed's book here on earth. They want nothing more than to subjugate the world to kangaroo courts, lashes, executions -- as witnessed by the fact that Iran is second only to China in annual executions.

The Left argues that the Christian right wants a theocracy. It's true Christian faith would say Sahaaleh is a sinner (who isn't?). But can anyone, no matter how much a leftwing nutcase, remember a single Christian leader calling for the death of a teen who is sexually active -- or a 22 year-old adultress for that matter? Christianity is a religion of redemption.

We have a fearful enemy in this war, and their apologists on the American Left have a longer and longer list of things they must forget in order to maintain their position.

hat-tip: memeorandum