Iranians May Stone Woman to Death for Adultery

It's one of those cases where there isn't any room for multi-culti bull. Under a law unfit for humans, Iran may, at any moment, stone a woman to death for the crime of adultery. Whether she is guilty or not is irrelevant. What is important here is that a state is going to indulge in torturing one of its citizens to death. The question is whether or not the theocrats in Tehran are civilized human beings. Based on the case so far, they are not.

Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani is 42, and she has already been given 99 lashes for having and "illicit relationship outside of marriage." Now, the facts are that she was cleared of murder charges in the death of her husband, so this journal is not going to pretend that the case is a travesty of justice. Maybe, Ms. Ashtiani is an awful person who killed her husband and got away with murder. What is appalling here is that her adultery case was re-examined by a panel and thanks to unspecified "judges' knowledge" her sentence has changed to death by stoning. "Judges' knowledge?" In civilization, one prefers evidence.

Supposing that the judges are gifted with some kind of knowledge that justifies a changed sentence, stoning to death was barbaric when it was used in ancient times, it was barbaric when the Holy Koran was written and it's barbaric today. Those who participate in this execution will be on a par with SS prison guards.

Under the Iranian penal code , when it comes to execution by stoning "men will be buried up to their waists and women up to their breasts." Article 104 states, that for adultery, the stones 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." The history of this kind of state sanctioned killing says that the process can take 30 minutes or more. During that time, people will throw rocks at the condemned who cannot defend him or herself, but who will suffer with each and every toss.

Much like slavery in America's past, the barbarity of this kind of execution is inflicted not only on the condemned but also on the spectators. This journal does not oppose capital punishment per se -- had Napoleon been shot or hanged rather than exiled to Elba, no one would have died at Waterloo. Lethal injection or hanging have their drawbacks, and the guillotine is gruesome at best. However, throwing rocks at a partially buried person for half an hour is beneath human dignity. Iran, shame!

© Copyright 2010 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.

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