Acid attacks aren’t always based on “honor. Iintimidation as a way of making Iranians conform to Islamist social policy started a few years befor the social police came on the scene. In the early days of mullah rule, acid attacks and “burn ’em alive” tactics were preferred choices for anyone who resisted intended Saudi-zation. Young Iranians need to ask their parents about those days when tens of thousands of Iranian women insisted on continuing to appear in public bareheaded, in jeans and wearing makeup. Their response to mullahs was, “Screw you. “So arrest me!.” They had to be taught a lesson.
There were simply too many “resisters,” too few jails and not enough social police for gentler tactics, like Evin. Too many arrests could have been politically explosive, especially when the mullahs were on the verge of pulling off a coup within the revolution after the US Embassy attack. The mullahs wouldn’t need to throw acid in the face of every offender. Then, as now, intimidation tactics required targeting only a large enough number to “get the message out.”
Like death squads, such attacks could never have occured without approval and protection from powerful mullahs. No police, no plainclothesmen and no detectives ever caught a single perps and woe to any who did at a time of hanging judgs, firing squads and “revolutionary courts. Hence, not a single person was ever punished for such Basilj-Hezbollah style attacks. That is no coincidence. Let’s not hear anyone blame it on “custom not Islam” as Islam is now interpreted by Iran’s rulling mullahs. In Iran’s case, where was that “custom” before 1979?
When this regime falls, many women will be delight want to dump the symbols of oppression which they see as equivalent to the striped uniforms and yellow, pink or blue badges of concentration camp inmates.
Don’t be surprised to see acid attacks, a form of “asymetrical warfare” to resume unless hard line clerics known for using such thugs are rounded up and deprived of all outside contacts. Perps won’t be able to count on officials looking the other way. I suspect many Iranian males, disgusted by the mullocracy years, will be more than happy to grab offenders, kick the s*it out of them and hold thugs for the police. It will be important to have severe penalties on the books when that happens. A tactic meant to be life-destroying deserves harsh puishment.
Iran’s mullahs copied this idea from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Finally someone has made a Oscar-nominated film about victims. That sounds like something that should interest most people in fed-up Iran where the latest Saudi-zation measures are “voluntary” uniforms for female government clerks and the same coming soon for university students where Taliban-style gender segregation is already underway.
It is so important to remember that the vicious behavior by the ruling mullahs didn’t start in 2000 but was there from the beginning, so I recommend viewing this film, making copies and circulating them widely. The Abadan fire burned 400 people alive for watching a western film (non-porno). The mullahs nailed the doors shut, poured gasoline around every exit, lit a fire, watched the “fun” and then blamed the Shah. Though the latter made no sense, many believed it then. Today no one believes foreigners are responsible for massive popular discontent.
Pakistani film follows survivors of acid attacks
EXCERPT:
Pakistani women who survive revenge-based acid attacks are, in the words of one, the “living dead.” But their stories take on new life in the Oscar-nominated documentary “Saving Face,” which follows two victims with disfiguring acid injuries as they attempt to reclaim their dignity and identities….
… The hero of the 40-minute short-form documentary — which has earned the first -ever Academy Award nomination for a Pakistani director — is a London plastic surgeon named Mohammad Jawad, who returns to his homeland to donate his services to repair the women’s wounds. (FG says, “Call him an anti-mullah”)….
…The film says more than 100 acid attacks are reported every year in Pakistan but many more go unreported
… In Rukhsana’s case, the tragedy of disfigurement was compounded by the fact that she had no choice but to continue to live with her attacker, her husband — she became pregnant after the attack.
“I have never come across a more tragic life story in my life than what I came across in those few years,” Jawad said. “The sheer helplessness of these poor women — they have to put up with this and the complete failure of society.”
