The death of Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022 in Iran at the hands or ‘religious police’, for not wearing a veil properly, drives home the essential need for change in Iran. One can debate as a Muslim whether the Quran requires a woman to veil, but if one has any commitment to liberal democracy, it can’t be argued that a religious police has a right to enforce that. Iranians too have come out in protest, knowing that the government is wrong, and that these things are more appropriate for personal choice, not as governmental policy. The theocracy of Iran has snubbed its nose at the very idea of liberal democracy since Khomeini’s day, but their own citizens know how badly it is out of tune with modern needs. Should any Quranic interpretation weigh the life of woman in one hand, and the need of veiling in the other, and say the latter is more important? A “moral” or “religious” police force that forcefully imposes such things with such a vigor that they end a human life has also fatally undermined its own moral and religious authority.
