“Make ready for them all that you can of force and of warhorses, so that by them you may strike terror in the enemy of Allah and your enemy…” (Qur’an 8:60)
“’She Suffered Beyond Belief:’ 20-Year-Old Armita, A Symbol Of Iranian Resistance,” by Roghayeh Rezaei, Iran Wire, January 31, 2023 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
Armita Abbasi, a 20-year-old woman from Karaj, near Tehran, went on trial on January 29 after being tortured and sexually assaulted in detention, triggering a Twitter storm from her supporters.
Armita had multi-colored dyed hair and an eyebrow piercing. She wrote about her life, cats and dreams on Instagram until she was arrested in October 2022 for joining the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement triggered by the September death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police.
How did Armita become a symbol of resistance of the Iranian people in the face the Islamic Republic’s fierce crackdown on more than four months of demonstrations demanding more freedoms and women’s rights? What do we know about her ordeal during the nearly four months she has spent behind bars?
Subjected to “repeated rape”
A lot of what we know about Armita’s detention was revealed in a shocking report published by US television news network CNN on November 21, 2022. The report was titled “How Iran’s security forces use rape to quell protests.”
Earlier, private Instagram messages between medical staff of Karaj’s Imam Ali Hospital circulated on social media and mentioned the case of a young woman who was brought by security forces to the hospital one week after her arrest. This woman was suffering from symptoms associated with violent sexual assault such as hemorrhage and rectal lacerations.
The security agents took Armita away before her family arrived at the hospital. The young woman’s head was shaved, and she was trembling out of fear.
The medics wrote about the horror they felt when they saw evidence of brutal rape. “When she first came in, [the officers] said she was hemorrhaging from her rectum…due to repeated rape. The plainclothes men insisted that the doctor write it as rape prior to arrest,” one of the messages reads.
An insider at Imam Ali hospital confirmed the veracity of the leaks to CNN.
Alleged “riot” leader
After the leaked messages were published, Raja News and other media outlets affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps quoted Hossein Fazeli Harikandi, the president of Alborz province’s Department of Justice, as saying that two arrested demonstrators had “confessed” that Armita was a protest leader.
On October 30, Raja News claimed that bottles of gasoline, 10 Molotov cocktails and lighters were seized during Armita’s arrest. The report also alleged she had called on people to “riot” on social media.
Harikandi called Armita’s reported rape and sexual assault a “total fabrication” and said she was hospitalized due to a hemorrhoid condition she was already suffering from prior to her arrest. The official also said that after being discharged from hospital, she was visited by a specialist doctor to prevent the recurrence of the problem. No evidence was provided to support these claims.
Dry Hunger Strike
On January 2, Armita’s mother announced that her daughter had gone on a dry hunger strike to protest her long detention without her case being processed in court. In retaliation, the inmate was forbidden to call her family.
It was later reported that 14 cellmates had joined Armita’s hunger strike, both to support her and protest lack of medical care, their long detentions and the absence of legal due process.
Finally, on January 29, Armita’s father wrote on his Instagram page that the first hearing of her trial was held in the presence of her lawyers. He said the court session was conducted in a “just” and “lawful” manner and that his daughter’s lawyers were permitted to defend his daughter – an occurrence with few precedents in the last four months.
On the 99th day of Armita’s detention, her father wrote said that he knew “nothing about the charges against her.” And on January 22, Armita’s lawyer tweeted that he and the other lawyer in the case had resigned because they had not been allowed to meet their client in person. He wrote that the lawyers did not have enough time to prepare a proper defense.
On the eve of the trial, the father wrote that the court had accepted Shahla Orouji as Armita’s chosen lawyer and that she was going to defend her in court. IranWire could not find out whether Orouji was able to meet her client before the trial. It was also unclear if the lawyer was granted access to Armita’s file….
Walter Sieruk says
That oppressive cruel brutal Islamic regime of Iran which is vicious misogyny is horrendously cruel and murderously evil not only against women but even young girls.
As explained by a former Iranian Revolutionary Guard member who defected to the West and how now lives in America his book also informs the reader about the malicious and murderous affront girls in Iran’s Evin prison which reads that those in power ,the “paraded teenage girls in front in front of me as they led them to their deaths. These girls were barely out of their childhood, barely old enough to think of themselves, much less form thoughts against the state. They knew nothing about the machinations of politics. They were innocent in every sense of the word and certainty innocent of trumped –up charges that led to their imprisonment. Yet they suffered fates too brutal for even the most vicious criminal. ..Their few remaining moments of life had been filled with the level of abuse that few can imagine”
The author further states “They tortured and killed young girls, in God’s name and before their execution they raped them because they believed that if a girl dies virgin, she will go to heaven, and they wanted to deny them this reward.” [1]
This is as malice -filled cruel brutal l oppressive malicious and murderous Islamic regime of Iran, since it took power in Iran it thrives on installing fear on the Iranian people.
This is a blatant reminder of the wisdom in the periodical POOR’S RICHARDS ALMANAC that was published by Benjamin Franklin in which was printed “Those who are feared are also hated.”
[1] A TIME TO BETRAY by Reza Kahlili. Pages 2,3. 117.
Walter Sieruk says
That cruel vicious murder of those young girls by the hooligan “police” of that Islamic tyranny is the result of that anti-female religion of Islam.
As revealed by a scholar of Islam who revealed in her book “Control of behavior and disregard for human life are key elements in Islam ideology.” Furthermore, the author also exposed that `” Women is Islam are considered unclean, deemed inferior even to dirt.” [1]
[1] THEY MUST BE STOPPED by Brigitte Gabriel, pages 171,172.
Walter Sieruk says
That vicious cruel malicious “mullah tyranny” of Iran is so completely evil that it murders many young women and even children .This is not beyond the limits of evil of that brutal cruel malicious bloodthirsty tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran.
As a former Muslim who revealed an important reality when he wrote “The Islamic republic of Iran exists and operates as what every fundamentalist dreams of, an Islamic state ruled by sharia …” He further exposes that “What followed its establishment was the inevitable consequence and inexorable logic of its Islamic premise; state terrorism, a merciless tyranny.” [1]
Those two words that author used “merciless tyranny” to describe that vicious cruel brutal oppressive Islamic and murderous Islamic tyrannical regime is both appropriate and fitting. Just look at those brutal horrendous malicious murders by the state Islamic police and of so many Iranian who are justly and rightly protesting the severe human rights abuses cruel oppression of that tyrannical Islamic regime.
Indeed, the tyrants of Khamenei and Raisi are very guilty and have the blood of many innocent people on their wicked hands.
[1] THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM by Ibn Warraq page 347.
David M says
She’s a 21st century woman living in a country ruled & governed by a backward seventh century ideology. Unfortunately for her the two don’t mix. She needs to leave Iran as soon as she can.
Kenneth Birtwistle says
All contact between Iran and the civilised world both individually and politically should be avoided totally.They are living in their own parallel world, out of step with the rest of the planet. They make a joke out of the so-called “Religion of peace”.
OLD GUY says
And WHO wants Muslim/Islamic immigration? The end result of the migration invasion is always violence and murder by Islam.