Khomeinist Justice

In a case reminiscent of the horrific murder of Canadian journalist, Zahra Kazemi, Radio Free Europe is reporting on the case of yet another young woman brutalized by the Khomeinist theocracy after being arrested by the regimes thugs, the Basij. Her crime was to be seen holding hands with a man not related to her. This from Radio Free Europe:

Zahra Bani Yaghoub was a 27-year-old medical university graduate from Tehran who some two years ago volunteered to work in the western city of Hamadan.

Bani Yaghoub was due to return to Tehran next year to complete her medical studies and become a specialist in urology. But instead she died in suspicious circumstances in Hamadan prison on October 13.

Eyewitnesses said she was arrested by Iran's morality police while walking with her fiance in a Hamadan city park. Her fiance was released an hour later, but she was kept in prison overnight.
The next day, her lifeless body was handed over to her parents with the police claiming she committed suicide by hanging herself.

Bani Yagoub's family, however, say they have no reason to believe that their daughter would take her own life.

. . . The family says Bani Yaghoub's body was bruised and that there was blood in her nose and in her ears.

Bani Yaghoub's death has caused worries in Iranian society about basic civil liberties and personal safety.

Iran's state media has briefly reported the official version of the event. The independent media, however, have been covering all sides of the story and public reaction to her death.
Isa Saharkhiz, an independent journalist and a member of the Association of Press Freedom in Iran, says the details of this woman's tragic death in prison have reached the Iranian people through the country's independent media and foreign news agencies.

Saharkhiz says that under the Islamic regime, Iranians have somehow become accustomed to political activists or independent journalists being arrested and even killed in suspicious circumstances, but this ordinary woman's death while in custody has shocked society.

"Now people see that even an ordinary person does not have basic security; and a person simply can get arrested on a street and, instead of returning home, their bodies are buried in a cemetery," he tells RFE/RL. "It has become a very sensitive issue in our society and created many questions." . . .

. . . Both Kar and Saharkhiz say the chances are slim that the authorities would hold any police officer or a prison worker responsible for Bani Yaghoub's death.

They say the authorities cannot ignore the case, which has taken on a high profile with all of the media coverage. But they believe officials will probably drag on the investigation for months and even years until publicity around it eventually fades. . . .

Read the story here.