We should definitely listen to Democratic foreign policy sophisticates and engage these charming, charming people. They can almost certainly be reasoned with:

Baniyaghoub's ordeal started on the morning of October 12 while sitting with her fiance, Hamid Chitsaz, in a park in the western city of Hamedan. Officers arrested the couple because they were not legally related and not entitled to be alone together under Islamic law... Baniyaghoub, 27, a graduate of Tehran University's elite medical school, was a GP in a remote village in one of Iran's poorest regions and had ambitions to qualify as a heart specialist or urologist. Her fiance worked as a radio presenter with the state broadcaster IRIB. Nevertheless, they were sent before an Islamic judge who ordered their detention.

Chitsaz, who has since lost his job over the matter, was released after his family paid bail. But Baniyaghoub was detained overnight... By the time her father... arrived to secure her release, Baniyaghoub was dead. A medical report stated she was strangled. Officials claimed Baniyaghoub, a devout Muslim who prayed every day, was consumed by shame over her crime and used a chair and a piece of textile to hang herself from a beam in her cell. Baniyaghoub's family say she would never have taken her own life, not least because of her strong Islamic faith, which taught her to regard suicide as a sin. Moreover, they argue that she had a legal right to be with Chitsaz because the couple had undergone sigheh, a Shia custom of temporary marriage recognised by the Iranian authorities. She would therefore have felt no shame in their relationship.

(1) According to Iranian officials, this educated woman was so Islamic that she had to violate Islamic law by killing herself to overcome the shame of violating Islamic law by being seen in public with her fiance. This seems to us to paint a rather unflattering picture of Islamic priorities, no?

(2) Just as with the insanity around the dreaded teddy bear of blasphemy, at least a part of the surreal effect comes from how the debate is about the application of the law, not the existence of the law itself. Presumably things would somehow be different if there had been no temporary marriage - then locking them up for being together in public might have been OK.

(3) "Temporary marriage," by the by, is a set of juridical and extra-juridical customs and norms that allow powerful men in Iran to enslave and rape prebuscent girls.

References:
* Bill Richardson: Ahmadinejad Is Nothing To Worry About, We Should Engage Iran [MR]
* Young woman doctor who fell foul of Iran's 'love police' was strangled [Guardian]
* Sundanese On The Verge Of Lynching British Schoolteacher, Firebombing School Because Of Dreaded Teddy Bear Of Blasphemy [MR]
* Crisis, day two: Teddy bear blasphemer fired, grilled for five hours, facing sedition charge [Hot Air]
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Iran Has Legal Slavery And Rape Of Prebuscent Girls. They Call It "Temporary Marriage". [MR]

Previously:
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - If You Complain About Getting Gang Raped In Saudi Arabia, They'll Double The Lashings To Punish You More
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Academic Feminism Not Doing Much To Stop Teenage Girls From Being Lost In Pakistani Poker Games
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Your Saudi Husband Isn't Allowed To Beat You In The Face Because It "Makes Your Face Ugly"