Decentralization of Repression

A man was stoned to death  after being in jail for 11 years in a village in Iran in  July. His partner and lover, Mokarameh  Ebrahimi is still in jail and she may be stoned too. Their crime: Committing adultery! To add an additional element of horror to this situation, they have two kids and both have grown up in jail with their mother!
 
Amnesty International, many other organizations and governments protested and asked Iranian government not to stone Mokrameh. It was the first public stoning since 2002 and some clerics criticized such an action.
 
Iranian authorities say that the head of the judiciary was against stoning but the judge in the village was legally independent from the “High court” and took his decision.
 
An important lesson can be learned from this incident, a corner stone of Iranian politics and of Islamic establishment if we read between the lines of this horror story: Decentralization of Repression.
 
According to the story, as it is presented by Iranian authorities, it was this small village judge’s decision, not the masters of Iranian Justice system and even they wanted to stop him.
 
Blaming an unknown judge is a very smart way for Iranian authorities not to be targeted for anti humanist act but carried it anyway. Iranians or foreigners will get this illusion that in Iranian system there are more open leaders and we should support them because they want to stop “evil ones.”
 
In 1990’s, Iranian authorities pretended there were unknown, independent agents of Intelligence Ministry who kidnapped and killed intellectuals.
 
It is interesting and curious that all these unknown agents are around  killing and torturing intellectuals and ordinary citizens with a God-given immunity. May be Iran is invaded by aliens and “non identified creatures!!!”
 
It is amazing that almost no investigation has really been conducted regarding all these crimes by un known agents or people like judge “stone”.
 
We should ask why these unknown ones do never something good like saving a life or protecting a citizen from repression.
 
This time fortunately Iranian authorities did not blame Great Satan, USA, for stoning this man. I guessed may be, in Iranian surrealist context, they could  mention that judge “stone” was a fan of Frank Sinatra and “he did it his way”.
 
By looking at CIA detention centers in Europe and Guantanamo, we realize that outsourcing and decentralizing repression and tortutre is common in our days. But what USA does to its so called enemies for last few years, Iranian government does to his own people in last three decades.

Hamid Tehrani is Perisan Editor of Global Voices