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The death of Mahsa Amini on September 16th as a result of a severe beating following her arrest by Iran’s morality police due to her having worn an improper hijab during her visit to Tehran has over the past two months wracked Iran with unprecedented levels of protests and civil unrest. Notable acts have been the burning of their hijabs by women protestors, as well as cutting their hair in defiance of Iran's laws set in place by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In the time since the outbreak of resistance to the conservative Islamic regime, hundreds have been killed and an estimated 15,000 protestors have been arrested for their participation in the upheaval directed against the government. Rather than bring the regime to the bargaining table to implement reforms that the population has been demanding, members of the Iranian Parliament have increasingly been calling for brutal punishments against the protestors, likely in the hope to dissuade the continuation of the public's challenge to the government.
This push culminated with a vote on Tuesday in the Iranian Parliament in which 227 lawmakers out of a possible 290 voted to impose the death penalty on protestors in custody. Given that estimates set this number at between 14,000 and 15,000 people, the amount of death to be meted out by the Iranian regime demonstrates the depth of their worry that their hold on power over the Iranian people is beginning to slip. Likely they hope such a massive sentencing for protestors in custody will end the resistance of the masses. While it might be too soon to tell, it is possible that this act might instead galvanize still more resistance of the regime.
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