The disturbing news about the rape of inmates in Iran prisons has now made the hardliners in Islamic regime to gaurd against the truth more than ever. The controversial news however has shaken the foundation of the whole structure of this regime. Those who fight to stay in power with any means still use denial, rejection, and intimidation as their usual way of silencing people. Stealing the evidence, oppressing the witnesses, and threatening the victims are also what the oppressors in Iran do. None of these are new to any of us Iranians, not any more.
Still, what is innovative is the shocking disclosure of rape, torture, and sexual assault on inmates all over the Iranian media. Discussing or complaining about sexual assault allegedly offended by the prison guards in the Islamic regime has never been this easy.
Victims and their families are telling stories that change our communities forever. The details of described sadistic act of crime offended by the guards and the interrogators in the prisons are finding ways to people’s everyday life now more than ever before in our history.
The public discussion about rape and sexual abuse in our prisons are leaking out in a broad scale and from different sources, something that opens up a discussion about the act itself.
While the act itself have been occurring in the Iran prisons, at least to our collective knowledge during past 30 years, yet the impact of this violent crime on communities are not known.
Disgracing the inmates with rape while ridiculing their belief has been reported as used treatments by the guards in many of the prisons across Iran. It is significant to realize that many victims of rape, torture, and harassments in jails are too fragile to come forward for telling their stories. Beside the damages of such act on people are too harsh why their trusts in any justice are under question. This all happens while the trust to any justice under the umbrella of current regime of Iran is impossible.
Unfortunately as there are no statistic or correct information about how many incarcerated individuals who have been victimized this way.
The clinical damages and the debilitating impact of these horrible crimes on individuals are to be discussed. On one hand these victims and their families are brave to handle a very unbearable situation while on the other hand we can just imagine the cultural embarrassments and barriers for Iranian families to help these victims. All these problems seem to challenge a nation in a country where justice is an illusion.
Peace and healing comes with acknowledgment and serious steps to help the victims and their families. Still hard to believe such an action is under the Iranian regimes of hate and terror of its own people.
May peace,healing, and happiness for our people be intertwined with freedom and democracy in a near future.
September 14, 2009
www.middlepeace.com