Monday, March 18, AD 2024 10:52pm

Orwell Would Have Loved This

The head of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights speaks out on stoning:

The hard-line chief of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, the longtime political operator and insider Mohammad-Javad Larijani, says the sentence of stoning against an impoverished mother of two accused of adultery stands, even though it is under a required review. 
In other words, 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani could still be buried up to her neck and pelted with small rocks until she dies because she was convicted of having sex outside of marriage.

Larijani, a well-connected regime loyalist, blamed the Western media for making a big deal out of nothing.

“Our judicial system cannot change its course because of Western attack and media pressure,” he told the official Islamic Republic News Agency in a report published late Friday (in Persian). “The Western media’s attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran comes under a pretext every time, and in recent years it is the instructions of the Islamic religious law that have been the target of their attacks.”
No one’s quite sure what’s next for Ashtiani. Larijani said Ashtiani’s sentence of death by stoning had not been rescinded, contradicting a statement issued Thursday by the Islamic Republic’s embassy in London.

“Regarding this criminal, I must point out that first of all the punishment of death by stoning exists in our constitution but the esteemed judges issue this verdict on very rare occasions,” said Larijani, whose brothers include the head of the judiciary branch and the speaker of parliament. “This case has passed its long procedure, and the defendant was first sentenced to 90 lashes and then, in another court, to death by stoning. The review of this sentence in currently underway.”

Her lawyer said even if they halt the stoning, he’s worried they’ll put her to death by some other means. “We do not know which penalty will be substituted for stoning,” her lawyer told Babylon & Beyond.

He said he’s asked for her pardon four times, especially since no private individual is seeking her prosecution — just the government. “For the sake of the Islamic system and its reputation in the world, nobody should be stoned to death anymore,” said Ashtiani’s lawyer, Mohammad Mostafai. “If the judiciary branch is attaching importance to the prestige of the system in the world, then the stoning should be stopped.”

But Larijani, whom Western diplomats have described as a cynical and power-hungry solider of the Islamic Republic, rejected the contention that the judiciary should consider world opinion or that the high-profile international campaign in support of Ashtiani might make Iran’s judicial authorities think twice about putting her to death for committing a sex crime.

The woman in question confessed to adultery in 2006.  The confession was elicited by whipping her.  She has recanted her confession, but in Iran confessions elicited by whippings are as hunky dory as calling a murderous thug a head of a human rights council.  To complete the farce, the UN General Assembly elected Iran to the Commission on the Status of Women back in April.  Perhaps this will exercise a moderating influence on the Iranian regime and they will use smaller stones in the stonings.

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smf
smf
Sunday, July 11, AD 2010 8:18pm

I hate to say this, but smaller stones will actually make it a longer and more painful thing. Better just to drop a great stone on her from a great height and have it done in one quick moment from a humanitarian view. Horrible either way. Marginally more horrible with pebbles.

Don the Kiwi
Monday, July 12, AD 2010 3:20am

What is happening to the man who is supposed to have been the instrument in her alleged adultery?

Because he is male, he’s okay, but she’s an adulteress. He didn’t commit adultery, he just had sex with a woman who was not his wife.

So he committed adultery too, but for him it is no crime.

So the media and western -particularly leftist -governments bend the knee and kowtow to the religion of Peace – actually, Submission – and that’s what they’r doing – submitting.
Gutless bastards!

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, July 12, AD 2010 5:54am

Terrorist sympathizers, America-is-evil saints, Obama-worshipping liberals, e.g. Jimmeh Carter, love it.

Orwell hated barbarism and tyranny.

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