Tag Archives: Ayatollah Khomeini

Don’t let this death recede

Mahsa Amini’s identity, I believe, well might become a household name soon in a place where one wouldn’t expect.

That would be the Islamic Republic of Iran. Amini was a 26-year-old Iranian woman who was taken into custody and who later died. Why? Because she showed a few too many strands of her hair outside the hijab she was wearing.

Women must follow certain conservative tenets of Islamic faith, such as ensuring their hair is tucked away. The penalty is the fate that befell Mahsa Amini.

Amini’s death has prompted protests the likes of which have rarely been seen or heard since the Ayatollah Khomeini’s forces seized control of Iran in 1979.

Iranians have marched onto city streets seeking justice for Mahsi Amini, who by any measure of human decency should be alive today. Indeed, she should be walking free in her country. But, oh no. She’s now dead because that hideously named “morality police” squad took her into custody and quite likely killed her.

As Time Magazine reported on its website, Mahsa Amini has become a martyr to a cause unknown in the power circles of the governing Islamic Republic: human rights.

On social media, her name became an Iranian version of #MeToo — a prompt for ordinary people to post experiences of loss and oppression at the hands of the Islamic Republic, gathered under #MahsaAmini.

The Protests in Iran Have Shaken the Islamic Republic to Its Core (msn.com)

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been on the U.S. sh** list of nations that flout basic human rights for its citizens.

Too often people become victimized in nations such as Iran. The world wrings its hands and calls go out for justice. Then the emotion subsides, and the world’s attention turns to other crises.

Let us not allow Mahsa Amini’s name to recede into the background. She needs to remain at the top of our consciousness and must become a cudgel for the civilized world to use against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ebola fighters get too much credit

I’m not prone to critiquing Time magazine’s annual Person of the Year selection.

The choices don’t usually get me too worked up — either positively or negatively. This year’s choice is a bit different.

Time chose to honor the Ebola fighters, the medical professionals who went to West Africa to battle the killer disease.

Of all the choices Time could have made, the editors could have chosen someone with more, um, immediate and palpable impact.

As my pal Tom Taschinger wrote in the Beaumont Enterprise, “Granted, these men and women are doing noble deeds. But Ebola has faded from the epidemic that will end Life As We Know It to an overhyped cable-TV story.”

Indeed, this story was overplayed from the beginning, particularly the “outbreak” in the United States that never occurred.

Here’s one of the posts I published on my blog about the coverage:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/10/16/shep-gets-it-exactly-right-on-ebola/

One man flew to Dallas from Liberia; he was carrying the virus with him. He got sick, checked into a first-rate hospital in the Dallas area, but then died. Another man died in Nebraska. A nurse got infected in Dallas, went to Atlanta, and was declared Ebola free.

That’s it.

The disease has receded from the headlines and from CNN, MSNBC and Fox news coverage.

As Taschinger noted in his excellent column, occasionally Time picks a notorious figure as its Person of the Year — such as Ayatollah Khomeini or Timothy McVeigh. It has leaned more in recent years to feel-good selections. I agree that they’re important, too. But let’s get real here. Is Ebola really a worldwide threat?

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/opinions/columns/article/THOMAS-TASCHINGER-The-Person-of-the-Year-is-a-5969800.php

The magazine can do better next year.