I’m not sure if this list includes the 20+ mothers who were preemptively rounded up at the beginning of December – from the way it reads it seems to be about a totally different group – but in any case many of the mothers landed in the hospital on their way to being disappeared. Current status: unknown:
A rights group is demanding Iran release 33 mothers detained during their weekly memorial vigils for their children killed in the nation’s ongoing violence. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran says that nine of the jailed woman received emergency medical treatment after they were rounded up by security forces Saturday… The women are part of a “mourning mothers” gathering held by women whose children have been killed in unrest since disputed elections in June.
Meanwhile even Guardian columnists are declaring themselves less than sanguine about how the mullahs are trying protesters for being “Enemies Of God.” No one’s gone so far as to acknowledge the paper’s years of dishonest pro-Iran defenses – nor are they inclined to talk about how conservatives have been slandered as warmongers for predicting exactly this – but at least there’s a limit to the degree of theocratic fascism they’ll defend. Maybe.
Now for my own part, I would have stopped spinning pseudo-sophisticated “Iran is moderate” pretexts back when Ahmadinejad offered “documented proof” that America was conspiring to block the return of the Messiah. But I can see how the international left and their ilk might have thought he was just being funny.
References:
* Mothers Arrested Before Opposition Rally in Iran [NYT]
* Iran rights group calls for release of ‘mourning mothers’ [AP]
* Iran’s judiciary takes a military colour [Guardian]
* Clenched With Promises To Crush Pro-Reform “Enemies Of God” [IIFSC]
* Guardian: We’re Not Sure that Hezbollah and Iran are Working Together [MR]
* Iran Has Proof US Blocking Return of Messiah or Something [Jawa]
Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Iran
* Arab and Muslim World
* Political Islam
