A few weeks after Iran’s “president,” Ebrahim Raisi, promised stricter enforcement of his nation’s misogynistic dress code, a woman named Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurd, was likely beaten to death by “morality police” for failing to wear her hijab properly. The apparent murder was nothing new for the theocratic “guidance patrols” that have been patrolling cities since the 1979 Islamic revolution, one of the most disastrous events of the late 20th century.

This week, Leslie Stahl of “60 Minutes” interviewed this same theocratic crackpot responsible for Amini’s death wearing a hijab. And it immediately reminded me of Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci’s 1979 interview with Ayatollah Khomeini. The juxtaposition reminds us just how much journalistic integrity has eroded.

Rarely mentioned these days, Fallaci, who died in 2006, was somewhat of a celebrity due to her pugilistic interviews with world leaders in the 1960s and 1970s. A war correspondent for most of her career, Fallaci was shot three times and left for dead during student demonstrations in Mexico City in 1968 in what became known as the Tlatelolco massacre. Striking and sophisticated, uninterested in the ideology or political affiliation of her victims, Fallaci had no patience for moral equivalency. In truth, she was a liberal of the old school, and her infinite skepticism regarding power made her the most formidable interviewer of her time. “Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon,” she is quoted in her book “Interviews with History” (which should be required reading in journalism school). “I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born.” //

Fallaci, barefoot and covered in Islamic garb from head to toe, proceeds to challenge every Khomeini lie, confronting him on his fascistic tactics and murders. You really need to read the transcript to comprehend just how masterfully she handles the interview. Here is a snippet of her challenging the Iranian regime’s insistence that she wear religious garb – a “stupid, medieval rag.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/07/archives/an-interview-with-khomeini.html