Add ‘Dog Genocide’ to List of Iranian Outrages

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, once again is giving Tehran a “final” proposal to renew the 2015 nuclear deal. Regrettably, his latest contains no clause on the Islamic Republic’s horrific human rights record — not to mention its cruelty to pets and their owners. The ruling clerics’ aversion to pet ownership and to man’s best friend in general is now making the rounds on social media in Iran and around the world. “Dog genocide” videos seen on various media platforms document an undated raid on a Tehran animal shelter operated by volunteers, where some 1,700 pooches were executed. “This was the most vulnerable and obedient one,” a woman volunteer says at the end of one clip, weeping as she crouches over the carcass of her favorite pup.An Iranian journalist and activist, Masih Alinejad, said the manager of the Tehran dog sanctuary was locked in a room while the massacre took place. The authorities closed nearby roads to prevent volunteers from coming to the animals’ aid as they were killing the helpless dogs. “I call this dog genocide,” Ms. Alinejad told the Sun. “This is how the Islamic Republic is: brutal, barbaric, and anti-life. As long as the Islamic Republic is in power, no one is safe — not women, not teenagers, not gays and lesbians, not even democracy in the West.”Islamic scholars are divided over the question of pet ownership. Some cite Koranic passages suggesting that a righteous Muslim may lose the benefits of his good deeds if he owns a dog. Other passages oppose cruelty, including to animals. Owning a herding, hunting, or guard dog seems to be the exception to rules favored even by hardliners. While dog ownership these days slowly gains favors in Muslim-majority countries, Iranian clerics are averse to such “Westernized” habits: Walking a dog in a public space is illegal and even traveling with a pup in a car can lead to penalties. Nevertheless, the Iranian authorities seem embarrassed by the widely distributed dog-killing videos.Tehran’s mayor, Pirouz Hanachi, claims these video clips are old, and that a contractor who used cruel methods to kill the “diseased” dogs was fired after an investigation. “From the moment I learned about the contractor’s violation in the legal process of killing animals with dangerous diseases,” Mr. Hanachi tweeted, “I ordered that the offenders be dealt with decisively, and enacted the necessary follow-up to prevent it from happening again.” The so-called firing of an unnamed contractor is “a lie to cover their embarrassment,” Ms. Alinejad says, adding that dog-killing is an acceptable practice in Iran.Ms. Alinejad’s campaign against the regime’s laws forcing women to cover their heads in public, meanwhile, is intensifying. Enforcers are clamping down on an increasing number of women that remove their hijabs in public. Clips of women resisting informants who photograph bare-headed women flood social media sites, highlighting an ever-widening public disgust with the regime. Enforcing the regime’s interpretation of Islamic rules has intensified since last August, when President Raisi, a hardliner groomed to succeed the aging supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, took office. Known as the “hanging judge” for his time as a top jurist when at least 3,000 Iranian dissidents were executed in 1998, Mr. Raisi is deepening the regime’s oppression even as public protest intensifies. None of this seemingly interferes with European and American efforts to beg Messrs. Khamenei and Raisi to renew the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Mr. Borrell has emerged as the most active negotiator attempting to break an impasse in talks since Mr. Raisi became president. On Wednesday Mr. Borrell wrote in the Financial Times that he had just presented a new text “that addresses, in precise detail, the sanctions lifting as well as the nuclear steps needed to restore the JCPOA.” Mr. Borrell added that he has concluded that “the space for additional significant compromises has been exhausted.”Mr. Borrell’s final, last, never-to-be-revised-again offer mirrors numerous comments in Washington in the year since the diplomacy stumbled. For months American officials have reiterated repeatedly that if a deal isn’t reached “within weeks,” their most recent, ever-softening offer would be rescinded. America now awaits Iran’s response to Mr. Borrell’s latest offer — and Washington still believes that “the only way to hold the Iranians accountable and to stop them from pursuing a nuclear weapon is through a return to the JCPOA,” the U.S. ambassador at the United Nations, Linda Greenfield-Thomas, told Al Arabiya today. Tehran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said yesterday that Iran “welcomes the continuation of diplomacy and talks,” as detailed in Mr. Borrell’s latest offer. In reality, the man in charge, Ayatollah Khamenei, increasingly believes that Iran can survive on its internal resources, and therefore can withstand extended trade-related sanctions. That belief lowers Tehran’s incentive for engaging with the West over a renewal of the JCPOA.At the same time, Iranian diplomats are happy to continue negotiating forever while they lead the West by the nose. America and the Europeans are yet to realize that the diplomatic dog won’t hunt. The mullahs are out to kill it just like other pets they despise.

Add ‘Dog Genocide’ to List of Iranian Outrages

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