Ali Khamenei is dead. For decades, he held ultimate political and religious authority over a theocratic regime that continues to oppress Iranians at home and sponsor terrorism abroad. For those who survived torture and other forms of ill-treatment at the hands of this regime, those who were forced to flee their homeland to escape persecution, and those who lost friends and family, including the thousands of protesters killed by Iranian security forces in January, this is a moment of relief. Khamenei will not be hurting anyone anymore. For some, joy joins relief in an intricate tangle of emotions that only those who have lived under the shadow of the Grand Ayatollah can truly comprehend.
Continue reading “We haven’t left the cave yet”
Rainer Ebert 