Elnaz Babazadeh was kidnapped, beaten, raped, and murdered earlier this month in Tabriz, an Iranian city that’s an Azerbaijani [Turkish] stronghold. The earliest online news reports show information for July 12. However, it is believed she had been missing about a week before as her parents found her body at a local morgue.
The ugly truth is Elnaz was treated with evil disregard, and the Western media has been largely silent. Elnaz was murdered for wearing her hijab (Islamic headscarf) "inappropriately." My guess is she was wearing it, but it didn’t cover her whole head.
Her murderers—young men of the notorious Basij (a shady law enforcement class)—were released shortly after being arrested. It was supposedly a “misunderstanding.” A misunderstanding is when negotiations fail because both sides see things differently. A misunderstanding is NOT beating, raping, and shooting a young woman, point blank, because she failed to wear her headscarf the proper way.
What makes this all the more painful is the lack of media dissemination in non-Iranian news outlets. Google searches (and other sites) produce little to nothing about this news report. The non-reporting gives credence to the Iranian government and its conspiracy-theory supporters about how the West turns a blind eye to human rights violations, except when it suits them.
It makes little sense. Last year all media outlets, from CNN to Fox News, were saturated with Neda Agha-Soltan’s story—the young woman who was gunned down at a rally. Pain is pain. Thus there will be no comparisons, however, the question is: WHY? Why, after two weeks, is there still no significant news story, except the LA Times Babylon and Beyond entry, which addressed the issue as a sub-point under the Sakineh stoning. True, many human rights violations occur daily, and it is sometimes impossible to report them all. Nevertheless, this one could have been reported too!
This may sound naïve, even foolish, but one must entertain the thought that Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Khamenei do not know Elnaz’s tragic end. They could not because they, too, are fathers, and fathers, no matter how strict, would never condone such evil–and neither does the Quran.
Please, if you can, share this news and send it to whoever is in a position to publicize it. Elnaz should not be swept under the rug.
Thank you.
Original Link: https://www.advocacynet.org/the-evil-men-did-in-tabriz/