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RSSThe barbarism of Ahmadinejad’s Iran
What is it these fanatics fear about their women?
By Jason Cowley Published 15 August 2010 21:16
In my column in the Sunday Mirror today -- as well as a little bit of politics, as Ben Elton used to say -- I write about the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. She is the unfortunate woman who has been convicted of adultery and condemned to death by stoning by the Iranian state.
She has already received 99 lashes of the whip from a regime that delights in cruelty, human rights abuses and wilful provocation -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disqualified himself from being taken seriously as a world leader after he said in 2005 that Israel was a "disgraceful blot" and should be "wiped off the face of the earth". Since then, he has done all he can to live down to expectations.
There has been international outrage at the treatment by the Iranian state of Ms Ashtiani, and it looked at one point as if she would be offered asylum in Brazil. But Ahmadinejad, like Robert Mugabe, likes nothing more than to defy reasonable expectation, and now, in a disturbing twist in events, Ms Ashtiania has allegedly confessed on national television to murdering her husband as well. This is months after she expressed her innocence of all charges.
The whole thing has the sinister feel of an old-style Soviet show trial. Only China executes more people each year than Iran. Unless something can be done for her, it looks as if the tragic Ms Ashtiani will still be executed. Her death would be yet another symbol of the powerlessness and mistreatment of women in Islamic theocracies.
What is it these fanatics fear about their women? Their superiority, perhaps?
Tags: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Iran
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47 comments
1R4M, what a pathetic attempt at moral equivalency! Would you rather your 17 year-old child watched his mother get paid less for the same work or be flogged 99 times?
yes I used a bad example
but my point is
we condemn these societies for the way they treat their women
dont get me wrong
I disagree with the Iranian regime
but lets not pretend that the govts in the west are so perfect themselves
and under the shariah law, men are supposed to receive lashes too
Just to say that Human Rights should be applied UNIVERSALLY, otherwise the term is meaningless. Progressives and Socialists must not be sidetracked into any ideas of moral equivalence, either in the West or anywhere else. This would mean selling out our brothers and sisters around the world.
'Michael'
Lets keep this real simple,do you approve of stoning?
yes or no ?
still no answer!
this is the worst article i have read in a very long time. your american soldiers have killed more maimed mutilated and made homeless about 10 million people in the last 10 years!! Not Bad. Why don' t you look at your own country and fix your own barbaric mafia run government and you own unemployment and homeless people!! You and the rest of your pin head redneck buddies on here need to get a life and think about your own country for once.
This has nothing to do with anything. This country and its people chose to go backwards 30 years ago. They brought back the scum of the earth. This is not islam not the true islam. Shame on anyone for saying that. They trashed our lives for a bunch of illiterate freaks so no amount of any thing will change. The only change will come when the heads of the country are removed. Come on people Iran will not back done. The Western powers need to go in and destroy them. These mollah's have brought shame to our country. I will be first in line if the west wishes to attack them. They have ruined my life and my family. I pray for this womam but I fear it is too late for her. Let's not let it happen again....
The punishment for adultery in Islam is death.Both people involved would suffer the same fate.
If the correct interpretation of sharia is used then certain conditions have to met to prove guilt.
Adultery is only proven by four people testifying that they clearly observed the couple engaged in unlawful sexual intercourse without any doubt or ambiguity. They are able to say that they saw their private parts meet like the "Kohl needle entering the Kohl bottle".
This term is used so that even if sexual relations had been witnessed it must be proved that all four people witnessed sexual intercourse.
They will be asked about the various details concerning the time and location of the incident, and who were the people involved and other such matters, in order to remove any doubt. These four witnesses themselves must be pious and upright both privately and publicly.
If the witnesses do not meet this extremely strict criteria then no man or woman can be found guilty.
Even if all these conditions are met the ruler of the country can commute the punishment and generally this is what should happen in the spirit of forgiveness.
I do not wish to enter into a slanging match about which religion is correct etc etc as it all about belief.We all hold different beliefs so we will never agree and only insult one another.
As a muslim I accept many people abuse the religion of Islam to suit their own selfish needs and women are the main victims.
Many are working hard both in this country and abroad to educate muslims the true status of women in Islam.Culture it seems is the biggest obstacle.
@ Buckskins
Where are you - gone to My Lai, No Gun Ri?
'sam'
Could you address the issue of the blog.
Do you feel that the lashing and stoning of women is OK?
If yes,why?
"think about your own country for once."
We do, you don't.
Unless of course you are living in the wrong one.
Did you make a mistake?
In which case as you hate us so much you are of course free to leave as you say we have plenty of unemployment so you wont be missed.
You won't of course be wanting our barbaric help in Pakistan,Darfur,Ethiopia,SE Asia or Haiti etc?
You and the rest of your pig headed rag-head buddies on here need to get a life,sort out your own countries for once.
With their mafia run governments,endemic poverty lack of health care and illiteracy!
Does that sound a bit off?
No it can't be as you just called everyone else here 'pin headed rednecks' and your very PC aren't you?
So it can't be, can it.
Off that is.
Must be a new PC fashion so I felt that I would join in for once,hope you and your buddies don't mind.
I've already answered it, I don't approve of stoning, hanging, electric chair, lethal injection etc..
I suppose I could go for stoning on a special occassion, other than Saturday night at the pub, if the target was someone like Blair.
felix your contempt for the religion of Islam and muslims is well documented within the many columns in this website.
I would urge all muslims to ignore felix as there are many within his own community,race call it what you will who are fighting the likes of felix.
Along with felix there are more and more who seem to copy and paste "comments" from anti muslim websites whilst attempting to sound knowledgeable about the sharia or sunnah when in fact they have no real understanding whatsoever.
It's not just Islam that treats women as inferior: Christian and Jewish rightwing fanatics do too. But stoning, as far as I know, is only a Muslim practice, and to me it seems particularly barbaric. (And who could even imagine throwing one of those stones at the victim? What would be going through your mind as you took aim?)
I also think that this treatment of women is due to fear. Not because women are necessarily superior, but because the men feel threatened in some way - especially by independent-minded women whom they can't control. (Something which is common enough in our society too...)
Having this poor woman confess on television last week also tells us that the judicial system there isn't what we would consider fair and just. But no appeals to or criticism of Ahmadinejad will work because he won't want to be seen as weak.
Rags like the New Statesman http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/08/ahmadinejad-iran-... continue to refer to Ashtiani as being "convicted of adultery and condemned to death by stoning by the Iranian state." while clearly she has been convicted of being complicit in the murder of her husband and will be hanged not stoned if indeed she receives the death penalty. According to the New Statesman this is indicative of the way the Iranian Government treat women. No mention of course the the USA Government has applied the death sentence to just as many female criminals http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-07-31/us-state-execute-woman.html and certainly no mention of the fact that a higher proportion of women in Iran go on to higher education and are involved in politics than in the USA
The New Statesman also throws in the olde "wiped off the face of the earth" myth for good measure in regards to comments made by Ahmadinejad.
It's all very reminiscent of the nonsense written about Iraq before the illegal invasion such as "human shredders" and "throwing babies out of incubators"
I have been following this story and others of stoning of womenfor some time. It is barbaric and so backwards but shouldnot be unexpected. The world has turned a blind eye to the mistreatment of women in Iran for far too long. I urge anyone reading this to go to the Amnesty website
@Jason Cowley
Hooray, finally someone writing for the NS has the b**** to say something on this issue ,shame that it was nor Mehdi.
"What is it these fanatics fear about their women? Their superiority, perhaps?"
anyone one who gives this a moments thought knows that this is not that the real issue.
It is in fact they role that they are expected to assume under shia Islam that is the problem.
as you say
"Her death would be yet another symbol of the powerlessness and mistreatment of women in Islamic theocracies."
@ Muhammed
The websites merely state what Islam is really all about. You are just one of the 1.5b people being misled by your religion.
If you really know the truth about Islam, you would probably run faster than Bolt away from it
The obsession with prurience that is commonplace in the Middle East beggars belief! What is extremely disturbing about the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is that she was found convicted of adultery and acquitted of murder. Last week's "confession" on State TV came about after she was tortured for 2 days according to her lawyer who is in Norway seeking asylum.
Her son who was then 17 had to watch is mother receive her punishment of 99 lashes following her adultery conviction, an incident that traumatised him and yet he has shown extraordinary courage in trying to get his mother released.
I certainly hope that Brazil continues to press for Ms Ashtiani's release as President Lula is one of the few leaders that Ahmadinejad listens to.
Because women in the West are completely liberated????
There's still a pay gap between men and women who do the same jobs
it is nothing to do with president ahmadinejad, judiciary power is independent in iran.
Adultery is a crime. You can not expect it to be tolerated in a civil society just because you can get away with it. I know why you think this way, it is because you lost your virginity in early teens age and have had sex with 100's of men if not 1000's. There is a name for it and it is called douchbag!
@ Melanie
Ummmm.... no, adultery isn't a crime. It's a factor in divorce proceedings.
Or at least it is in civilized societies.
The reason men get paid more in west is pretty much resolvable. Give men the same amount of parental paid leave.
1R4M, what a pathetic attempt at moral equivalency! Would you rather your 17 year-old child watched his mother get paid less for the same work or be flogged 99 times?
When you've finished beating the West up (in the guise of "self-criticism" and "speaking truth to power"), let us know.
Melanie, adultery is a crime like blasphemy: there's no victim and the state has many better things to worry about. If you're truly obsessed about someone else's sex life, there's a word for you and it's called "pervert".
The reality is that islam does not allow adultery. It is a crime, as simple as that. Those who commit it , are sentenced to death.
where is the man that was part of the adultery ???
Are Muslims backward or extremists? the answer is no. the problem lies with you. Adultery is common for non-muslims. They name it entertainment,freedom and a sign of modern people.
Muhammed
I challenge you oh wise one to disprove any one of my points using Islamic source's or better still logic.
TRY COPYING AND PASTING AN ARGUMENT OR MAYBE YOU CANT FIND ONE.
TRY GOOGLE.
As for contempt I will reserve that for you as you seem to like being a victim.
Your knowledge of your own religion is so poor that you are unable to present a coherent counter arguments.
As for all those people fighting me,I don't see many and those that try just resort to tired ad hominem
abuse which anyone with any intelligence knows is no argument at all.
Still no answer to my question,how many Muslim's can read and write Arabic with fluency?
Not merely recite like parrot.
As you seem to think that Arabic is a necessary prerequisite for understanding Islam.
As I pointed out the majority of Muslims were until very recently illiterate in their own language let alone in Classical Arabic.
Many still are in Africa,Pakistan and Bangladesh maybe they don't count as real Muslims.
what if you, Non-Muslim die today. You are walking Naked in the beach as you always do and you die for a thousand reasons.what will you say to your prophet Jesus? that it is freedom. Is it really allowed in christianity ? No, it is you the Non- Muslim who has made a new religion that serve their lust. Hope you have got something. Think about it for a second.
'Michael'
Lets keep this real simple,do you approve of stoning?
yes or no ?
"while clearly she has been convicted of being complicit in the murder of her husband and will be hanged not stoned"
What apologetic drivel.She has already been lashed 99 times!she was going to be stoned until international pressure changed their minds.
from amnesty.
"Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was convicted in May 2006 of having an “illicit relationship” with two men and received 99 lashes as her sentence. Despite this, she was then also convicted of “adultery while being married", which she has denied, and sentenced to death by stoning.
She has retracted a “confession” made during interrogation, stating that it was made under duress. However, she was convicted by a majority of three out of five trial judges on the basis of the “knowledge of the judge”.
This is a provision in Iranian law that allows judges to make their own subjective and possibly arbitrary determination of guilt, even in the absence of clear or conclusive evidence.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/iran-must-not-execute-woman-s...
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/campaigning-end-stonin...
Is this just another stick to beat Iran with? Whilst I agree that the treatment of this women could never be condoned judging by western standards, but let's not pretend that abuses of this kind are confined to Iran.
Let's not forget that it wasn't that long ago that similar abuses occurred under western legal systems.
This is not to say that we in the west should just allow these abuses to go unchallenged, but we shouldn't threaten.
These societies have to be given time to evolve, just as ours has.
and again we see in the words of "A Muslim" and "IR4M" the scale of the problem we have.....
hiya NS guys,
as a reader of your outstanding site and someone who's disgusted with something like stoning a human being, and who knows a little bit more about this than you do, I just wanted to point out that what you've read in western media about this particular case, is incomplete and misses key facts; I'm not gonna say they're right to stone that poor woman; it's just insane. but I'm somehow disappointed to see NS writing something in FOX/NYTimes style. as usually you do, please do some more investigation before making statements.
let's hope to see a day in which no one is sentenced to stoning anymore.
These fanatics must be overthrown
Using our 'understanding of Human Rights' to name and shame other nations is something I don't have much patience for. We in the West have a tendency to want other nations to 'catch up with us', ignorant of the fact that it took the murder of two entire generations of men, women and children at the start of the 20th Century before we finally decided to get our act together.
In any case, I see a distinct failure of Human Rights activists to combat problems like this - I remember seeing picket signs in Trafalgar Square bearing the Amnesty International logo post the recent disputed Iranian election alongside the slogan ''Down with Sharia Law.'' This type of activism does nothing to help women like Sakineh Ashtiani - 'Sharia Law' is a concept, rather than a constructed set of rules. The term ''Sharia *Law*'' is an utter fallacy. It is non-static and non-codified. There's no uniting system one can 'bring down' so badmouthing it is utterly pointless. Human Rights activists such as Amnesty International ought to be tackling the Iranian government directly.
As for Adultery; yes, it is a crime in Islam, but not one I honestly think God intended us to punish with death. The prescriptions in the Qur'an for the punishment of 'Zina' (adultery) are oddly specific - 4 witnesses of the act as ''like the pen is to the ink,'' (and yes, that is a euphemism) otherwise there is no proof. Can any of you (Muslim or Non-Muslim) honestly imagine a situation like that arising? Adultery is a crime, but one which is between you and God. If Sharia Law was implemented properly, stonings like this would not occur.
The problem is not because these states are Islamic Theocracies. The problem is that these states are run by men who are obsessed with exerting power.
By the way @A Muslim - It is one of the highest sins to arrogate to one's self the judgement of God onto others in Islam. You ought to apologise.
Adultery is wrong because it leads to the suffering and betrayal of often innocent individuals. It is also forgivable. This however, has absolutely nothing to do with a (fictional) deity, of any interpretation.
all sinner is being an islam they should be stoned to death for being islam.
Justus -- finally someone asked the right question. Good for you!! I see the comments stopped with your comment.
What about millions of women being just sex objects everywhere in the world and especially in the US and everyone get so stressed up just because of one women,just because it is in Iran?
Jason Cowley
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not an evil man. He is just a good Muslim, in the foot steps of his Prophet Mohammad. A good Muslim is duty bound to follow the prophet's acts and deeds.
The prophet's actions are prescribed in the Hadiths compiled by Ishaq, Tabari, Bukhari and Muslim. Their Hadiths revealed their prophet to be the most evil man who ever lived - a blood thirsty pirate, a ruthless terrorist (led 75 raids), leader of a brigand (he got 20% of all the bounties captured) and a sexual pervert (married Aisha where she was 9. Forced his adopted son to live his wife, so he could marry her etc.)
The central them of Mohammad's mission and Islam was to correct the Torah and The Gospels by setting the record straight,returning to the true religion.
Muslims alleged that the Torah and the Bible were corrupted. That Allah's words in the Quoran is the last and only correct words of God.
Is there any piece of evidence that support their contention?
Fact is, there is not a shred of evidence to support such contention.
1. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, survives to this day. That serves as irrefutable proof that nothing was changed. It was translated 275 years before the Christian era. It matches today's OT with astonishing fidelity.
2. Then there is the Dead Sea scrolls, founded by a Bedouin sheperd in the caves in Qumran. They date between 250 BC and 70AD, and were thus written during the period Mohammad claims the Bible was corrupted. These 2,000 year-old-scrolls are virtually indistinguisable from today's text.
These prove that the foundation of Islam is fictitious.
The NT testament condemns Islamic theory as well. By the time Muslims said it was corrupted, there were 100s of translation and as many as 100,000 copies distributed worldwide. Does anyone honestly suppose that they were brought together and altered in identical fashion just to spite Mohammad?
Or is it more likely that Team Islam - Allah/Mohammad do not know what they are talking about. That's the crux of the issue.
Jason Cowley,
At long last we have someone talking sense. Was hoping it came from Yo Zushi or Medhi Hassan but they since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is their soul mates, it was too much too expect that from them.
Could we have something on why the Muslims' world are so deafeningly quiet on the flood relief in Pakistan?
@Muhammed
"The punishment for adultery in Islam is death.Both people involved would suffer the same fate.
If the correct interpretation of sharia is used then certain conditions have to met to prove guilt."
hhmm So that just fine then,forget divorce,just kill them both,stoning preferable!
But wait a minute,maybe no real reason for adultery in Islam.
If your a man you may have up to 4 wives to choose from and of course you can have sex with your slaves(people your right hand possess)and of course if your first wife is getting a bit old for you, you can marry a six year old as long as you do not consummate the marriage until she reaches puberty.
Which could be according to Islam when she reaches the grand old age of nine.
The correct interpretation of sharia
Muhammed?
@Iranian
As a reader of your outstanding site and someone who's disgusted with something like stoning a human being(GOOD), and who knows a little bit more about this than you do,(SO WHAT DO YOU KNOW?) I just wanted to point out that what you've read in western media about this particular case, is incomplete and misses key facts;(OK ,WHAT ARE THEY?)
Not quite Felix, according to the likes of CNN, Fox news & the BBC she was going to be stoned to death, well when exactly did that happen last time apart from a video prepared by the Tel Aviv based MEMRI TV which included the use of an actress.
She was found guilty of adultery and punished for it, she was later found guilty of involvement and conspiring with two of her lovers in the murder of her husband for which she may well receive capital punishment.
Whether I'm in favour of "stoning" is immaterial, it was never an option. As it 'appens I'm not in favour of any capital punishment but it's wrong to single out Iran in this regard.
There's a danger here, Iran is definitely getting a bad press and I cannot help feeling it's a prelude to more American /Israeli genocide.
As for "Amnesty" , I'm not impressed, they simply don't have any employees in Iran & they rely on the views & opinions of Iranian dissidents who no doubt like the INC have an agenda
you did not know islamic low so please dont tell anythings
@ Enquirer
Why did the pagans worship Allah?
Why did both the pagans and Islam worship the same Allah?
Is Allah, then really God?
Re Tabari VII:144/Ishaq 426:
"The Muslims bivouacked for the night and were taken by surprise. So the Muslims took up their swords to fight them but the Lihyans said, "We do not want to kill you. We only want to get some money by selling you to the Meccans.
"We Lihyans) swear by Allah's covenant that we will not kill you."
"By Allah," Asim (Muslim) said, "We will never accept an agreement from an unbelieving infidel." They fought until they were killed.