"Death to the Dictator!"

"Experience shows that Iran's enemies, after failing to create a split in the nation's united ranks, take revenge through violence and terror. "

"This crime will definitely not go unanswered, and the security and law enforcement forces will teach a lesson to those who designed and carried out the attack."

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi

Photo: Associated Press

At a time when the Islamic Republic of Iran is undergoing ongoing paroxysms of inflamed protests throughout the country with woman gathering in huge numbers to emphatically give evidence of their unwillingness to continue to obey a restricted lifestyle to satisfy the misogynistic Islamist demands of the Iranian clergy, Islam demonstrates yet again the deep and violent antipathies within its major sects. Where loathing between Sunni and Shia factions are infamously demonstrated in attacks taking place in the sacred precincts of Mosques where blood is freely shed as a testament to the gentle faith of the religion of peace.

 

There is a seasonal regularity to attacks by Sunnis that the Iranian regime correctly identifies as terrorists attacking a terrorist state. They deserve one another. The regime that terrifies its own population, coercing and exploiting them to involuntarily accept the theocracy's edicts in strict adherence to Sharia law as it is interpreted by Iranian Ayatollas. The country whose penchant is to organize disaffected Shiite populations in other countries to become death-cult threats against majority Sunni Arab states and the Jewish state of Israel, sees its evil coming home to roost. 

For people of faith who dedicate every aspect of their lives to worship of Allah honouring the Prophet Mohammad and in the process organize themselves to express the values purloined from a greater, earlier religion of ancient origins, Muslims seem to be infinitely more aggressive with a penchant for carrying deadly arms and using them than most inhabitants of other countries not located in the Middle East. With the additional penchant of preying on one another, in the process slaughtering other Muslims whose values deviate from their own.

Two gunmen opened fire on Wednesday at a major Shiite holy site in Shiraz, Iran. Fifteen worshippers were murdered and an estimated 40 people in attendance at the Shah Cheragh mosque were wounded. Extremists targeting an extremist state. The worshippers guilty of nothing but honouring their faith and tradition. The gunmen are under arrest, and the authorities promise a retaliatory bloodbath. One they will not hesitate to deliver.

Their taste for blood has been whetted of late by the massive protests that have resulted from the murder in custody of a young Kurdish woman whose crime was to offend the morality police by wearing her headscrf too loosely. Mahsa Amini's death has been avenged by her fellow Kurds whose uprising has inspired Iranians all over the country, sick to death of being ruled by mullahs whose fundamentalism is an insult to human nature.

 

Protesters chant at a vigil for Mahsa Amini, a woman who died in police custody last month, at the entrance hall of the Khajeh Nasir Toosi University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, in this screengrab from social media video released Wednesday. (Reuters)

"Death to the dictator!" has latterly replaced the chant of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel". The 40-day anniversary of Mahsa Amini's murder called for a traditional ceremony and one was planned in her hometown of Saqez, where huge crowds assembled to the local cemetery where she is buried. Her parents were informed that they were expected by the regime to cancel the ceremony; not to do so would place Mahsa Amini's brother's life in peril, they were informed.

The ceremony proceeded as planned. Women at the Aichi Cemetery ripped their hijabs off, waving them in the air. Ten thousand protesters were reported to be part of a massive procession to her grave. Schools and universities in the northwestern region were closed in solidarity with the protest. The Kurdistan governor spoke of the situation being "completely stable". 

 

In Tehran, the downtown saw major sections of the immense grand bazaar closed, a symbolic gesture of support for the protests. Crowds clapped, shouting, "Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!" in the huge marketplace. "This year is a year of blood!" they chanted. "(Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) will be toppled!"

 

Iranian police arrive to disperse a protest in Tehran marking 40 days since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, whose arrest and death in custody sparked anti-government demonstrations and posed the biggest challenge to the Islamic Republic in over a decade. Photo: Associated Press