Posted on 02/12/2008 7:55:44 AM PST by knighthawk
Early morning in Tehran, and two mobile cranes are being manoeuvred into place. They are to act as temporary gallows for a public execution.
Already the crowd are out in force, some of them in a remarkably cheery mood. A few are getting ready to photograph the scene on their mobile phones. There are even one or two young children around.
Amid this strangely everyday scene, the black-masked hangmen begin their work. They attach nooses to the cranes, check they are secure.
As the sentence is read out, the two criminals are brought out.
They have been convicted of bank robberies and murders, including the murder of a senior judge, close to this very spot in Tehran.
But there is no sign of remorse. In fact, one of the two men can't stop smiling, even as the noose is put around his neck. Then swiftly the stool is pulled from under their legs.
The bodies are left dangling - a lesson for everyone to see.
'Executions necessary'
Under the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the number of executions has increased dramatically.
Amnesty International says the figures are up from 200 executions in 2006 to about 300 last year, and there have been more than 30 in the first month of this year alone.
The Iranian government says the executions are necessary to deter hardened criminals - murderers, drug dealers and rapists.
Ayatollah Mahdi Hadavi, a professor of Islamic law based in the holy city of Qom, explained this interpretation of Islam.
"In Islam, punishment is very harsh," he said. "Because the philosophy of punishment is to prevent the people from committing a crime."
In future that may include fewer public executions. The most recent was held in January.
But now Iran's chief judge has ordered that none should be held without his personal authorisation.
However, a similar edict stopping the punishment of stoning to death does not seem to have been obeyed.
Legs amputated
One man was stoned to death in Iran last year, after being convicted of adultery.
Human rights groups say two sisters, Zohreh and Azar Kabiri, now face the same penalty, after they were also convicted of adultery. Both are mothers, each with one child.
To add to this challenging list of punishments, the Iranian Nobel peace prize winner and human rights lawyer, Shirin Ebadi, has warned of a revival of the practice of amputation.
She said that several criminals in the remote province of Sistan-Baluchistan had recently had hands and legs amputated.
The violation of human rights in Iran had found new dimensions, warned the group of lawyers that she heads.
Ms Ebadi says she believes that there is a political dimension to the growing number of executions: "I see this as way of putting fear into society. They want to use this to frighten people, to make people afraid of voicing criticism."
Western liberals
It's not a charge that's likely to concern President Ahmadinejad.
His government has turned to a strict interpretation of Islam as a way of reviving the revolution and controlling the population.
It's hard to say how many people in Iran support these policies, though they are certainly more popular with Mr Ahmadinejad's poorer, more conservative, rural supporters.
On this 29th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, the government of the Islamic republic is prouder than ever of its difference from Western liberal countries.
It thrives on a confrontation with the West, not just on matters of foreign policy, but on basic questions of religious and social values.
Nowhere are these differences more stark than in Iran's increasingly tough attitude to crime and punishment.
Ping
Stoning and Iran
Voice of America (Editorial)
Several people have been stoned to death in Iran in recent years. Ja’far Kiani, was stoned to death for adultery on July 5, 2007 in the village of Aghche-kand, near Takestan in Qazvin province. There are fears that Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, the mother of their two children, may suffer the same fate.
A woman and a man were stoned to death in Mashhad in May 2006. Two sisters, Zohreh Kabiri and Azar Kabiri, allegedly found guilty of adultery, face death by stoning.
Iran’s penal code allows execution by stoning as the penalty for adultery by married persons. The law even defines the proper size of the stones to be used: each one must cause pain when thrown at the accused, but cannot be large enough to kill the person with only one or two hits. As Amnesty International said in a written report, the punishment is “specifically designed to maximize the suffering of its victims.”
In 2002, the head of Iran’s judiciary, Mahmud Hashemi Shahrudi, announced a ban on stoning. Yet this barbaric practice continues and it is disproportionately applied to women.
According to Amnesty International, eleven women and two men currently face execution by stoning, many after grossly unfair trials. According to Amnesty International, women are also particularly vulnerable because their higher illiteracy rate makes them more likely to sign confessions to crimes they did not commit.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack expressed U.S. concern that in Iran “individuals are being sentenced to death, including by stoning, for crimes that do not meet the standards outlined in the International Covenant for civil and Political Rights, which Iran has ratified.” That Covenant states that a “sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes,” and that “no one shall be subject to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=14141
They need to stop bitching and start a revolution. It seems like Kalishnikovs grow on trees in that part of the world, so if they want freedom maybe they should, oh I don’t know, fight for it themselves (the young Iranians that is)?
Ping
Not to worry....Obama says he'll talk with them.
Non-stop sabotage of all manner of public and government facilities would be good too. It is dangerous, but so is living under the thumb of these ruling lunatics and barbarians. Time for some Teheran Tea Parties.
If they run out, we could give them some of our extra soft-on-crime, activist judges. Also some of our liberals and environmentalist whose draconian regulations and tax rates are strangling our working poor and middle class Americans.
“His government has turned to a strict interpretation of Islam as a way of reviving the revolution and controlling the population.”
Controlling the population. That’s the key there.
Taking care of those alcoholics, the Iranian way...
I appreciate your threads reporting regime atrocities, but I wanted to make you aware that the source you use, “Iran Focus” is pro-MEK. (MEK propaganda site)
No question. I really wish more oppressed people would stand up and fight for their freedom instead of depending on others to do it. I’ve never believed in that Trotskyite 4th international bs of “awarding freedom.” It’s one thing to help a populace in their effort, as France did with us, but to fight someone’s revolution for them is an exercise in futility.
That reminds me of something I wrote in a LTTE:
Christianity
But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
"No one, sir," she said.
"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin." (John 8:1-11)
Islam
There came to him (the Holy Prophet) a woman from Gamid and said: ‘Allah’s Messenger, I have committed adultery, so purify me.’ He (the Holy Prophet) turned her away. On the following day she said: ‘Allah’s messenger, why do you turn me away? ... By Allah I have become pregnant.’ He said ‘Well, if you insist upon it, then go away until you give birth.’ When she was delivered she came with the child (wrapped) in a rag, and said ‘Here is the child whom I have given birth to.’ He said ‘Go away and suckle him until you wean him.’ When she had weaned him, she came to him (the Holy Prophet) with the child who was holding a piece of bread in his hand. She said ‘Allah’s Apostle, here is he as I have weaned him and he eats food.’ He (the Holy Prophet) entrusted the child to one of the Muslims and then pronounced punishment. And she was put in a ditch up to her chest and he commanded people and they stoned her. (Sahih Muslim 4206)
Not to worry....Obama says he’ll talk with them.
Does he believe in death by stoning? If he becomes president of the US will stoning replace the electric chair or injections?
Controlling the population. That’s the key there.
Some of us promote the death penalty to deter bad behavior here. Flame away, the article does have an agenda but it should make us think a little, just maybe not the way the author is trying to influence us.............
When the people of Iran have had enough they will probably do something.
FWIW, it's not just an Islamic thing. "Watching the hangings" was a popular entertainment in England, back in the 18th and 19th centuries.
American public hangings were similarly well-attended ... I remember reading one account where the rope was cut up and the pieces handed out as souvenirs of the event.
Here is a picture of the last public hanging in the US, back in 1936, in Owensboro, KY.
Not a sparsely attended event....
Wrong. It's called 'punishment'. And when we do it the rights of the condemned are scrupulously observed. Every legal avenue has been exhausted, and the sentence is carried out in the most humane way possible.
Executions are carried out away from the public eye, with only a few observers present as required by law.
The death penalty is reserved only for the most heinous of crimes in the U.S.
It literally takes decades to execute a convict in this country and millions of taxpayer dollars are spent on the defense of the condemned.
These barbarians observe no such customs. Condemned persons, including children btw, are hauled by the neck off the ground by cranes and left to strangle. This is done quite publicly with the sole aim of terrifying the population into submission to a gang of 7th Century islamofascist scum.
Comparing our legal system to theirs is a rude joke.
L
I have sometimes thought that losing a hand might be an effective method for handling professional thieves. Maybe when convicted on a third-strike offense the criminal could be offered the option of amputation in place of life imprisonment. Or maybe amputation takes the place of life imprisonment in the case of a third strike conviction involving any form of theft. Or maybe amputation could be the penalty for a certain degree of theft - say the theft of millions by so-called “white collar” criminals.
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