The deaths resulting from protests which started after the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, 22, in the custody of the Morality Police in Teheran, have reached 92, according to human rights groups. An additional 41 have been killed in the Southeast, where a Baluch girl was allegedly criminally assaulted by a police officer. The protests at Ms Amini’s death had started in the North-East, in the Kurdish area (Ms Amini was an ethnic Kurd), and have spread throughout the country, and have become directed against the Morality Police, but also against the regime itself.
This is Iran’s first widespread protest in three years, and while Western countries are enjoying Teheran’s discomfort, the government has not just accused it of fomenting the protests, but has arrested nine foreign nationals from the scene of the riots, apart from 256 members of opposition groups. The Iranian government has to bring these protests to an end.
The role of the Morality Police must be reviewed. Not even its most fervent supporter would allow it to carry out custodial killings. The Iranian government must not only bring about the required changes which will provide its citizens with sufficient safeguards, but it must bring the situation under control. And control does not mean killing people, but ensuring that people no longer feel so hopeless that they are ready to face death.
Pakistan has so far not taken an official position. Perhaps it should, because there might be the thinking that good neighbourliness demands silence, that silence should not be maintained during a descent into chaos. Also, if the Zahedan protests merge with the Amini protests, Pakistan may face a backlash among its own Baloch population. Pakistan may wish to reiterate its policy of good neighbourliness, and offer any help it can, but it cannot afford to remain silent at this juncture.
