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Iranian Woman Sentenced to Death by Stoning

Sarah | 24.08.2006 22:30 | Gender

Ashraf Kolhari, a 37-year-old mother of four, has been sentenced to death by stoning for committing adultery in Iran. Kolhari was arrested five years ago and has been awaiting her sentence in prison. Recently, she received the decision that she would be executed by the end of July.

Feminist Daily News Wire
July 28, 2006

Reportedly, Kolhari had an affair after her request for a divorce from her husband was denied. According to Iran Focus, she was sentenced on two charges: she received 15 years imprisonment for participating in the murder of her husband and death by stoning for having extra-marital sex.

Under the Islamic Republic of Iran’s penal code, Kolhari must be buried up to her neck and killed by stoning for committing adultery. Though several ayatollahs have released fatwas – religious edicts – to stop deaths by stoning, Iranian women’s rights lawyer Shadi Sadr told the Adnkronos International, an Italian news agency, that fatwas are not sufficient to stop this cruel practice: “Single judges are not obliged to respect the fatwas. To stop stonings, we need a change in the law.”

According to the Women’s Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran, there are eight other women in Iranian prisons who have been sentenced to death by stoning.

Sarah
- Homepage: http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=9799

Comments

Hide the following 12 comments

Bush Executed Retarded People

24.08.2006 23:55

That's sad.

But it still doesn't justify the Aggression planned by Bush/Olmert/PNAC, which will slaughter an unknown number of innocent men, women, and children.

We should do all we can to press for meaningful change in Iran, and support the growing movement for reforms within their country. We should also be aware of what we can learn from these groups, as our own Regimes are slaughtering innocents, violating International Law, and threatening the peace of the world as a whole.

Support Iranian Reform, Oppose Those Who Wish To Invade


Why isn't Saddam being tried for genocide?

25.08.2006 07:26

"Three days before the invasion, Clywd spoke in the House of Commons and described how male prisoners in Iraq were dropped into a machine "designed for shredding plastic," and their minced remains were "placed in plastic bags" and later used as "fish food." She alleged that sometimes, the victims were dropped in the machines feet-first so they could briefly view their own mutilation before death."



 http://www.uruknet.info/?p=19071\



daniele


A thought.

25.08.2006 08:04

So thats the response is it, 'it's sad what's happening to this woman'. Pity this woman is not being killed by the wicked Americans, because then the 'left' in this country would be in full cry. Demos, protests, candlite vigils, MPs demanding action and indymedia full of posts on the coming death of this poor woman. But no, because she is being murdered by the laws of Islam the vast majority of the 'left' will do nothing and stay hush. By operating these double standards the 'left' are condoning her death. I really liked the days when the 'left' was anti all religions, instead of now where they tolerate what ever this medieval religion which is Islam does.

Joe


Who cares what Bush did

25.08.2006 08:12

So Bush executed retarded people, which is truth, but what the hell has that to do with the article? So if Bush kills retarded people therefore it is OK to kill women by stonning in Iran, maybe they are even better than Bush, after all the woman is not disabled is she?

A more important question, where is Muslim association of Britain with this happen? My guess is that they don't care, if they do you never see them saying a word at least. Thats being optimistic and thinking that they do not agree with the sentence which in Sharia law is right.

James


No 'retarded' person was executed

25.08.2006 13:25

While I oppose the death penalty for anyone, whatever their mental capacity, it is false that Bush executed a 'retarded' person. The case being referred to involved a man who attempted suicide while on death row which resulted in brain damage. He was not mentally challenged when he committed the murders he was convicted of, nor at his trial. The brain damage came long after his crime and conviction and thus could not be considered as a mitigating circumstance. He was fully mentally capable when he killed his victim.

People like reframing this case so it seems like the US executes people *because* they are retards - like Hitler did. Which is completely false.

Qwerty


Joe

25.08.2006 14:06

I agree completely with you. It is time that the 'left', or indymedia readers/contributers or whoever challenge the underlying assumptions of ALL religions, rather than creating a hierarchy of them, with Islam being the best. Protests against the Iraq war rejected the options, neither war nor Saddam. Nowadays it's all "ya ya hizbollah, victory to the intifada, and the carrying of national flags (lebanon, palestine). seems like nationalism and religion are back in the good books for the left.

That's sad.

tak


Condemn This, Oppose Neo-Fascism's Deadly Plans

25.08.2006 15:03

As you know, Plant, there are elements within the Neo-Fascist structure which would manipulate such tragic circumstances, to attempt to drum up support for the Bush/PNAC/Bliar/Olmert Regime's plan for a deadly invasion of Iran.

I condemn the actions of the Regime in Tehran, but I also acknowledge the part of America in creating the conditions for such a Regime, because of their previous, failed interventions into the country, for the interest of corporations, especially oil companies.

Responding To Plant(s)


complexity and the problem with sound-byte thinking

25.08.2006 19:58

Personally I can't see what the difficulty is in condemning Iran's interpretation of Islam that permits women to be stoned as punishment, treated like some form of lowly critter, and subjugated to institutionalised and structural violations as the de facto. This isn't okay with me at all. It also isn't okay with me that Bush and Blair (& the latest Israeli chief) engages in pre-emptive wars and acts of aggression against other nations, eroding human rights of both the alleged enemy as well as the native citizen, albeit to differing degrees of explicitness. It is also not okay with me that corporations have fostered our complete and utter physical dependence upon the wares that they peddle while they rip apart the ecological weave of our planet and push our lifebase ever closer to extinction, wiping out swathes of flora and fauna in the process while chasing down the only thing they value - the almighty buck.
I just don't have a problem with being very clear about this: I can condemn as unjust, wrong, inhumane, and just not okay the actions of a nation no matter whether it is also the same nation which is itself is being abused in a different way by the US/UK/Israel pact. I used to work with sex offenders, and I have no problem working with complexity: the behaviour is obscene, unethical, wrong, but that still doesn't justify the abuses which the perpetrator is undergoing at the hands of other abuseres. It is not that when one becomes an abuser that it becomes open season on their own rights and dignity.

There is seldom a case in life where things really are as black-and-white as the TV media's sound-byte. In fact, one must ask always: in whose interests is it that this information is being compressed in such a way.

Shame on Iran for treating its citizens this way. It is only the more explicit version however of what many men - even the state, to some extent - continues to perpetrate against so many of its women; it is also a variation on the more general theme of how the US treats its prisoners, or how the US and the UK deny basic human rights, or look the other way during "extraordinary renditions", it is only a variance in this sad, stupefying Mutually Assured Degradation that is the pattern of abusiveness. At present - and if ever, when one reviews the not-too laudable histories of the US and the UK - neither the UK nor the US have any rights to accuse Iran of human rights violations as if they were temselves immaculately virginal. We, the people, do have the responsibility - if we wish to consider ourselves worthy of the description "civilised" and "ethical" - to challenge these abuses of human and planetary rights no matter where we find them: the stoning of women in Iran, the ritualised abuse of domestic violence or child abuse in the UK/US, the plundering of the planet in whole and in part, the kidnapping of persons the US/UK have swept up and tortured and abused and degraded and killed, the denial of civil liberties because they claim to have the moral highground on issues of truth and justice and democracy and freedom and need to shut these down and restrict them under the guise of security. We should condemn all of these for they are all fruits from the same toxic tree.

If we cannot uphold a sense of being rooted in this ethical ground then we are merely replicating all those tiresome biases that we accuse others of operating from. That is, to put this in a sound-byte for the attention-deficit generation: if basic rights don't work for one entity, they don't work for any entity! Now, is that so hard to get your head around?

dr jeckyl does not hyde


is this ghost written

25.08.2006 21:53

I was wondering, Mr Hyde if you were perhaps twilight's ghost writer or vice verza ?
he seems to missing from commenting everything and now you have popped

aretheyrelated


aretheyrelated - a reply

25.08.2006 22:43

Hey aretheyrelated

I'm not sure if that is a compliment, an insult or merely a conflation of frequency of posting. In any event, nope can't say that I know any twilight, but my frequency of posting is merely due to the fact that it is Friday night and I have some time to spend catching up one of my favourite sites that I have lurked on for so long.
Does my frequency of posting offend?

No? Good ... after tonight I will probably lapse into silence again.

Adieu

dr jeckyl does not hyde


Afghan president orders investigation into indigenous Afghani deaths

25.08.2006 23:00

Afghan US puppet president hamid karzai has ordered an investigation into the killing of seven men and a child slaughtered by US-led coalition.

Parrot Press