This morning Karen wrote about the Iranian regime firing live ammunition at protesters. If you haven’t been following this story, the protests started in September after members of Iran’s morality police beat a woman named Mahsa Amini to death for failing to wear a hijab properly. That was the last straw for a lot of women in Iran who have been courageously protesting the regime in the streets for weeks.

Last week lawmakers led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei voted to execute up to 15,000 protesters. But the regime is also using beatings and rape to discourage the protestes. CNN went to the Iraqi border and spoke to people who were fleeing Iran.

Armita Abbasi, 20, bore all the hallmarks of a Gen Z-er. Her edgy hairdo was dyed platinum blonde and she had an eyebrow piercing. She wore colored contact lenses, and filmed TikToks with her cats from her living room…

After the protests began, social media posts under Abbasi’s name became charged with unrestrained criticism of Iran’s regime. It is unclear if she participated in the protests. Yet, unlike most Iranian dissidents inside the country, she did not anonymize her anti-regime posts…

On October 17, Abbasi was rushed to the Imam Ali hospital in Karaj, accompanied by plainclothes officers, according to leaks from that hospital. Her head had been shaved and she was shaking violently. In the accounts, the medical staff attending to her spoke of the horror they felt when they saw evidence of brutal rape…

“When she first came in, (the officers) said she was hemorrhaging from her rectum… due to repeated rape. The plainclothes men insisted that the doctor write it as rape prior to arrest,” wrote one member of the medical staff in one of the messages.

“After the truth became obvious to all, they changed the whole script,” wrote the medic. CNN can confirm that four to five medics leaked the messages to social media. All of them said they believed she was sexually assaulted in custody.

Iranian security forces rushed her out the back of the hospital just before her family arrived to see her. The regime claimed she’s been taken to the hospital for “digestive problems.” But when CNN called the hospital to ask about her treatment, they denied she had ever been there. She is now being held in a prison and her condition is unknown.

Another young woman named Hana was arrested and police found video of her burning her hijab. She described being held in a jail with about 30 other women:

“There were kids as young as 13 and 14 years old who were captured in the demonstrations. They were brutally hurt. They hurt the girls even more. They sexually violated them.”…

There was a main hall with private interrogation rooms off it, she says. “An officer would take a pretty girl, and he would go to a room to be alone with her and sexually assault her.”

Hana was also assaulted by one of the guards in an interrogation room. Overall CNN heard 11 stories involving rape or sexual assault, five of which they were able to corroborate. Human rights groups have also been receiving stories of similar abuse so there’s not much doubt this is happening. Iran’s regime will justify anything to preserve its miserable existence, even rape as a means to punish women for daring to remove a hijab.