Commentary
It’s an image of contrasts, courage, and confrontation: A faceless Iranian woman protester holds Catholic rosary beads against the backdrop of a poster featuring Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died last year while being held by the country’s morality police. Her alleged crime: standing up to the country’s theocratic regime by violating laws requiring women to wear head coverings in public.
Publicized by social media, Amini’s death led to mass protests in Iran and made her a global symbol of freedom. The U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, or USCIRF, released its annual report Monday with a cover bearing the Associated Press photo of a Christian woman publicly practicing the religion of her choice in Iran, a country in which Christians are a tiny minority who must be registered with the authorities and are tracked and heavily monitored….