It's all right, multiculturalists: it's an ancient Islamic punishment.
From AKI (thanks to all who sent this in):
Tehran, 10 Jan. (AKI) - Iran's supreme court has confirmed that two youths, found guilty of rape will receive 100 lashes each before being cast off a cliff - an ancient Islamic punishment - local media reported. The reports named the youths as Tayeb and Yazdan."This is a chilling sentence," said Iranian human rights activist and lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah.
"Iranian jurisprudence allows alternative punishments to those prescribed by Islamic law, but many judges ignore them, " Dadhkhah said.
Iranian magistrates in recent weeks sentenced several people to punishments that had been in abeyance, he said. As recently as last week in Iranian Balochistan, five minority Sunnis had their hands and feet amputated, he noted.
All five Sunnis were found guilty of the crime of 'moharebeh' or enmity towards Allah. The highly vague definition of 'enemy of God' ranges from homosexuals and drug traffickers to supporters or members of armed groups opposed to the regime....
Barabarians.
Whoops!! i will try again.......
Barbarians.
Bill O'Reilly on Fox has a talking points on how NBC's parent company, GE is doing business with Iran.
In spite of it's being listed as a state sponsor of terror and these lovely 7th century legal issues.
Think about that the next time you go to Home Depot to buy a fridge.
"... Iran's supreme court has confirmed that two youths, found guilty of rape ..."
....must have been a gang rape with lots of witnesses....
Hmmm.....
Lets see, two low life scrotes found guilty of rape and given a punishment that I think should be mandatory here too.
Sorry, sympathy meter at zero here.
The problem with death penalties is that they're irreversible. If you sentence an innocent person to death, the mistake can never be corrected. However, I don't think death penalties are morally wrong, so in that sense I have no problem with Iran executing these rapists.
"..... think should be mandatory here too...."
....with the advancements in DNA investigations, many rape convictions have been overturned....it turns out the convicted person was , as he had mantained, innocent.....sad that many of these people endured years of imprisonment....some even died in prison....but because of new DNA techonolgy...rape convictions are becoming more accurately secured....what kind of evidence do the Iranians use....usually accusations without proof....
"As recently as last week in Iranian Balochistan, five minority Sunnis had their hands and feet amputated..."
-- from the article above
Neither the crime nor the punishment here is what, in Sunni countries, will be noted. The identity of those being punished -- "five minority Sunnis" --- will be. That's good.
"... Iran's supreme court has confirmed that two youths, found guilty of rape ..."
....must have been a gang rape with lots of witnesses....
Posted by: exsgtbrown at January 11, 2008 7:20 AM
Yeah - I mean, two males were actually found guilty of rape in Iran? Uh huh, must have been at least 4 witnesses. Sorry, I have no sympathy, as "robert in england" also said, for rapists. So, throw 'em off the cliff. They deserve it.
There are arguments for and against the death sentence.
However, in any civilized country, it is generally accepted that the death sentence should be carried out in an humane a manner as possible, regardless of how evil the crime committed. Whether that is achieved is another question.
That clearly isn't the case here. This is a spectator sport.
Well ... much as I think this is a perfect sentence for a rapist, knowing now how Iran's "justice system" works (it doesn't, and a lot of people are convicted of crimes they didn't commit), I'm going to have to say that this is probably not a fair decision.
However, if the ... oh, how did robert in england put it? ... ah yes, "low life scrotes" ... DID in fact do it, what are the chances that I can help toss them off the cliff?
Every criminal legal verdict out of Iran is suspect.
..Islamic cliff diving?....
All religions are the same. All people want the same things. All cultures share the same (Western) values. We are all the same.
Except that we aren't.
Posted by: exsgtbrown
but because of new DNA techonolgy...rape convictions are becoming more accurately secured.
MORE THE REASON TO BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2007/11/cut-their-balls-off.html
Even if one is for the death penalty, in the Judeo-Christian heritage there is a sense that the body is sacred as an 'image' of God, a divine creation no matter how far gone wrong.
What is offensive is the 'assault on the human form' that amputation, beheading, whipping to death, stoning etc. makes manifest. It offends humans and has a crypto-sexual sadistic element.
Islam is so barren of self reflection that whole families enjoy videos of beheadings over and over and over in an almost sexual trance, shouting allahu akhbar at the tv screen.
I thought you have to have 4 "witnesses" (or participants, I suppose) to be convicted of rape.
Throwing people off of a cliff is a Koranically acceptable sentence? Koranic logic in these matters is truly mystifying-I once read that the Taliban executed someone by toppling a wall on him with a tank and said the Koran called for THAT
as a suitable punishment. Again Satan Khomeini's
"there is no humor in Islam" line is proven false.
poetcomic1 -
I think you're right.
Here is something from Oriana Fallaci's "The Rage and the Pride" - something she saw, in Bangladesh.
"To make you cry I’ll tell you about the twelve young impure men I saw executed at Dacca at the end of the Bangladesh war. They executed them on the field of Dacca stadium, with bayonet blows to the torso or abdomen, in the presence of twenty thousand faithful who applauded in the name of God from the bleachers. They thundered "Allah akbar, Allah akbar."
"Yes, I know: the ancient Romans, those ancient Romans of whom my culture is so proud, entertained themselves in the Coliseum by watching the deaths of Christians fed to the lions. I know, I know: in every country of Europe the Christians, those Christians whose contribution to the History of Thought I recognize despite my atheism, entertained themselves by watching the burning of heretics.
"But a lot of time has passed since then, we have become a little more civilized, and even the sons of Allah ought to have figured out by now that certain things are just not done.
"After the twelve impure young men they killed a little boy who had thrown himself at the executioners to save his brother who had been condemned to death. They smashed his head with their combat boots.
"And if you don’t believe it, well, reread my report or the reports of the French and German journalists who, horrified as I was, were there with me. Or better: look at the photographs that one of them took.
"Anyway this isn’t even what I want to underline. It’s that, at the conclusion of the slaughter, the twenty thousand faithful (many of whom were women) left the bleachers and went down on the field. Not as a disorganized mob, no. In an orderly manner, with solemnity. They slowly formed a line and, again in the name of God, walked over the cadavers. All the while thundering Allah–akbar, Allah–akbar. They destroyed them like the Twin Towers of New York. They reduced them to a bleeding carpet of smashed bones."
Or, in Fallaci's unforgettable original Italian - read it aloud! -
Per farti piangere ti racconto quello dei dodici giovanotti impuri che finita la guerra del Bangladesh vidi giustiziare a Dacca. Li giustiziarono sul campo dello stadio di Dacca, a colpi di baionetta nel torace o nel ventre, e alla presenza di ventimila fedeli che dalle tribune applaudivano in nome di Dio. Tuonavano ´Allah akbar, Allah akbarª.
Lo so, lo so: nel Colosseo gli antichi romani, quegli antichi romani di cui la mia cultura va fiera, si divertivano a veder morire i cristiani dati in pasto ai leoni.
Lo so, lo so: in tutti i paesi d'Europa i cristiani, quei cristiani ai quali malgrado il mio ateismo riconosco il contributo che hanno dato alla Storia del Pensiero, si divertivano a veder bruciare gli eretici. Però è trascorso parecchio tempo, siamo diventati un pochino più civili, e anche i figli di Allah dovrebbero aver compreso che certe cose non si fanno.
Dopo i dodici giovanotti impuri ammazzarono un bambino che per salvare il fratello condannato a morte s'era buttato sui giustizieri. A lui schiacciarono la testa con gli scarponi da militare. E se non ci credi, bè: rileggi la mia cronaca o la cronaca dei giornalisti francesi e tedeschi che inorriditi quanto me erano lì con me.
Meglio: guardati le fotografie che uno di essi scattò.
Comunque il punto che mi preme sottolineare non è questo. È che, concluso lo scempio, i ventimila fedeli (molte donne) lasciarono le tribune e scesero nel campo. Non in maniera scomposta, cialtrona, no. In maniera ordinata, solenne. Lentamente composero un corteo e, sempre in nome di Dio, passarono sopra i cadaveri. Sempre tuonando Allah–akbar, Allah–akbar. Li distrussero come le due Torri di New York. Li ridussero a un tappeto sanguinolento di ossa spiaccicate."
There may not have been 4 or 20 witnesses. What might have been the case here is that the Sunni boys may have raped Shia girls. So the girls, rather than allege a plain & simple rape, may have alleged that these Sunnis were engaging in anti-Shia activity by raping Shia girls, and thereby ensured that they'd get justice.
Well, whatever it takes... and as Hugh noted, this would be noticed elsewhere. Maybe the Baluchi separatists in Pakistan might add this to their list of complaints against Islamabad, and demand that Pakistan increase their friction with Iran
" [regarding} the crime of 'moharebeh' or enmity towards Allah[:] ... The highly vague definition of 'enemy of God' ranges from homosexuals and drug traffickers to supporters or members of armed groups opposed to the regime...."
-----------------------
In other words, you gotta go along with the guys in power or risk being accused of "heresy" or "apostasy" or "mischief" or "enmity against God"; conviction on any of these charges lets the bloody imams totally destroy you and your family. Not to mention they can then enrich themselves with your property, too. One might describe this as "religion by bullying", don't you think?
So how many lashes were meted out to the victim or is this another case of a convicted rape victim having her sentence commuted by a benevolent dictator?
poetcomic1,
There may be Christians who take your position, but it does not reflect Judeo-Christian tradition. Some of the body-damaging punishments that you mention, such as stoning, are explicitly sanctioned in ancient Jewish law, and Christians have through most of their history sanctioned and made use of punishments such as beheading. Executions in Christian countries were carried out in public until quite recently, including executions explicitly sanctioned by the Church.
While I have grave doubts about the integrity of the Iranian legal system and consider some punishments, such as amputation, to be brutal, executing rapists by throwing them off a cliff is not particularly painful or degrading and does not serve as a good example of differences between Muslim law and Western legal systems.
"but because of new DNA techonolgy...rape convictions are becoming more accurately secured."
DNA? technology?
How do you say that in Persian?
billposer
sneaky bit of tu quoque there.
Only snag is: you're taking the western PAST (some of it quite distant - the last burnings of heretics took place about FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO), a past whose worst aspects we have consciously left behind us, a past to which we have absolutely NO intention of returning; and you are falsely comparing it with the frightful PRESENT REALITY of certain sharia-dominated Muslim lands, such as Iran, or Saudi Arabia.
By the way: what do you think of the Muslim sharia punishment of death for ...leaving Islam?
How about the Muslim sharia punishment of death for 'blasphemy'?
There are Muslims who try to carry out those punishments NOW, TODAY, and not even in Muslim-dominated lands, but in countries like Britain, where former Muslims who have become Christians are forced to live in hiding because of murderous threats from...their Muslim family members.
The Muslim sharia law code appears to me to have been harsh even by the standards of the 7th century; it is simply horrible, when compared with the standard practice of free western countries, today.
"but because of new DNA techonolgy...rape convictions are becoming more accurately secured."
DNA? technology?
How do you say that in Persian?
Posted by: M.O.T."
,,,the point is, Muslims do not use modern crime investigations to any great extent...they prefer the 7th century methods....convictions upon accusations, atrocious judicial systems, and draconian penalties...no real proof required
Why is it that every time the Iranians try to show the West just how modern, enlightened, and intellectually superior they are to us Infidels it involves something right out of a medieval torturer's handbook?
Flogged, and cast off a cliff?
Recently in Muslim countries we have had cases of cross-amputations, stonings, extra-judicial (but government-sanctioned) defenestrations, and even *cruxifictions*.
Someone unaware of Shari'ah would never believe that we are talking about contemporary events--they would assume that these were either the acts of particularly sadistic criminals, or else events from centuries ago.
And Islamists take offence when called Medieval.
Medieval is as Medieval does!