The night Mahsa Amini was murdered by the police in September 2022, the streets of Iran acquired a new meaning. That night, the Iranian regime, which claimed divine inspiration, chose bullets and batons to respond to the grief of its people. One clear implication emerges: a regime that kills its own people cannot claim to be righteous.
Human rights organizations have documented thousands of people killed by the regime since the outbreak of the waves of protests, and many more injured, arrested, or missing, though some human rights activists have claimed tens of thousands, a figure that cannot be verified. Whatever the numbers, one thing is clear: the Iranian regime uses deadly force against its own people, who have been protesting for dignity, justice, and basic human rights. A government does not require evidence of human rights abuses to be condemned; it requires evidence of humanity, which the Iranian regime appears to have lost.
But one question continues to plague us: why does a government that claims to be guided by God’s will resort to violence first? Religion, at its core, is meant to be a source of morality, not immorality. A government that shoots its own teenagers, beats its own women for strands of hair, and sentences its own people to death after sham trials cannot claim to be guided by God’s will. Religion is a uniform, not a moral compass.
Power imposed under threat of fear has already failed. When people no longer consent to rule, and rule is imposed at the point of a gun, it is not the power that has failed but the legitimacy of the rule. What we see is a government in fear of losing power and confusing silence with security and graves with governance. This is not a strength; this is panic with a payroll.
People wonder why there is killing when there are prisons. The answer appears to be grimly logical. Prisons leave witnesses and martyrs alive and stories to be told. Death is intended to be final and serve as a warning inscribed across the public square. But history continues to laugh at this logic. Everybody begets more questions, more discontent, and more resolve.
What form of government must protect itself from its citizens and hunt them down in the streets? What form of government has forgotten the distinction between itself and the state, and law and loyalty? I refuse to accept the premise that order demands blood. An order based upon fear is weak and shatters like glass at the first sign of fear, losing its grip.
There is a wicked paradox at the core of this conflict. The government claims it fights to protect morality. But in doing so, it normalizes brutality. It claims it fights to protect life. But in doing so, it treats lives as nothing more than collateral damage. By doing both, it teaches a generation of citizens that authority is something to be endured rather than respected.
