In the past two years, we've all learned that citizens as much governments must do more than pay lip service to ideals. It's necessary that individual investors ask questions of our financial advisors. It's imperative that drivers switch to fuel-efficient transport.
And it's urgent that citizens step up to affirm universal human rights. Urgent not only because lives are on the line, but also because the more interdependent countries become, the more offense they take at "official" statements about human rights.
We, jurors in the court of public opinion, are the only ones who can confidently risk offending regimes for the sake of universal human justice. We have that duty right now.
Last week, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian, became the symbol of a hideous practice that her government inflicts on its people: death by stoning.
In a 21st-century version of burning heretics at the stake, stoning victims get draped in pristine white sheets, lowered into freshly dug dirt pits and accosted with fist-sized rocks. The hurling is hard enough to inflict pain, but not so hard as to kill immediately. As Amnesty International puts it, stoning is "specifically designed to increase the suffering of its victims."
Thursday, the Iranian regime reacted to a worldwide citizens' campaign by announcing that Sakineh will no longer face stoning - but remains subject to execution. The press release didn't clarify by what means.
None of us should settle for this shallow response. The fact is, Iran's regime lies about stoning. At the World Economic Forum in 2005, I publicly confronted the country's then vice-president, Masoumeh Ebetakar, about this hideous practice. She assured me that Iran proclaimed a moratorium on it. Yet human rights watchdogs continue to document cases of the brutality.
The cases themselves tend to be built on a pile of indignities. Consider the allegation against Sakineh: adultery. The charge is manifestly trumped up and the investigation has been stacked from the get-go. Moreover, she has already submitted herself to lashings -- ninety-nine of them.
Why the indescribably gratuitous threat to pulverize the life out of her, too? Why any kind of a death penalty for her? And even if Sakineh is completely spared because of the international spotlight, what will happen to the other women and men (mostly women) who are sentenced to the savagery of stoning?
This fight isn't over.
A global group of entrepreneurs, authors, artists and humanitarians has formed to take the fight a step further. We've launched a website that allows citizens of every country to send a crystal-clear message to Iranian authorities: We're watching and we won't let you off the hook. Treating Sakineh as an emblem for all who are subject to stoning, the website address is www.freesakineh.org.
How could your signature help eradicate stoning? To begin, the petition is being sent not just to Iranian officials, but also the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner. The UN is Iran's cherished playground. Shaming the regime there could go far to tipping the scales.
No doubt, some people will scoff that Sharia (Islamic) law won't be influenced by secular cries for human rights. But Iran subscribes to Shia Islam, which was born of dissent. As minorities in the Sunni-dominated Muslim world, Shia clerics and thinkers don't always reject the idea that human interpretations of divine will are exactly that -- human. If exposed by more international outrage, Iranian arbiters could invoke Shia tradition to ban stoning once altogether.
Others will argue that Western involvement will be spun as interference, complicating the work of anti-stoning campaigners on the ground. It's true that outcries from the outside sometimes hurt. But in Iran, activists say that Western pressure works. Indeed, the Iranian human rights icon and Nobel peace laureate, Shirin Ebadi, advises us to "make as much noise as possible."
Clearly, worldwide concern has mattered over the past few days. Still, let's not be fooled. A public relations victory for Iran's rulers isn't the goal. Sustained respect for human dignity is. That's the simple message of your signature.
This post originally appeared in The Globe and Mail.
Dr. David Liepert: The Stoning of Women: Quranic Prescription or Barefaced Misogyny?
George Elerick: Stoning Sekinah: The Perversion of the Other
Alleged Adulteress Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani Escapes Death by ...
Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani Faces Brutal Death by Stoning in Iran ...
http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/iran-must-not-execute-woman-spared-stoning-death-any-means-2010-07-09
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.
And http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE13/070/2010/en/b6b20f20-1077-4efa-8763-a6064b10ec6f/mde130702010en.html
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, has been held since 2005. In May 2006 she was convicted of having had an “illicit relationship” with two men and received 99 lashes as her sentence. Despite this, she was subsequently convicted of “adultery while being married", which she has denied, and was 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”, a provision in Iranian law that allows judges to make their own subjective and possibly arbitrary determination regarding guilt even in the absence of clear or conclusive evidence.
http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2010/07/mother-of-two-faces-stoning-for-alleged-adultery/
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was trapped in a marriage in which she was being abused. She had met another man, and their relationship led to the murder of her husband by her male companion. The husband’s family did not seek retribution and the man was sentenced to ten years in prison. She was also sentenced to ten years imprisonment as an accomplice.
Subsequently, a panel of five judges decided to also issue a sentence for her having an illicit extramarital relationship with the man, although no evidence existed in the file. Mostafaie told the Campaign that two judges ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove the charge, but three judges, based on their “knowledge and evaluation,” decided such an act had taken place and sentenced her to death by stoning.
“No evidence exists in Ashtiani’s file to justify a death sentence, and the sentence needs to be overturned,” Rhodes said.
With that being said the leadership in Iran is not popular, and gets less popular every day among its own people. If the world really wants to scare the current government then making this woman into a martyr type figure like the woman that was killed in the student protests and shown on you tube will accomplish human rights goals very well.
Unfortunately, the UN has become the *playground* of the world's worst human rights abusers.
The Human Rights Council itself is a sham---seating some of the worst abusers to make judgments on the human rights records of other nations, usually those that have far better records than the ones sitting in judgment.
As a measure of just how far down the rabbit hole the UN has gone---Iran was recently named to a
seat on the UN's Commission on the Status of Women.
It really doesn't get much more bizarre than that.
I finally agree with you on something.
"how far down the rabbit hole the UN has gone" "It really doesn't get much more bizarre than that."
Bizarre is FAR too mild of a term.
Ayatollah Khomeini's Religious Teachings on Marriage, Divorce and Relationships
"A man can have sexual pleasure from a child as young as a baby. However, he should not penetrate. If he penetrates and the child is harmed then he should be responsible for her subsistence all her life. This girl, however would not count as one of his four permanent wives. The man will not be eligible to marry the girl's sister."
The complete Persian text of this saying can be found in "Ayatollah Khomeini in Tahrirolvasyleh, Fourth Edition, Darol Elm, Qom"
Dr. Homa Darabi's site.
http://www.homa.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=53
UN's Commission on the Status of Women? I think anyone can see why bizarre is a term that does not meet the need.
If the Iranian government was so illegitimate, wouldn't the Republicans have wanted to impeach Ronald Reagan for treason when he sold weapons to Khomeini? Would the Republicans have placed the Oil Oligopoly--including Iran--ahead of this country's legitimate need for energy security?
Also, wouldn't your idea of what Obama should do come across as the bull supporting the china shop by being bullish?
If Iran won't stop nuclear arms, why a simple stoning (Simple meaning their society) would be different?
Remember Iran is a Sovereign nation, so no matter how many signatures you get, would that change US Foreign Policy?
She probably won't be executed. But that will be because of pressure mounted by Soveriegn countries and the UN.
wars = male ego gone insane
power = male ego in fear
control = male ego fear of losing woman
now what would the world be like without male ego?
pun intended
"O'blivious the "Messiah" ??? is Arnold's famous "girlieman" in comparison . .
she tells it like it is . . not Sucking Up to every World Despot like you know who
What a farce that was in April of this year.
Yet we heard very little about that.
Irshad, I applaud you for seizing opportunities like this very sad one to try to be a catalyst for change. I had already signed the petition but hopefully anyone who hasn't will do so today.
If Israel was paying people to dis Iran, wouldn't that clown Ahmadinejad be on their payroll? He is creating the spectacle that Irshad comments about. Wouldn't they be paying the Basij thugs on motorcycles?
Iran's ruling clique is not democratic even in comparison to Bush's election in 2000. It does not dis the people of Iran to criticize the self-servig leaders who created this atrocity.
Judge not the rites of the Islamic Republic, whose calendar is still in the 1300s
Sakineh’s story has attracted some attention abroad. And that is why I got interested in it. I am particularly peeved about the NGO’s and other “international” do-gooders calling for a halt to the death sentence (capital punishment argument) and the stoning (cruelty). Both practices are being derided as medieval! That is where I must stop and point out to the opponents of Sakineh’s sentence that her punishment is the same as a woman adulterer or fornicator or lesbian would have suffered in the medieval times (Middle Ages) in the Christian lands. Judge not the rites of the Islamic Republic, whose calendar is still in the 1300s of the glorious solar Islamic concept of time, by the Christian calendar that is some 600 years more advanced. Six hundred years from now maybe the entire Iranian nation would be made up of amazons and zenakars who would have found very little use for the men that ruled and abused them.
It is amazing to me that a country that is pretending to master the nuclear fuel cycle cannot get over stuff that has to do genitals. By their cruel treatment of Sakineh and others, the Islamic Republic is showing once again that it is more tokhmi (seedy) than hastehi (nuclear).
http://iranian.com/main/2010/jul/let-sakineh-go-free