As protests across different cities in Iran over Mahsa Amini’s death is now decreasing, US officials are expressing support for more protests.
The latest round of mass protests in Iran which erupted over the suspicious death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman is now cooling down. Amini was died on Sept. 16 while in custody of the so-called morality police in Iran for violating Iran’s rules on veiling in public.
While the common belief is that Amini died because she was hit hard in the head by the morality police, records from cameras inside the police department show that she fainted all by herself.
In this regard, Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said last week that Amini suffered from a heart disease and epilepsy and that she underwent surgery at the age of 5. Notwithstanding of the cause of the death, the news of Amini’s death sparked protests in many parts of the country.
To add fuel to the fire of the unrest in Iran, US lawmakers and officials issued many statements in the previous days, ranging from strong support to direct criticism of the US administration’s policy toward Iran.
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, for example, who is also the head of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, expressed support for “the brave women and men are flocking to the streets to protest despite internet cuts and violent repression by the security forces.”
Likewise, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn, wrote in a tweet this week in her support for Iranian women, noting that “I stand with the brave women of Iran fighting back against their oppressive government.”
Several other Republicans also supported the protesters, mostly by attacking the US administration and rebuking its ongoing efforts to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran.
Senator Tom Cotton told Fox News on Sunday that if “President Biden actually wanted to support the brave protesters in Iran, he would abandon his efforts to resurrect the nuclear deal that would give billions of dollars to a dictatorial regime with leaders who still chant, ‘death to America’.”
In reaction to the plethora of statements by US lawmakers against Iran, the spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry, Nasser Kanaani, said that what the US officials are doing is “another sign that this country (US) is seeking to weaken the security and stability of Iran”.
Human rights violations and police violence in US, not better than in Iran
Despite the outrage among US officials for the recent protests in Iran, the issues of human rights violations and police violence are a matter of challenge in the US itself.
Good to mention that the exact number of Iranian protestors killed in their clash with police forces vary between 20 to 70 as different news sources give different statistics in this regard. But is this nothing compared to the number of American who are killed by US police every year.
As of September 8, 2022, about 730 civilians having been shot and dead, 71 of whom were Black. In 2021, there were 1,055 fatal police shootings, and in 2020 the number was 1,020.
One of the most notable cases of police violence against American people happened on May 25, 2020, when George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by police officer Derek Chauvin. Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes which led to his death. The irony is that Floyd was arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill.
The news then sparked widespread protests in all across US. In less than one month from May 25 to late June 2022, at least 25 Americans were killed during protests and political unrest and more than 14,000 people were also arrested.
