An Iranian teenager was sexually assaulted and killed by three men working for Iran’s security forces, a leaked document understood to have been written by those forces says.
It has let us map what happened to 16-year-old Nika Shakarami who vanished from an anti-regime protest in 2022.
Her body was found nine days later. The government claimed she killed herself.
We put the report’s allegations to Iran’s government and its Revolutionary Guards. They did not respond.
Marked “Highly Confidential”, the report summarises a hearing on Nika’s case held by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) - the security force that defends the country’s Islamic establishment. It includes what it says are the names of her killers and the senior commanders who tried to hide the truth.
Unlike in the US, where police are strictly prohibited from doing this. I tell other lies, as well.
I’m not going to say police in the US are flawless but this is horrific stuff, I’ve never heard of US police officers molesting and then beating to death an underage girl who was already bound and gagged. And if evidence of such an event were to come out there would absolutely be consequences. Meanwhile in Iran this shit is institutionalized. The documents show the guards straight up admit to everything happening to their superiors, knowing they won’t face consequences.
since in america, police job #1 is covering their own ass (in other words, simply the next step in the iranian system, where the behaviour is tacitly accepted but you’re not supposed to mention it) I wouldn’t be so sure about this. They’re just gangs at this point. American police are apparently so desensitized to death that they can repeatedly hear the complaints of those they suffocate (I mean arrest) and take no action; compassion is not a cognitive process available to these people. You are already there, at the level where police will kill to hide their own crimes, sliding backward into barbarism. There is a distinction of degree, but not of kind. Your police already behave horrifically, and if they are not already doing this, it is only a matter of time. Action must be taken; fucked if I know what, but fortunately, I don’t live there.
Is it awful that my immediate reactive thought was “just give it ten years”?
You’re not wrong in many cases. But the transgressions of US police have nothing to do with this story.
Idk, seems like a classic case of ACAB.
In this particular case, we’re told to care precisely because it is Iranian police, rather than an officer from Chicago or Dallas or Miami.
And our response is expected to be a call for more military action against Iran. Which will inevitably mean more troops in and around the Iranian border. And more policing of residents in those border regions. And… consequently… more men with guns using their outsized authority to commit sexual assault against locals. Which will result in local backlash against the western forces. Which will then be attributed to the IRG. Which will then be used as further causi belli for escalated conflicts.
But the idea of police reform at home will never cross our minds. This isn’t an object lesson in poor policing, its a problem we’re supposed to believe is unique to Iranians who are inherently evil.
I can see your point. And I think you put it well (which is why I upvoted it as an aside). Thanks for the perspective.
Yeah, classic whataboutism. Apparently this story makes OP defensive?
fapfapfap. “at least we don’t do that” is an article of faith you cannot afford, not to mention that ship sailed long ago (there are absolutely documented cases of this sort of behaviour in US police, that are (shockingly!) not popular stories in america)
but sure, go ahead and pretend one monkey is magically different from another monkey
or do you lose your mind at the suggestion that you’re an animal like everyone else?
I don’t know what the fuck you are rambling on about here. But all the best, pal.
How could American’s experience with American policing colour their response to an article about foreign policing? Are their impressions accurate?
Why would anyone pretend that a primate in a certain situation would react in a way that is uncharacteristic of its species to that situation?
The differences in american vs iranian policing are of degree, perhaps, but not kind, and frankly, likely not of degree either. Your bros have done some pretty bad shit and I’m sure you could find instances of police rape and murder without even going back a whole week, if you tried.
I’m not sure what part of this article discusses the US?
Don’t worry, we can still use this to criticize the US (through us indirectly causing this regime to take power by helping to overthrow the leader of the previous, more democratic revolution)