Posted on 08/04/2010 12:13:12 AM PDT by theanchoragedailyruse
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old Iranian and the mother of two children, was convicted of adultery--a conviction based on a forced confession that Sakineh later retracted--in May 2006 and sentenced to death by stoning.
Since her conviction, Sakineh has spent four years as an inmate in Iran's notorious Tabriz Prison, never knowing if today will be the day where her jailers take her from her cell, to a hole in the earth, bury her chest high and then pelt her with stones until she bleeds to death.
Like Sakineh, I too am a mother and I was born in Iran. Zahra, the character I played in the movie "The Stoning of Soraya M," endured the unendurable cruelty of watching her niece being stoned to death, a fate similar to the reality awaiting Sakineh and 35 other Iranian women in 2010. Article 104 of the Iranian Penal Code is very specific about how this barbaric act of punishment is to be administered. It says that each stone used should "not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes; nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones." For the Iranian regime, justice means the deliberate, slow, painful and ritualized murder of its very own citizens.
Sakineh's children, Sajjad, 22, and Fasride, 17, are fighting bravely to save their mother's life. The online petition they launched (http://freesakineh.org), as part of a global awareness campaign has gathered over 100,000 signatures and the support of western governments and media. Both the U.S. and British governments have condemned the verdict. Surprisingly, this outside pressure has had a positive effect. On July 10th, Iran's High Council for Human Rights said that Sakineh's case would be reviewed.
However, Sakineh's temporary reprieve from stoning doesn't mean she won't be killed. The Iranian regime has in the past, changed the method of execution from stoning to hanging and it has executed prisoners without informing their families and without public notice.
The Iranian government has imposed the most extensive form of media censorship concerning Sakineh's case, but her children, at great risk to their own safety, are determined to speak truth to power. They have written: "We stretch our hands to the people of the world, no matter where you are in the world, save our mother." Now, all of us who care about justice, must join Sajjad and Fasride, who, unlike their government, stand on the right side of justice, compassion and history itself.
We demand freedom for Sakineh Ashtiani and for all those imprisoned in Iran because their confessions to crimes they never committed were obtained by torture and coercion. Most importantly, we demand that the Iranian government abolish stoning. The time has come for Iranians, Muslims, indeed all people who truly believe in human dignity to insist that this shameful and barbaric act be ended now and forevermore.
She needs to preach this to the mullahs in Iran and imams throughout islam. Telling us here in the West that stoning needs to be abolished, I think she’s a millennia too late.
Preaching to the Mullahs is going to change them?
The West needs to start throwing big stones at the Iranian regime.
“Let he who is without sin...”
The Mullahs don’t subscribe to that.
However,
“..The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”
Well, in that case again we'er talking about the Mullahs, so first you have to be like Abraham and search for ten good men among them.
To destroy stoning you must destroy islamic rule as stoning is prescribed throughout the Islamic world under Sharia law.
And our torture Killerrs sue if they feel the slightest twinge.
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