The legal minimum age for girls to marry in Iran is nine, as long as she has the court’s permission and her father’s approval. Otherwise, she has to wait until she is thirteen.
Furthermore, sex within marriage is considered consensual and legal under Iranian law. At least 27,000 girls under the age of 15 were married in a single year, according to Iran’s own statistical center. This is just one of the horrifying realities of life in Iran since the Islamic Revolution.
Numerous mainstream media outlets have written apologetic obituaries of Ayatollah Khamenei, referencing his long white beard and the fact that he was a grandfather.
The same media and their liberal allies have failed to underscore how repressive life was under the ayatollah.
The irony, of course, is that the liberals taking to the streets in “Hands Off Iran” protests would have been jailed and possibly killed in Iran.
Under the regime’s legal system, LGBTQ identity was essentially treated as a crime punishable by death, and women could be arrested or tortured for speaking out in public or for not wearing a hijab.
Finally, the anti-regime protests over the last few weeks, in which more than 30,000 people were killed, prove that claims of repression under the ayatollah’s regime are not Republican misinformation.
They are a fact, easily demonstrated by a brief review of some of Iran’s most repressive laws.
Iran’s legal system is structured around Sharia-based Hudud offenses, which the state defines as violations of the “rights of God.” Under the Iranian penal code, Hudud crimes carry severe punishments including death by hanging, stoning, or decapitation, as well as amputation or flogging.
Alcohol consumption, adultery, same-sex relations, and certain non-violent drug offenses all fall within this category, while insulting the prophet or apostasy can also bring the death penalty.
In addition to these codified crimes, the regime frequently relies on broad catch-all charges such as moharebeh, meaning “waging war against God,” and mofsed-e-filarz, or “spreading corruption on earth.”