Category: News and Views
Just remember, we are the uncivelized ones.
an airs 'confession' of woman who faced stoning
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI (AP) – 22 minutes ago
TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian state television broadcast a purported confession by a woman who had faced death by stoning on an adultery conviction, a case that has drawn U.S. concern, an offer of asylum from Brazil and international protests.
Human Rights Watch says Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, was first convicted in May 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men after the death of her husband and was sentenced by a court to 99 lashes. Later that year she was also convicted of adultery and sentenced to be stoned, even though she retracted a confession that she claims was made under duress.
Iran last month lifted the stoning sentence for the time being after international outrage over the brutality of the punishment. Ashtiani has also been convicted of involvement in the death of her husband, whom Iranian prosecutors say was murdered. She could still face execution by hanging in the two cases.
Iranian officials have not elaborated on the murder case.
The outcry over the death sentence is the latest source of friction between Iran and the international community, with the United States, Britain and human rights groups urging Tehran to stay the execution. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on Iran this week to release all political prisoners and expressed alarm about several specific detainees, including Ashtiani. Brazil, which has friendly relations with Iran, offered asylum to the mother of two.
The broadcast of the purported confession late Wednesday was seen as an effort by Iran to ward off international pressure and possibly to draw attention to the murder allegation, a crime that is punishable by death in the U.S. and other countries as well.
The woman identified as Ashtiani said in the broadcast she was an unwitting accomplice to her husband's murder. Her face was blurred and a woman who was not seen translated her words into Farsi from Azeri Turkish, which is spoken in parts of Iran.
"I established telephone contacts with a man in 2005," she said. "He deceived me by his language. ... He told me, 'Let's kill your husband.' I could not believe at all that my husband would be killed. I thought he was joking. ... Later I learned that killing was his profession." She said the man, whom she did not identify, brought electrical devices, wire and gloves to her house and electrocuted her husband while she watched.
Malek Ajdar Sharifi, a senior judiciary official, was quoted by state TV as part of the same report as alleging that Ashtiani had given her husband an injection that left him unconscious, then the man attached electrical devices to his neck and killed him.
Sharifi also said Ashtiani sent her children out of the house to clear the way for her husband's murder.
Rights groups say Iran uses forced confessions in trials against political prisoners, including in the mass trial of more than 100 activists and former government officials accused of taking part in last year's postelection unrest.
"This so-called confession forms part of growing catalog of other forced confessions and self-incriminating statements made by many detainees in the past year," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
In Wednesday's broadcast, the woman also criticized her lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, for publicizing her case.
"Why did he televise the case? Why did he discredit me before my family members and relatives who didn't know I'm in jail?" she said. "Now, I have a complaint against him."
Mostafaei maintained a blog that sparked a worldwide campaign to free his client. In July, Iranian authorities said they would not carry out the stoning sentence for the time being. The lawyer fled to Norway, where he has applied for asylum.
Stoning was widely imposed in the years after the 1979 Islamic revolution, and even though Iran's judiciary still regularly hands down such sentences, they are often converted to other punishments.
The last known stoning was carried out in 2007, although the government rarely confirms that such punishments have been meted out.
Under Islamic rulings, a man is usually buried up to his waist, while a woman is buried up to her chest with her hands also buried. Those carrying out the verdict then throw stones until the condemned dies.
Ashtiani's stoning was approved by the country's Supreme Court, but the law could allow the judiciary head to order another trial or appeal for a pardon from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters.
Amnesty International said it believes Ashtiani's current lawyer, Javid Houtan Kian, has submitted a 35-page request for a judicial review of her case and is expecting a response by Aug. 15.
(This version CORRECTS that Ashtiani was convicted of involvement in husband's death.)
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
what gets me about these things is that usually it's only the women that are punished. so for instance it is illegal for a woman to commit adultery but not a man. wtf is that about?
ya, what I find interesting is someone on here the other night said how us americans like to see our women naked and all that.
I guess it's better to cover them up, whip them and then hit them with stones.
Okay, I could understand the death sentence for murder, provided that she wasn't abused etc. But adultery? How can you commit adultery when your spouse is dead? And what the hell is wrong with seeing someone (or even two people) if your spouse is no longer living? Do they honestly expect women to wallow away their lives in grief and to never have sexual relations with anyone again after such a thing happens? Sure, there are some who do, and if the love is that strong, I could understand it. But to make it a law? And in any case, even if I agreed that adultery should be an actual crime, which I don't, being stoned to death for it is way! too harsh. If anything, make the person wear some kind of scarlet letter or something. That should cause shame and get the point across without physical harm. Still, I must say, if someone calls you out of the blue and says "let's kill your husband" why on Earth would you take that as a joke? Something seems wrong here. Of course, if this really is a forced confession, then it shouldn't be relied upon and the government has even more explaining to do than it does about the stoning. I'd sure as hell rather see someone naked than brutally killed, particularly if they're innocent. A little nudity on it's own is fine.
I took a class some years back in the Old Testament. The scholar who taught the class was teaching us about the commandment against adultery. He explained that the original law, in the Old Testament, pertained NOT to married men seeing other women, unless the other women were married, but to married women seeing men other than their husbands. If a man has many wives, he can have many children,, but if a woman has more than one sex partner, she can only have a child of unknown or disputed paternity. There is a letter to Dear Prudence on msnslate today on such a messy issue of a woman 20 years ago having 2 sex partners & one man claimed he was infertile, another the DNA results came back negative. This is why it is considered undesirable for women to have more than one partner.
That said, we are supposed to be living in a modern society, and no one should be stoned for what amounts to a civil matter. And as I told someone last week, few people are looking to migrate to the Islamic majority parts of the world, while many are lined up seeking to come west. That should speak volumes.
Spongebob you're right on the immigration issue. When time permits, I shall put together a piece here in this thread on how stoning is performed and how the victim dies.
And that will include links. With audio.
Stoning, be it Biblical, Islamic or otherwise, is indefensible, repugnant and brutish. Unlike hanging, there is no reasonable explanation for any part of it. As an aside, if we no longer depended on these numbnuts empires for oil, they would cease to exist; beliefs don't pay the bills.
The Iranian regime is very backward. It is good that this case is getting so much attention. We can hope that the pressure will lead to Iran abolishing such unislamic violent punishments, and we can hope that the darkness that dominates the Iranian government and its supporters is overcome, so that God's light shines brightly in Iran and all the people who live there.
There is a website I heard about called www.sunnahfollowers.org, and an online friend of mine, who converted to Islam, had a big falling out (it was an all female group). American converts referred to this lady's Jewish husband as "Satan", and were supportive of the death sentence meted out to a Nigerian woman for adultery. My online friend was saying, Gee, Spongebob, they probably also support Pakistani and Indian women getting acid thrown in their faces for rejecting marriage proposals, too. I myself get so tired of hearing about "Muslim womens' rights" being the freedom to walk down the street without a headcovering, or integrating the sexes in prayer.
I see nothing wrong with separating the sexes at prayer, heck, Orthodox Jews do it that way too, they don't even count women as part of the minimum number of people needed to have a prayer service. This requires 10 men, as they only count folks who are obligated...men...to be in the synagogue. If there are 8 men and 2 women, they need 2 more men. How about protesting against disfigurement by acid for those who reject marriage proposals? How about protesting so called "honor killings", or these numbnuts who kill their daughters in the states 'cause they were getting "too Americanized"?! How about protesting the bombing of girls' schools in remote parts of Pakistan? Remember in the states back in the '50's use of the mental institution to get access to another person's money, or to make an excuse for divorce? Well, how about protesting the false accusation of adultery against women in Iran so that the husband will have an easier time remarrying as a widower? Why are so called womens' rights activists so hung up on trivial issues?! I could care less about the veil, I have been in an Islamic majority country twice and most women there cover up by tradition. How about protesting truly evil practices against human beings? I have even heard in some societies with family planning policies, like Tunisia, there is getting to be an unnatural discrepancy of girl babies to boy babies. How about protesting that?! No, it's easier to rant about veils and separate prayer facilities. Forget that...
Some people just don't have their heads screwed on right. I guess they'd rather deal with the easier issues and that makes them feel as if they're truly doing something. Perhaps, they think that other people will deal with the larger ones, which is utterly ridiculous. I totally agree with you that these more serious things need to be dealt with first. Even if you did want to change something as simple as separate prayer, do you honestly think that a society which stones women for adultery would consider viewing them as equal or even just regular human beings who deserve basic rights? Obviously, there's something majorly wrong here and it goes way beyond a veil.
I concur completely with Spongebob, nice to hear it from a woman. I've been called a pig for saying the same, so , oink oink? Seriously what did the conference on women in Beijing China (where one-child policies rendered baby girls an endangered species) accomplish? Scuse the practicalities, but where are the solutions? Who did what and what got done? Passed a few resolutions that allowed western affluent complaining American women to complain some more, anything else? Next?
I agree with post 8, but the answer is that it is politically disadvantageous to complain about the actions of Islamic extremists, because those who don't complain are "antiwar". This means that like Islamists, they will passionately protest against the US, the UK and Israel. They have a common enemy - the West, and don't want to make enemies of each other. There is a group in the UK that opposes war with Iran, but because it also opposes the Iranian government and would like to see the regime peacefully overthrown, it isn't welcome in the Stop the War Coalition.
So as far as the antiwar activists are concerned, the suffering of Muslims only matters if the West can be blamed for it. It doesn't matter when Muslims suffer because of other Muslims.
And I thought I had some fucked up logic! Man!
Do any Muslims actually express outrage over incidents like this?! I think to be truly considered Muslim these days, a person has to be 1) Arab, 2) white supremacist, and 3) anti west. Well guess what? I accepted Islam some years ago in a lovely community of mostly Indian practitioners, and I married someone from a Muslim majority country, but I cannot take on the attitudes of a lot of Muslims I know, and none of those three descriptives fits me.
Do you ever hear any of these louts express outrage over the plight of Indian Kashmir, whose Muslim majority residents have been deprived of a vote to determine if they want to 1) be an independent nation, or 2) go under Pakistani rule, and they have been deprived of that opportunity for over 50 years? Young adults go missing in that part of India, never to be found dead or alive, do any of these so called Muslims express outrage over that?
The Clinton government destroyed what they thought was an "enemy target" in Sudan in the '90's. What it actually was? A medicine factory. Yes, that's right, so now treatment of diseases has been set back 100 years in that nation, but hey, it's at least half black Muslims, animists, and Christian, so I guess not entirely being an Arab nation they don't count either.
Do any of these mush for brains ever protest the violation and killing of black Muslims in the Sudan by their Arab "bretheren"? Sorry, revert to second example, they don't count as fellow Muslims because they're not Arab. I actually admire American actor George Clooney for speaking out about the genocide in the Sudan when everyone else is focused on whining about Iraq. I bet "actor" Danny Glover would shut up about the plight of the Iraqi people when he found out how low many Arabs regard black people. They even enslave and mistreat them in parts of Mauritania and Saudi Arabia, among other nations.
I once posted on a Muslim womens' web page. I asked if anyone had any knowledge about the fight for rights for Iranian women. I got no reply at all. Of course not, they're too busy focusing on nonsense like a few hairs coming out of the much maligned headscarf, and besides, Iranians are NOT Arab.
I have become a strange combination of Uma Thurman and Anne Rice. Ms Thurman was asked if she was a buddhist, like her religion professor father. She replied, no, she is a divorced mom of two who is very busy and doesn't truly have the time to practice any faith to the extent it would take her to be a true practitioner. She also doesn't understand why people call themselves the names of religions they don't practice. Anne Rice recently walked out on Catholicism, stating she couldn't deny Christ or his divine message, but she couldn't be anti woman, anti artificial birth control, anti Democrat, anti gay, and she couldn't be a part of this group any longer.
Well working full time and having a child to parent I lack time for 5 prayers a day, and I cannot be anti Republican, anti west, anti wealthy, white supremacist, pro Arab, taking advantage of public assistance...that last thing was truly advised to me by Muslims where I live...in short I can't be part of the Muslim community socially. I don't deny God, or prayer, or fasting, I am right now seeing the benefit of the latter, and maybe someday I will return to private prayer, but I cannot identify myself with causes that are actually Arab in nature or be anti west or visually identify myself as part of a group of women that fails to integrate and be self sufficient here.
Wow. All of this is sincerely sick, but the part that really got me was the medicine factory! Is America doing anything about their mistake? They give tons of money to other places. Surely, they should do something here, considering that they were the ones who destroyed it. What's wrong with these other Muslims that they don't speak up or do something about their co-religionists who are in so much trouble? Sure, we may have different views, but if attrocities were going on against Hellenic Polytheists, I'm sure a huge number of us would try to help in whatever ways we could. Good for Anne Rice! I've always liked her and now she's earned a few more points of my respect. I don't hate Christians but don't like the Catholic ideas either. I personally think that, in general, people worship as they see fit. I, for example, don't follow the ancient Athenian calendar of festivals etc., sacrifice as much as I should, perform rituals and the like or have an altar. But I love The Gods and I say my own prayers every night to Them. I write things for Them when They help me, give in Their names when I can and I'm happy. That doesn't make me any less religious. It just means that I don't do it right down to the letter.
Though I don't know of any Muslim groups expressing outrage against this incident, there are certainly Muslims who disagree with the government of Iran. In Iran, they have protested. In the UK, there are groups set up by Iranian Muslims that oppose the Iranian government.
I don't think it is fair to link this with on-going conflicts that involve Muslims, such as those in Kashmir and Sudan. Problems such as stoning to death are problems across the Muslim world - not just among Arabs. Iranians don't consider themselves Arabs anyway.
As for the conflict in Kashmir, India was only partitioned because Muslims refused to live harmoneously with Hindus, Sikhs, Budhists and Christians. These other groups live together harmoneously in India.
In Darfur, most sides have committed war crimes, but the Sudanese are more powerful. I'm not aware of Muslim groups that opposed the Sudanese government as passionately as they opposed the wars in Iraq, Lebanon and now Afghanistan.
As for the bombing of the factory, it's very easy to blame the US if Sudan hasn't recovered, but let's not forget that Sudan has enough money to fight several internal wars simultaneously and be involved in other wars.
In response to Tiffanitsa, it isn't as easy for Muslims in Muslim countries to speak up as it is for us. In some places, you can be killed for speaking up.
In Western nations, political activists are unwilling to say anything against Muslim countries for the reasons I gave in my previous post. Like the political activists, the Iranian regime and other despotic governments in Muslim countries are hostile to Israel and the US. So are many Islamic extremists who agree with killing in the name of their religion. If the political activists were to criticise these Muslims, they would risk losing important allies. Therefore it is better to remain quiet and united, because opposing the West is more important to these people, than the lives of any victims of Islamic extremism.
SpungeBob, very interesting post, cool to see views from a Muslim that is not the western stereotype, bearded, with gun in one hand abd tge coran in the other, wearing an explosive west and attending pilot school.
One thing I have to say for the so-called attrocities of the west, particularly in Africa, though it is not a Christian vs muslim thing. Tens, hundreds of millions of dollars have been given in aide, and by the sign of things the majority of that money has gone to funding internal wars and upholding dictatorships. They know the west will supply food so they allow the most fertile continent in the world to starve, due to lac of infrastructure. I have no interest in giving to that cause, since I do not want to fun dictators, and I think the first step has to come from within or with funds and organizations that insure that money given to Africa will help them become self sufficient, not send them leftover canned food and money to buy weapons. So even if a medicine factory was boombed (which is an awful crime), I am sure Sudan has gotten more than enough to rebuild it ten times over and I am sure most of that money was not spent on helping people.
I find the Islam faith interesting, not in a "I want to convert" way, but definitely I need to study it more some time, because I think understanding of it is important, since the prejudice is just as wide spread here.
With regards to the first post .. saying America is civilized because they do not stone people to death for speaking out is like saying you are smart because you got better grade than the dumbest kid in class.
Also America strives and advertizes itself as the freeest and fairest country in the world, not just an average western nation, so it is its own fault if America is held to higher standards than the rest of the west. If you claim to be the best it is not enough to say that, at least, you are better than the worst.
I certainly feel attitudes in the Muslim world need to change, at lesat in parts of it, if we are all to live together in some resemblance of peace one day but I thin our attitue has to change too, and we have to lead by example, not by bombs and technology.
I wasn't referring to Muslims in Muslim countries. I should've clarified. I was talking about those in The West and in other such places that offer freedom of speech. I don't mind dictators, so long as they're actually needed and do what is best for the country. But I do have serious problems with funding extremists who severely harm the populations of their countries. Now that I know that Sudan has all of these internal wars, I don't feel as sorry for them. If medicine was that important to them, they would put aside some of that money to have this place rebuilt. But apparently, they'd rather kill each other instead. As for America giving money in general, I think they should focus on their own people first. There are plenty in this country who are hungry, homeless and in need of good medical care. Besides, one of their strategies in Africa was to fund abstinence only programs instead of teaching people about stds and safe sex. I love the point about America claiming to be the best and not just being better than the worst. I will remember it in future. I also agree about leading by example. If hate is promoted, then no one should ever wonder that it still exists so strongly in the world. It's something I learned from Sokrates. If you're truly upset about the problems that you see around you, either do something about them, move to another place or shut up when you're persecuted and accused since you did nothing to stop it.
I applaud the Iranian Muslims in the U K for speaking out against the Iranian government. Best of luck to 'em! Another group of Muslims I cannot be a part of...those who cannot coexist in society with Buddhists, Hinduists, Christians or persons of other faiths. Most of the Muslims I knew from India were from Gujarat state in India and had never been in Kashmir, so they treated non Indians, non Muslims as they wanted to be treated, respecting the fact that both in India and U S they were in the minority.
Senior, I second the part about it not being easy to speak out in Muslim majority countries. In Mr. Sponge's native Algeria, around the '90's, an amnesty was offered to the "religious" elements who fought against both the secular army & civilians in the 10 year civil war there. If they gave up their arms, they would not be prosecuted nor tried for war crimes. Most accepted the offer, and they live around Algerian civilians and enjoy the same benefits of living in that society, and you are NOT free to even speak of it, much less complain about it. Megan's Law in the U S, that allows people access to information that lets them know a registered sex offender lives near them, would not stand the test of time there.
I accept the spiritual tenets of this faith, but I have my own questions, like if it really is the ideal way to live, why do people in so many Muslim majority nations live in poverty? Why have there been so many conflicts in the name of what is supposed to be a peaceful faith? The first trip I took to Algeria we connected at the Milan Airport, and in customs there was a huge line of people, most of them visibly representing Muslim majority countries, and, as we had a long layover, I got the chance to observe Muslims overseas. There is NOT a big line of people waiting in customs at the Algiers airport. Now they have their immigrants, generally sub Saharan Africans looking for work in the wealthier northern states, and Chinese from the mainland who are generally part of construction crews, but as a rule far more people are looking to emigrate west. That says something needs to change in the Muslim world.
The answer to your question from a Muslim perspective Spongebob, is that governments that call themselves Muslim are not Islamic. The governments that are funded by the West want to get as much from Western governments as they can. They impose oppressive laws on Muslims and non Muslims that are not in the Koran. They deliberately misinterpret the Koran to justify their oppressive laws and inhumane actions.
Tiffanitsa - in Western countries, Muslims who go against the antiwestern activists are usually marginalised. For example, if there were some Palestinians who wanted to protest against the conflict between Israel and Palestinians, but wanted to condemn the Hamas rockets and use of innocent civilians as human shields as well as the Israeli bombs - instead of just condemning Israel, they would not be welcome in the Stop the War Coalition, even though they are more antiwar than people who are only against one side's actions.
A woman aged 20, and man aged 27 were stoned to death by the Talibastards in Afghanistan, after being found guilty of... ... ... ... ... having an affair.
It's hard, because as much as I disagree with that laws in such countries, they disagree with our laws, and I certainly wouldn't want them to stop us from our "ways", if you will, so it's not really fair to say we should stop them from doing what they're doing, even though I think, personally, that they should.
Senior, did you see the one about the Talibastards...love this name...flogging then hanging a pregnant widow in Afghanistone? It's no wonder so many Muslims voted for the most pro-abortion president in America's history if some don't even care about executing pregnant women. The irony of this name...Taliban...is that in Arabic it means "students", and the taliban are largely illiterate males taught by illiterate mullahs.
Knew I forgot something...here goes...Ocean Dream, the thing is about folks in places like Iran & Afghanistan, in particular the former, folks accused of adultery often don't get the Qu'ranic process which requires a minimum number of witnesses who can say they witnessed the same act. In Iran a husband sick of his wife & wanting to avoid a costly divorce can accuse and have his wife stoned as an adulteress, thus remarrying as a widower. Now Sunni Islamic tradition...the Shi'i and Deobandi traditions of I-ran & Afghanistone are two different things...anyway I asked a Sunni scholar about platonic male friendships as I am more likely to have guy friends than girl friends. He informed me if those friendships take place out in the open, not behind closed doors, it's ok. Probably in those two countries me having coffee with a male co-worker...if my workplace wasn't segregated...could get me stoned or hung. Do you really want to see someone executed for having a friend?
Strangely enough, the last woman to argue in defense of the Iranians using the logic of "it's relative, it's a cultural thing, they probably regard us as backwards" was a woman many Muslims would love to see dead...a mulatta lesbian woman. I know "Muslims" who regard her black half as "nigger", and do you really think these folks want to see the survival of a lesbian?! Or gay male?! Even in relatively liberal Morocco, being openly gay can get you beaten.
man and woman have been publicly stoned to death by the Taliban over an alleged love affair, it has emerged.
The couple - who were both engaged to other people - were arrested by the Taliban at the request of their families when they tried to elope.
They died in a bazaar in the Kunduz province of Afghanistan yesterday.
The executions are the first of their kind by the Taliban in the area.
Extremists prepare a woman to be stoned (file photo). An Afghan couple have been stoned to death for adultery, it has emerged
They follow a call last week by Afghan clerics for a return to sharia and capital punishments carried out under the Islamic law.
They also come a week after officials said the Islamist militants publicly flogged and executed a woman accused of adultery in northwestern Badghis province.
The hardline Islamists, who drew international criticism for such punishments when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, have distanced themselves from the incident in Badghis.
'The two were stoned to death in a bazaar of Dasht-e Archi district on the accusation of committing the act of adultery,' said Mohammad Omar, the governor of Kunduz.
A spokesman for the group said today he was not aware of the Kunduz incident.
The couple died in Dasht-e Archi in Kunduz, Afghanistan
Sharia prescribes punishments such as stonings, lashings, amputations and execution.
A gathering of clerics, meeting last week to discuss reconciliation with the Taliban, expressed support for such punishments, known as 'hodud'.
Some Afghans still refer to Taliban courts for settling disputes, viewing government bodies as corrupt or unreliable.
Despite the presence of more than 140,000 foreign troops, backed by 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police, the Taliban have managed to spread beyond their traditional strongholds in the south into formerly peaceful areas like Kunduz.
Today, a spokesman for Nato-led forces criticised the Taliban for carrying out what he said were acts of indiscriminate violence against ordinary Afghans.
'They have increased acts of violence and repression against innocent Afghans,' Brigadier General Josef Blotz told reporters.
'The insurgents have clearly given up winning over the population, knowing that they don't have an appealing vision for the people.'
A U.N. report last week showed civilian casualties had risen by 31 per cent over the first six months of 2010, with 1,271 killed.
The Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for 76 per cent of casualties.
spongebob, I think you're missing ocean-dream's point here. she agrees with the majority, but thinks that there's no need to say their laws are wrong cause they'd say the same about ours.
Just so everyone understands exactly what were talking about here.
EYEWITNESS TO STONING WOMAN IN SAUDI ARABIA FOR ADULTERY
[Freeman Centre's List's Editor's Note: When the Arabs attack Israelis with stones they call it NON-VIOLENCE. The media and most people agree. Read below and see just how non-violent it is.]
When I was sent to Riyadh for a month to work with the US Air Force for a joint assignment, I never realized the sights I'd see. One of them was a public stoning. All I saw was a woman standing in a hole tied to a post, she was shoulder deep in the hole. The guy I was with wanted to see it. It's rare that westerners are even allowed to see this They gathered around this poor girl for around an hour, throwing rocks at her.
Stoning a human to death
Dear readers, please put on your thinking cap and imagine a mental picture of the following story.
A deep hole is dug in the ground. A 30 year old lady, tied up from feet to shoulders, as a stick, is lowered alive into this hole, in a standing position. Only her neck and head are visible. Can you imagine a human head sticking above ground?
When the order is given, a man throws a fist-sized stone at her protruding head. The stone hits her head with a thud. She screems in pain as the blood oozes down her face. Another man picks up a stone and scraps the side of her head drawing a lateral line of blood. She cries and screems in excruciating pain. Since it is a free for all, a teenage spectator from this open playing field, tries his luck, but misses her head completely. Another aims at her and flings it with force. The stone hits its intended target, her forehead.
She screems and cries loudly for mercy. There is now a gash on her forehead. Blood spurting out, down her eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth and down to the ground. She cries out for mercy but to not avail. The minutes become an hour, between the many misses, scraps, nicks, chips and strikes. Another spectator flings forcefully at her.
The stone hits the bridge of her nose with another thud. She screems again and again. This time the blood comes down from inside and outside her nose. Probably, her nasal bridge-bone is broken, causing the bleeding from inside her nostrils as well. Though her wounds are grave, as you can imagine, her screems by now are not as vociferous as earlier, and her tears help to wash some of the blood on her cheeks. Her vision has completely gone with the blood coating. The next stone hits her again. A piece of flesh pops out. No, its not, oh god, it really can't be her eye-ball. It is so bloody that you can't really make out. By this time, blood has covered her entire face and the ground in front of her. She still makes groaning sounds. More time pass. Stoning her, continues. Her sounds are less and less audible. Her face has become unrecognisable. Flesh, like mashed meat is her face, but only more bloody, as she now literally has no human face. Small strips of flesh, like locks of hair are hanging from her. Her head is now droopping forward. At this stage a hit on her make splashes of blood. She has stopped making a sound for the last two stone pelting. Two hours have passed. The Islamic authorities check her neck for pulse. It is still beating but barely, due to the loss of blood. A flesh piece drops off her head, as the stoning process continues.
Finally, death comes to this lady. She is then left there for a few more hours for the spectators to see, because this is a public lesson for all muslim females, who commit adultery. Then her father and relatives are allowed to dig her body, and bring it above ground. Pieces of her flesh, lying on the ground, is collected and because she has no face, it is put back on the front of her head, and bundled up. Now readers, imagine that is your mother, or your daughter, or sister, or even you, yourself.
DNA is not accepted in Islam, but at least 4 witnesses of reputable character, should give testimony of the actual penetration of the sexual intercourse to convict him. You might ask, who has sexual intercourse in front of 4 witnesses? I can also ask you "how can you consider 4 men watching others' sexual intercourse, as reputable characters?" But, there is no question or denying that this is not a traditonal, customary, cultural or a kangaroo court, but a legal Islamic court, with legal Islamic judges and legal expert Islamic officials, in the muslim state of Bakori ( Nigeria), of the legal Government, democratically elected by the Muslim citizens of this state. These are the undeniable authentic facts, which no amount of words or actions can ever repudiate.
in reference to my last post, I apologize for posting to the wrong topic.
There's so much wrong with this picture, in my opinion. I agree with you all the way about that, but that doesn't necessarily mean we have the right to say they can't do it, just as they can't say we can't practice our own laws. If you have a problem with your neighbour cheating on their significant other, that's fine, but that doesn't mean you can stop them.
TexasShawn and Spongebob,
I concur with this and I won't be looking up any info as what Texas Shawn has provided is sufficient.
What the "We can't stop them" people forget, however, is that these are takeovers. Muslim countries were not always like this, and before the 1980s, stonings weren't heard of for several hundred years.
There is no recent historical precedent before the takeovers by the Talibastards or Taliboneheads or whatever we call those, who used economic conditions and civil unrest as an opportunity to recruit and train new believers.
And the feministas, who I grew up in reasonable support of, have squatted on their own ideals, shat upon them, and proceeded to feast on the mixture, by raising small seemingly insignificant issues in the Western world or other African countries, interfering if you want to call it that, but preaching like a full-on fundie that nobody should interfere with Arab "culture".
Oh and what about this "culture?" Before the Taliban arrived in Afghanistan, women held positions, were professionals, were educated and went where they pleased. So according to the feministas, you can interfere some places but not others. Especially if said places have had their longstanding cultures without stoning usurped by terrorists dragging screaming women into the square for their own sadistic pleasure. If you can rightly call women cowards, I'd say the feministas have demonstrated for all of us in a modern world what cowardice looks like in all its glorious colors. So when the fundamentalist groups in this country take over, and when they begin to use old testament laws as excuses for stoning women - which will no doubt happen if they are given proper legal room and improper economic conditions to gain support, do *you * want the feminist women of other parts of the free world to sell you out? You're not a movement anymore, if you ever were, you've cashed that sucker in. "it's all in their culture," My ass! I read about a stoning of a fifteen-year-old girl, a girl the same age as my daughter, and to think that feministas had claimed to support ongoing generations of women, their sisterhood and all that, I repeat, you want the rest of the women of the free world to just stand by and claim it's your culture when a bunch of fundamentalists start throwing stones? They will: They've been learning from the Middle Eastern folks an awful lot in the past fifteen years. Hell, maybe the rest of the world's women really will take their cue from you!
That description of stoning is very sobering and frightening. To think that something like this is going on in 2010 CE is a horrible notion, and yet, it can't be denied. And to think that those who are actively involved in fighting for freedom, those who claim to care about the world, are not even trying to do anything about this sickens me. I may not do anything but I also don't make such huge claims either.
In college, I read a nonfiction book called "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi. It's a fascinating look at a group of female students and their female teacher and their experiences in an illegal classroom (the teacher's house) where the students read Lolita, among other banned books, in a course on great Western works of literature. An excellent review of it can be found here.
http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Lolita-Tehran-Memoir-Books/dp/081297106X
The mention of former female professionals brought that to mind because the author discussed that point as well as many other thought-prevoking things. The book was truly wonderful and I learned alot from it. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a firsthand look at the lives of women under Islamic rule and how they can overcome the harsh reality around them in their own ways.
LeoGuardian, we have plenty of those whiny apologist feministas up here in Boston whining "It's their cuuuuulture." On everything, from Iranian men depriving ex-wives access to their own children to these welfare trashy wives who don't even try to learn English or get a part time job throwing donuts at people, as if they just LOVE paying for everything from foreign language voting ballots to the health insurance of folks who have no relation to them. I sent one of those feministas, who is married to an Egyptian, with her tail between her legs, mentioning it made me mad some of these women from the old country get Medicaid and don't even work part time. "It's their cuuuulture." Um, no, I've been in that country twice, and women there go to their jobs, spend 3 months on unpaid maternity leave, then go back to work as globalization equalizes food prices while the salary is 1/10 of ours, and they get paid once a month whether they want it or they don't. Also Egyptian women have been going to work in the gulf states and even in their native Egypt, so women from these countries would be telling the welfare bums here to "Get off their a**es." Commentator Mark Steyn talked about how useless feministas were getting, complaining about a lack of female plumbers and pipefitters when so many women were being killed in honor killings from Damascus to Dallas. Useless as two teats on a frog if you ask me.
It's my opinion that won't change till their own kind - other women - don't want anything to do with them anymore. If I say anything I'm a pig; but if women do, what can they say, it's their own kind speaking up.
I have as much use for feministas as I have for a tatt or a piercing, and given only those choices would take the tatt or piercing over them. They're both useless, liberal and conservative. BTW, does anyone know about when the conservative movement became such a liberal bastard child for so called "womens' rights"?!
I think it's nauseating the way men are practically discarded in U S society, but this accounting of a stoning in Saudia Arabia had me in a somber mood and I didn't want to listen to music or even talk to much of anyone at work. I would take that punishment to spare my daughter such humiliation and agony. I guess they are sociopathic there, if they can really get their jollies out of causing such suffering to another human being. The so called "religious police" there are really thugs released from prison who happened to memorize qu'ran while they were locked up, kind of like "Jailhouse Christians" here, but I don't think a large percentage of people in American jails are sociopathic.
These b*t*h*s remind me of an episode of M*A*S*H*, the one where Hawkeye is trying to spare the lives of Eurasian children who would be shamed & killed in Korea, and the only person he was referred to was a suit who was having a serious phone debate about who to pair up with a sumo wrestler at a formal event. Finally Hawkeye gave him a good beating to get his help getting the kids out of there.
These (b words), I swear Laura Ingraham nauseates me, whining on her show about how second class Saudi women are treated, how they would just lOVE to reveal their hairstyles in public, they should be allowed to drive a car, not be treated as "blacks at the back of the bus" in the mosque...
(Rhymes with truck) her, she is just a passive aggressive little Ivy League snot, as if we didn't have enough of those running around MA, some people listen to one out of CT. (Rhymes with truck) driving a car. I didn't drive when I was in Algiers, and you won't hear me whining or crying about it. Same with NATIONAL REVIEW, wanting women to have the right to drive a car there.
I want them to have the right to be rescued from a burning building and not left there to die because they didn't have time to go back and get their cloaks to cover their street clothes. What about the right to not be falsely accused of adultery and killed in a manner I wouldn't wish on anyone? Shouldn't they have that right? How about the right to not walk around in sewage after one of their diplomats with property in San Francisco stole the money for water & sewer systems in Jeddah? How about advocating for that right?
Honestly, I couldn't get past about a paragraph of the witnessing of such a brutal death, even if I really don't like a person I can only go so far. It may give me nightmares, & I have to sleep soon. At the rate I'm going, I'll be like Michael Clarke Duncan's John Coffee character in Stephen King's "The Green Mile", where he's racing to get to the electric chair so he doesn't have to witness the ugliness human beings do to each other.
It goes without saying that I don't think anyone innocent should ever be killed or executed. And I certainly don't think that these so-called crimes warrant anything remotely close to what's happening. But should serial killers, rapists, abusers of the elderly, children or animals and the like be stoned? I honestly don't know. That said, there are plenty of other less grusome but still affective methods of torture and execution, so I probably wouldn't support it. I can't think of any crime this would fit.
I just read today this poor woman was given 99 lashes in the prison where she is being held as death row prisoner. The latest offense? A newspaper published a photo of her without a veil.
I have gotten sick of organized religion. Too many want to take one passage and throw out the others. Sure Islam teaches modesty of dress and has penalties for adultery. But isn't there something about compassion for widows and orphans? Or how about the verses that acknowledge "Taurat" (Old Testament) and "Injeel" (New Testament) as perfectly legitimate revelations? Isn't there a passage in the Book of Matthew of New Testament "Let he who is free of sin cast the first stone?". Barbaric stupid people...
The thing is. I bet you a desert full of cammels that behind the seenes behind the stonings, whippings, behind all the smoke and mirrors the leaders, clerics. etc. are screwing anything with and with out a mustash. Controll the masses and behind closed doors do what ever you priech against.
I disagree with people who say "well, it's their culture. We wouldn't want to impose their culture on us so we shouldn't impose our culture on them". That attitude is selfish and wrong. Everybody should be able to enjoy the same freedoms and rights we take for granted.
People should not be stoned to death for adultery anywhere in the world. Nor should they be beaten because of their choice of clothing. Just because something is culturally normal/traditional that doesn't mean it is right.
May goodness and righteousness reign in my lifetime.
I tend to agree with Senior here.
The problem is, those who want to 'preserve cultures' often do so as though the people living in them were animals: sort of like keeping an endangered species in a zoo, or fencing off a game preserve.
So with that attitude (and I know some wingnuts who think this stuff), we wouldn't be providing relief or aid to people living in third-world conditions, because that's cultural invasion, and we'd be corrupting their way of life. After all, high mortality rates is part of their way of life. And, we westerners can go look at them like zoo animals / rub our foreflippers together in awe at ourselves for being so culturally sensitive.
Naturally imperialist or conquest thinking is equally bad, they're simply two equally bad things. However, if anything, human populations have been migrating and mixing for millennia. Ideas, technologies, genetic differences, etc., all get passed around. Archaeologists have found similar technologies in populations apparently isolated from each other. In fact, fencing off cultures from any outside influence is usually quite dangerous to the population of that very culture some claim they're protecting.
Bravo, Senior! Now will you come to Boston & slap some of these feminist "It's their culture" nuts upside the head and see if they get a clue?!
BTW, Leo, I went horseback riding some years ago with a family whose father was from Iran. Nice guy, claimed not just Iranian, but Russian & Turkish heritage. Didn't Iran used to be a fairly prosperous society before the Khomeini takeover?
Iran and Egypt both. The oil embargo is what financed the extremists. If we weren't buying their oil they'd have to innovate rather than just pump oil out of the ground. Innovation forces intellect which counters religious extremism.
Men can get out of adultery charges in Iran as both Shi'i & Sunni Islam allow polygamy, even if marriage wasn't his real intention he can claim it was.
If you google "Iranian widow sentenced to death by stoning", you can pull up any number of sources, some of them Iranian, on this incident. What makes it particularly absurd is this thuggish government wants to accuse her of adultery, but fails to name a party she did the deed with. ?!?!?! Is this woman into bestiality? Doing it with a pole?
At the rate they're going, Iranians & Saudi's will eliminate their culture the same way people are in some Indian & Chinese provinces...by eliminating all the females, leaving no partnerships to reproduce, much like Shaker religious colonies in the U S. Religious fanaticism, no females for sex, I believe last I heard there were 7 shakers left in this country. The "It's their culture" preservists will see these cultures wiped out from inbreeding & religious fanaticism, but they can "feel good" about keeping it pure & letting them live out their evil values. I think I'm going to be sick now.