Even as our attention is turned to Cairo, awful news continues to roll out of Iran. Earlier this week, Iran hanged a Dutch-Iranian woman -Zahra Bahrami (s0metimes spelled Sahra Baahrami) – on allegations of drug smuggling. She had gone to Iran to be with her daughter who was undergoing chemotherapy. She also attended the street demonstrations in December of 2009. Naturally, the government produced a confession from the woman – her supporters argue that it was coerced – though the government's true motivation is probably related more to the national security charges the government leveled against her.
But Bahrami is one of many. It appears that Iran has executed 66 people in the last month, and over 40 more people in December. An NPR story about the issue is here. Another account is here.
Even assuming that the executions are mostly for drug offenses, and involve dissidents only at the margins, this assertion of government power still has the potential to chill dissent. And those of us concerned about the fairness of the death penalty ought not ignore injustices abroad. Whatever our views of the efficacy of America's current strategy on a nuclear Iran, the Iran mass execution crisis deserves separate and serious attention.