Iran Says Unarmed Protesters Just Human Shields For Other Unarmed Protesters

“100% of the protesters and bystanders injured, arrested, or killed in these incidents had it coming, just as 100% of our population is heterosexual.”

Shiraz, November 26 – Authorities in the Islamic Republic explained the large number of protester shooting deaths at the hands of police and paramilitary forces over the last week, noting that the apparent victims, though carrying no weapons, functioned as human shields for the troublemakers behind them who also carried no weapons.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Police told reporters that every single gunshot, beating, and instance of official violence against unarmed protesters in the latest country-wide unrest in Iran was justified, since those unarmed protesters qualify as accessories to violence for shielding the protesters behind them from law enforcement measures, protesters who were similarly unarmed.

“Human shields have no immunity,” declared ministry representative Fahzi Ladjik. “In a legal and moral sense the fault for any harm that comes to them lies with the violent elements they are protecting, in this case the same group of demonstrators but farther back in the crowd. We intend to prosecute them for any harm that came to these human shields as a result of the irresponsible, dangerous, criminal, and seditious activities. We will also prosecute any surviving human shields with the same crimes, because we can.”

Protests began a week and a half ago, sparked initially by rising fuel prices but spreading as anger over the country’s economic woes transformed into ongoing dissatisfaction with the religious rule of the Ayatollahs. Police and military enforcers responded with both non-lethal and lethal means. Official Iranian media put the death toll from the protests at more than one hundred, while human rights groups and activists on the ground and in exile estimate a far higher figure. Accurate, reliable information has remained unavailable amid an internet blackout imposed by Tehran.

“You’re not allowed to prevent the arrest of someone threatening,” explained a law enforcement official. “And of course we get to define who is or is not threatening. Suffice it to say 100% of the protesters and bystanders injured, arrested, or killed in these incidents had it coming. Just as 100% of our population is heterosexual.”

Official media and diplomatic channels warned neighboring states that similar treatment awaited them if they failed to facilitate the imposition of Iranian hegemony over the region. “You cannot claim to be ‘neutral’ or ‘just caught in harm’s way’ if your presence acts as an obstacle to our destiny,” a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards corps read. “Hiding behind that pretext will just place you higher on the list of targets for our 100%-for-civilian-purposes nuclear program.”

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