The best part is Iranian officials initially didn’t even bother coming up with a fake reason to arrest Saberi. They busted her buying booze.
In late February of this year she was imprisoned for purchasing a bottle of wine. It is a crime to buy or sell alcohol in Iran, though it is easy enough to do through the black market. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi said Saberi reported that, “she said that she had bought a bottle of wine and the person that sold it had reported it and then they came and arrested her.”
Her intital charge does not warrant imprisonment. Saberi was locked up for the alcohol violation though, until they found something better to charge her with. Qashqavi would later admit that the whole booze bust was entrapment, though that doesn’t seem to matter in Iran (what a shock!).
How are we expected, as an open and freedom-based society, to work with a government that has this sort of draconian mentality? I already know that the western world gets no benefit from happy, shiny relations with Iran. The only party that benefits is Iran itself. Does anyone honestly think that by legitimizing these oppressive rulers with political attention and trade deals we are making the correct move? Just because Iran exists does not mean we need to do business with them, and I’d really like to say that the United States did business with one less anachronistic, Sharia-ridden tyranny.
