Retro Raunch Revisit

JUN 18, 1983: 17yr old high school student Mona Mahmudnizhad along with 9 other women are executed in Shiraz, Iran over their religious beliefs. The ladies were of the Baháʼí Faith, founded in 1844 that espoused unity between all religions & peoples. Facing persecution since its creation, the fundamentalist Islamic Revolution during 1979 only brought harsher maltreatment. Mona & her father were first arrested & jailed in Oct 1982 by armed Revolutionary Guards who ransacked their home looking for Baháʼí materials. Once separated, she & 5 other women were transferred to another prison in Nov. She was officially charged with misleading youth & children, and being a Zionist as the Baháʼí World Centre is located in Israel. When brought before the Islamic Revolutionary Court, she was called "a puppet of Satan" and her interrogations afterwards involved her being often blindfolded and the torture of being whipped barefoot by a cable, to which the lashings resulted in infections from uncleaned dirty wounds. Mona was found guilty on spurious charges of espionage and sentenced to death. Although Iran tried to keep their sham trial secret, news leaked out to international media and the outrage from public attention saw the country condemned by world press. US President Ronald Reagan called for clemency but fell on deaf ears. She & the 9 others were hanged at a polo field. In 1999, the Mona Foundation was opened in her memory as a non-profit organization with its grassroots initiative to focus on universal female education, gender equality, and the eradication of hunger, poverty & disease.