Kate Robey:
Today, an article came up about Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani being reprieved from being stoned to death in Iran, after being charged with adultery. She still could face death by another method, but, for now, she is alive.
This is something that I find very upsetting; that, in some places in the world, people are buried and stones are hurled at them. In Iran, it is legal to stone a person to death, but illegal to throw a stone of the wrong size. I find this baffling and abhorrent. A man is buried up to the waist, but a woman is buried up to the neck. If either can get free, whilst being pelted with stones, they are allowed to live. So, what chance does a woman, buried up to the neck, have, whilst a man is only buried up the waist? Just to be clear, both are wrong, but why is a man given more of a chance of living than a woman?
What I am finding increasingly frustrating is the seeming apathy about the situation in Iran. Twelve other women face death in this way at the moment there, so why isn't more being done about it? I donate every month to Amnesty International, but it seems pretty useless. I feel so frustrated that these things are happening to people, and being done in the name of a religion, when it goes against pretty much all religions to treat humans this way.
The death penalty violates two fundamental human rights, as laid down in Articles 3 and 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
I've never been a supporter of the death penalty. I don't think we, as humans, have the right to decide who lives or dies. If someone murders someone else, then killing that person for being a murderer is just the same thing, but you've had a load of lawyers and judges try to make it seem morally acceptable. What really devastates me is that in some countries you can be put to death for things that are not even crimes, like adultery, or homosexuality, just to name a couple. It is said by some that the death penalty for such things acts as a powerful deterrent, and that statistics for things like adultery are low because of such deterrents. I ask those particular people to, just for a few moments, imagine themselves buried up to the neck and having stones hurled at them, and then come back to me and say that a deterrent is justification for such a barbaric act. There is no justification for it, as far as I can see, and I would go as far as to say it's despicable to agree that these acts should be used as deterrents.
I want more to be done about this. I honestly can't bear the thought of people suffering like this, and it makes me angry that so many are so silent about this. These acts are being committed in the name of Islam, but how can this be Islamic? And if it isn't Islamic, then why are such acts being allowed to be committed in the name of Islam? Why isn't more being done?
What I find equally distressing is that many victims of such barbarity are abandoned by their families, because of the shame brought to the family, whether the person is guilty or not. Some even fear for their lives if they are not stoned, but they actually fear their families as well. This again is something I cannot understand.
Iran regularly censors information about stonings, as they are embarrassed by the attention they have attracted, but all those on death row at the moment, all 12 of them, women and men, have been convicted of adultery. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party, requires states that have not yet abolished the death penalty to restrict its use to the “most serious crimes”. So, why are Iran not being held accountable to this? Is adultery a serious crime? Is it a crime at all?
More has to be done. People cannot be allowed to be abused in this way. I call on the whole of the Muslim community worldwide to oppose this, to say that this cannot be Islamic, and to use all of their weight to get this stopped. I will join them in doing so, and I hope others will, but I really think the Muslim community needs to come to the fore on this issue and say, "Not in the name of Islam!"