I have been sick since watching the recent Republican presidential debate. It pains me that Iran was not mentioned, neither as a matter of foreign policy, nor as a matter of US domestic policy.
I have been sick because for me this is very personal. In 2009, I was arrested and sentenced to death, incarcerated in Iran’s notorious Evin prison for nine months. I was found guilty of the “crime” they call apostasy, simply becoming a Christian in Iran. Throughout my life, I have witnessed misogyny and brutality against women, fear of the regime as a Christian, and evil perpetrated at every level of Iranian society. In prison I witnessed the suffering of hundreds of women, brutal torture, and the execution of many.
My pain deepened this week, reading about beautiful young girl, Armita Granvand, who was savagely beaten by Iranian “morality police,” and now is in coma for the “crime” of not covering her hair “properly.” Of course, she had no trial, not that it would have been fair. She was just a 16-year-old girl, pounced upon and beaten.
Rubbing salt in the wounds, the journalist who reported it, Mariam Lotfi, was arrested for covering the story. And the regime threatened and paraded out Armita’s parents, forcing them to claim she simply “fell.”
Another young girl, Zahra Hatami, recently committed suicide after being expelled from school for the “crime” of wearing nail polish. She threw herself from the top of a building near her school, unable to cope with the misogyny. She was in 8th grade.
The Biden administration did not execute these women, but has blood on its hands all the same, having enabled and emboldened the Iranian regime rather than resisting it. It is unconscionable that the Biden administration was behind the recent $6 billion ransom to the terrorist regime, to free Americans held hostage. America needs a leader who will take on the Iranian regime properly, and if the Republican debate is any litmus test, I fear that whoever succeeds Biden will be no better.
The message this sends to the regime is that they can do anything they want, despite pushback from the Iranian people who have been praying and protesting for regime change with a renewed fervor since the death last year of Mahsa Amini, who was savagely beaten by the “morality police” for failing to wear her hijab “properly.”
The Biden Administration has betrayed them, the same way the Obama Administration betrayed the Iranian people during the 2009 Green Revolution, the suffering from which I witnessed in prison firsthand with thousands arrested, beaten, and murdered.
Today, Americans, and people of good conscience around the world, need to ask from where the gender apartheid regime gets its legitimacy when millions of Iranians are saying “no” to its evil.
Shame on U.S. officials for allowing the Iranian president known as “the butcher of Tehran” a platform in the country to mock human rights and American values by bowing down to terrorists instead of making them accountable and bringing them to justice.
The criminal Islamic regime has ruled by murdering, torturing, raping, and executing many innocent people. They will continue as long as they are in power because they are evil to the core. I could have suffered worse, becoming one of those victims, when I was facing death by hanging because of my faith in Jesus had it not been for massive international support that put pressure on, and embarrassed, the regime. I was not ransomed, showing that pressure, not appeasement, must guide both foreign and domestic policy.
I experienced the brutality of this regime not only in prison, but also when I was living under the harsh rules of Islam in the country. I witnessed the execution of my best friend and many others. My husband was tortured, suffered 80 lashes on a trumped-up criminal charge of drinking wine, and beaten to death, many years ago. I will never forget the skin peeling off his back as a result of those lashes.
Experiencing these injustices changed me forever. Even though I now live in the greatest country on earth, I cannot enjoy my freedoms as long as these murderers ruling my country of birth keep threatening and murdering innocent people in Iran and around the world.
All Iranians want from western politicians is to not support the murderous regime, to not empower them while they are sacrificing their lives for basic human liberties.
While I don’t expect much from the Biden administration, I pray that a GOP presidential candidate will be strong against the Iranian regime. If I were moderating a Republican debate, I would ask questions that all Americans deserve answers to:
- If the child-killing ayatollahs had raped, tortured, blinded, and murdered your own children, only because of how they dress or freedom of speech, what would be your policy regarding these terrorists?
- If evil people would rape your own daughters before their executions and refuse to give her body to you after being murdered, like what happened to my dear friend, Shirin Alam Hooli, then what would you do?
- If these misogynist murderers would blind your own daughter by shooting at their eyes or throwing acid in her face, then what would be your policy toward the terrorists ruling in Iran?
- When you hear threats “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” as Iran churns its way to a nuclear weapon, what would your foreign policy be?
- When you see the actions of the Islamist regime, will you send them billions of dollars to empower them, and give them a seat in the international community to mock human rights? Or you would do anything in your power to make them accountable, eliminate the regime and free Iran and the world from their threats?
Dr. Martin Luther King said, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Closing our eyes to injustices Iranians are facing now and empowering the evil regime invites that evil into our homes, particularly when they infiltrate our politics, media, and education system to desensitize against its evil.
America must stand strong in the face of these very real facts and threats from Iran, and elect strong and competent leaders who understand these threats and are willing and ready to engage them, not appease and enable them. America needs strong leadership to protect our national security and values and not to bow down to terrorists who threaten us from within and outside our borders. America needs leaders who will not pay ransom or sign a nuclear deal with a terrorist regime in Iran, but who will sanction and squeeze the regime from outside while helping freedom-seeking Iranians from within. America needs a strong leader with clear policies to help Iranians put an end to the evil regime so Iranians, and the world, will be free from the regime’s threats.