[_DeadFred_]

This Prophet believed/taught that school girls should be raped before they are executed for not wearing hats so that they can't get into heaven (believing God would judge a child for being raped).

Should a believer/teacher of such things even be called a prophet? Old boy was straight trash with a horrific morality.

[arunabha]

> Should a believer/teacher of such things even be called a prophet? Old boy was straight trash with a horrific morality.

Sadly, that has been a fairly common attribute for a fairly large majority of people anointed as 'prophets' and 'saints'.

[cogman10]

He's not a prophet and he didn't teach that.

You don't need to lie about someone you don't like.

[hu3]

I have no horse in this race but I did find some daunting google results about that.

[cogman10]

I'd love to see a link to them. My cursory googles aren't finding it.

Look, not trying to defend the guy, but I don't like this sort of hyperbole. People have the wrong view on what Iran is like. It's ran by religious fundamentalists, which is bad, but it's also probably one of the more progressive muslim theocracies in the region. People tend to mix up shit that Saudi Arabia does with Iran.

In particular, Iran has a very progressive view on education. They have one of the best educated populations in the middle east (men and women).

[hu3]

I really don't want this on my comment history but here you go:

~redacted google serarch~

And I understand your point. There's a ton of bias. We must be careful with the "facts" on the internet.

Admitedly, these link results don't inspire me much confidence.

[cogman10]

The only one attributing a similar quote to khamenei is an x user. The rest appear to document that an exiranian official saying that counter revolutionary women sentenced to death are raped.

I hope you can see how these are pretty different things.

[hu3]

First link:

"Based on our findings, some of the various forms of sexual torture, such as the rape of virgin girls prior to their execution, were conducted in a systematic way and were based on the interpretation of an order by Ayatollah Khomeini (1979-1989), the Islamic Republic Supreme Leader at the time."

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmin...

[_DeadFred_]

I don't have it bookmarked but he did teach that and had his friend Lajevardi whom he supported and praised carry it out. And his Islamic enforcement police regularly engaged in it. And he has defended his Islamic enforcement police the Basij, whose job is to enforce his teachings, when they have conducted systemic rapes.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmin...

Here he is defending the practice https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/aug/27/iran-ayatollah...

Amnesty talking about his Basij Islamic enforcement police conducting the practice: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/iran-security...

Challenges to his systemic use of rape and if it disqualifies his legitimacy back in 2009 https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/world/middleeast/15iran.h...

2011 Frontline coverage of the practice https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/0...

More coverage of the practice https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1890900/iran-rape-tortu...

In addition to the routine/sactioned religious police rapes how many executions have there been under this moderate? How many women arrested for religious reasons? Under his leadership the death decree against Salman Rushdie was never lifted. How many died of torture in detention after he called for people to be punished? If this is moderation then what does fundamentalism look like?

Hmmm, this may have been a 'mis-interpretation' but it seems odd that it wouldn't, you know, be corrected with a public 'correct' interpretation in all these years and with so much rape being done by religious police serving directly under him. Instead of easily issuing a public statement he defended the rapists indicating that in fact, it was a correct interpretation. https://wncri.org/2015/11/13/female-prisoners-virgins-raped/

[cogman10]

> I don't have it bookmarked but he did teach that and had his friend Lajevardi whom he supported and praised carry it out.

Look, I'm simply not going to believe this claim without evidence.

You are presenting terrible practices in Iran that I disagree with, but that wasn't your original claim.

From the links you've given, rape was because political prisoners were believed to be slaves. That's a despicable and gross practice. It is not, however "school girls should be raped before they are executed for not wearing hats so that they can't get into heaven". The reason for the rape of prisoners was because the prisoners were viewed as slaves, not to keep them from heaven (from what I've read).

> If this is moderation then what does fundamentalism look like?

Relative to the region. Iran has been brutal to it's dissidents and enemies of the state.

However, if you compare the rights of women under Iran vs Saudi Arabia, you'll end up finding that women in Iran have more rights and freedoms. That's what relative means.

I'm not here to defend Khamenei. The reason I pushed back was because, as I said, you don't need to lie about someone you don't like. These are the facts you should present and represent. Talk about how Iran rapes political enemies. That is a horrible practice. But the extreme "He said to rape girls without hijabs and then kill them to keep them from heaven" is just a lie. Hell, you can pretty accurately say "He taught that political prisoners are slaves, which his government used to justify raping female prisoners". That's a true statement that makes him look horrible.

[_DeadFred_]

It looks like it was the previous Ayatollah who was Khamenei's religious teacher, but this one could easily have corrected things but instead chose to defend the practice/practitioners and never on the occasion of abuse over decades chose to correct the interpretation.

"such as the rape of virgin girls prior to their execution, were conducted in a systematic way and were based on the interpretation of an order by Ayatollah Khomeini (1979-1989)"

So his spiritual teacher ordered it with the vague cop-out by someone else that 'maybe it was misinterpreted' yet even though his Islamic police were raping for decades he never corrected what his teacher/spiritual leader said/meant.

Undisputed facts: it happened and the people doing it thought that it was sanctioned by the Ayatollah. Even though it happened for decades, this Ayatollah never corrected people that they had misunderstood. Did defend his Islamic police and did on occasions when they inflicted the violence after him basically saying “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”.

Decades and decades of rape, and of government officials thinking this is the official Islamic position, and he NEVER chose to say otherwise even though his Islamic police were acting on it.

I'm throttled after this but I believe it was his official policy, and nothing indicates otherwise. There was systemic rape and he defended/protected those doing it and never corrected the believed edict from his predecessor. Also it is extremely rare to get these edicts externally. We only have what I pointed out because an insider (Ayatollah Montazeri) was trying to defend his reputation after word got out of the justification for rape by Khomeini.

[selimthegrim]

I know someone who was in prison with Lajevardi in the 70s and the latter was an asshole even then according to him so I believe this

[estearum]

AFAICT nearly everyone who is called a "prophet" by anyone is horrible, no?

Doesn't stop people from killing or dying in their name though.

[somenameforme]

I can't think of anybody, who has significant power, who isn't seen as horrible by somebody else, and often by quite a lot of somebody elses. With power people always end up trying to make the world a better place. The problem is one man's better place is another's dystopia.