It’s hilarious how most Muslims are convinced that their restrictive religious repression of women is somehow intended to protect them. You hear this all the time in Islamic countries; they think we let our women “run around unprotected” while they “bravely” restrict every part of their lives in the misguided belief that it’s really all for their own good. The culture of Islam makes women seem like dangerous, seductive weapons that cloud the judgement of men. Why else would they execute victims of rape, if not to vindicate the idea that it is always the woman’s fault for seducing the rapist in the first place?

In the light of this prism, the slavery of women is viewed as an extension of man’s submission to God, but as the old adage goes: ladies first! Rebelliousness, seen in any light, is to be extinguished, as was the case with actress Marzieh Vafamehr, who found out herself living out the plot of her new movie “My Tehran for Sale“. The scenario involves a young woman struggling to live in a country of contradictions, where young people live secret lives together in a brutal religious theocracy. This important movie is currently being distributed on the sly, since the country has banned it.

According to an interview with the director of the movie, the government sought a number of bogus charges, including failure to cover her hair with a hijab, consuming alcohol on set, and being part of the production (she wasn’t). The sentence is the kind of thing you’d expect from a theocratic and misogynistic society: 90 red-hot lashes and a whole year of rotting in jail, all for the “crime” of acting in someone else’s movie. Considering the number of women that often fail to survive the aftermath of such unnecessary brutality, I hope she’s made of tougher stuff.

The contradictory nature of Iran is why there are really two pictures of this place: one filled with young women who live out their lives in a secret world that resembles our own, and the other populated by religious thugs who patrol the streets looking for these secret places. When these worlds clash, the only ones to bother talking about it tend to be Persian Christian Missionaries operating out of the Alpharetta, Georgia. Their presence there only exacerbates the situation of course; religion is precisely the problem in Iran. Another faith is hardly the solution.

We have to ask ourselves what we can do ourselves to expose the evils of this religion outside of the sphere of influence of Christianity. It’s our duty to see that the injustices of any faith are given the proper attention they deserve. Until we do, how can we continue to claim the moral high ground?