About time. But the problem here, of course, is that because stoning is sanctioned by Islamic law, this appeal will fall on deaf ears in Tehran. From Reuters (thanks to Shlomo):
LONDON (Reuters) - Amnesty International on Tuesday called on Iran to abolish the "grotesque and horrific" practice of stoning people to death.Amnesty, which opposes the death penalty under any circumstances, said an Iranian man had been stoned to death in July last year for committing adultery, despite a moratorium being imposed on such executions in 2002.
The woman he was convicted of committing adultery with still faces the threat of being stoned, a practice that involves the woman being buried up to her breasts in sand and then pelted with stones until she dies.
"Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian government to abolish immediately and totally execution by stoning and to impose a moratorium on the death penalty," the rights group said in a 30-page report on the practice.
"Iranian law prescribes that the stones are deliberately chosen to be large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the victim immediately ... It is a particularly grotesque and horrific practice."
While stoning is used relatively seldom in Iran, it is the favored form of execution in cases involving adultery and has a disproportionate impact on women, according to Amnesty.
Iran has one of the highest rates of execution in the world. In 2006, 177 people were put to death, mostly by hanging. Last year, that number was expected to be exceeded, with 124 people executed in the first seven months of the year.
"....with 124 people executed in the first seven months of the year...."
....that is 124 that we know about and can confirm........
...death by stoning is more acurately called torture as it is a slow painful death...There was one instance in which a woman who was being stoned managed to get out of the pit she was buried in, she ran a short distance before she was cut down with machine gun fire....
"Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian government to abolish immediately and totally execution by stoning and to impose a moratorium on the death penalty," the rights group said in a 30-page report on the practice"
......yep, old AYatolla Khomeini and MR Ahmadinejad are still laughing....
"
Perhaps I am mistaken. but I believe that in a stoning, the woman is buried up to her thighs, not her breasts, while the man is buried up to his knees.
Burying a woman up to her breasts would remove the one really entertaining parts of a stoning (if you go by the cheers and "Allah akbah"s of the participants) and that is when they manage to make the victim convulse (via..say a depressed skull fracture) and hence also have a moving target at which to aim.
I am not certain just how stoning rates on the painful death scale, but when you consider just how the Iranian scum hang their victims(slow strangulation..via jib crane) death by a single sword or a firing squad sounds quite preferable.
Unlike the admin here, i am well past amnesty and conciliation re Islam. Any clues as to why?
"I am not certain just how stoning rates on the painful death scale, ..."
...just take a hammer and hit yourself on the head a few times....
"I am not certain just how stoning rates on the painful death scale," --posted above
Are you kidding, or what?
Most of the pictures or videos I've seen show the women victims buried to their breasts. They can still move. They writhe and twist, trying to get away from the stones. It is a horrifying thing to see on film - can't imagine witnessing a live stoning. The men over there seem to enjoy it, though. Great entertainment for a boring afternoon.
"The men over there seem to enjoy it, though. Great entertainment for a boring afternoon."--posted above
Thats because they have nothing better to do, its not like many of them seem to work or is that just over here in the uk??
Stoning is Barbarism at its worst.
When stones are outlawed, only mullahs will have stones.
When delapidary duty's to be done, to be done,
A Muslim mob -- alas -- can be a happy one.
Doesn't this make Amnesty International Islamophobic?
An interesting discussion going on at
Al guardians CiF re Iran
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/fariba_amini/2008/01/a_blind_eye_to_barbarism.html
I could never, ever bring myself to watch footage of a stoning or of a beheading (although I grew up on a farm and regularly witnessed the killing of chickens and snakes, the shooting of dingoes, and once, during a hunt, the disembowelment of a wild pig).
I did, however, once read a Westerner's verbal description of the stoning of a woman, that he had seen done in Saudi Arabia.
That was quite, quite sufficient. She was subjected to a protracted and hideous death-by-degrees, inflicted by a lynch mob of hooting, howling males.
Whatever a person may have done, the frightful mob violence unleashed by a slow, deliberately sadistic public execution involving bizarre degradation of the human body, the infliction of extreme pain and terror, has got to be pure poison for the souls of the participants and the witnesses.
I know that horrifically cruel public punishments were once handed out in western countries, even countries that were officially 'christian' - burnings, hanging-drawing-and-quartering, tortures of all kinds (oddly enough, they were more common in the later middle ages and Renaissance, than earlier), Tyburn gallows, ferocious floggings (as in the British navy), the guillotine.
But over time, in the West, we have abandoned these practices: keeping only, in some countries, the death penalty for certain types of murder.
I think we did so for two reasons - first, the fear of accidentally punishing an innocent person through an inadvertent miscarriage of justice; and, second, our recognition of the dehumanising effect of such extreme physical violence and degradation, not so much even on the person punished, as on those who watched or carried it out.
I am not certain just how stoning rates on the painful death scale, ..."
...just take a hammer and hit yourself on the head a few times....
Posted by: exsgtbrown
"I am not certain just how stoning rates on the painful death scale," --posted above
Are you kidding, or what?
Posted by: darcy
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Some of you are incredibly naïve and should look at death by electrocution and by cyanide gassing before you make such comments. Even death by lethal injection can become quite painful if those running the show wish it to be so. If you think that these are non-barbaric then I suggest that you improve your reading.
I said the first line above as I have seen no studies made on stoning and its duration and its injuries. But I have seen studies on execution death by many other means including that Islamic favourite: the sawing off of one’s head. So , I was not writing from ignorance. If you wish a discussion about painful death then I can provide one. But this is not the place.
My personal opinion is that death by stoning is quite painful and a true demonstration of Islam’s barbarity and especially when you add the noxious behaviour or the perpetrating crowd who cheer at each hit which is reminiscent of the crowd behaviour at such places as Tyburn where each twitch and kick was associated with cheers. However, in his case the cheerers were only spectators.
So before any of you come up with trite one-liners again, try to realise that just sometimes someone might try to make a point here without the aim of attracting childish sarcasm.
I wonder if the Iranian people, who consider themselves very educated, will ever get rid of Sharia law. It would be the most logical thing to do for an intelligent peoples.
My quotes are probably way off here but here goes. It makes more sense that a TRUE God would say something like, "Let ye who is without sin, cast the first stone", rather than "Kill the adulterers. Do not show mercy, for that is up to Allah, the All Merciful".
allah is an anti-God, mohammed is the anti-Christ.
Amnesty urges Iran to stop stoning executions
.. or we'll be very angry with you, and write you a letter telling you how very, very angry we are with you.
Someone send them a copy of Team America, please.
MisIslamist:So before any of you come up with trite one-liners again, try to realise that just sometimes someone might try to make a point here without the aim of attracting childish sarcasm.
Quite frankly, I'm more worried about their choice of who to execute than their method. Given an opportunity, I think quite a few people would throw a stone or two in Armandhandjob's direction and consider it cultural dialog.
Ralphinfidel.. a fair point, I can agree but when it comes to the crunch, give me a bullet in the back of my head anyday. Messy but as quick as you are going to get.