One of them was a Bahai. The Islamic apologists in the U.S. are chartering a plane as we speak, preparing to go to Mashhad to explain that Islam forbids stoning. “‘Two men stoned to death in Iran,'” from AFP, January 11 (thanks to Twostellas):
Tehran – Two men have been stoned to death for adultery at a cemetery in the northeastern city of Mashhad while a third escaped with his life, the Iranian newspaper Etemad Melli reported on Sunday.
The reformist daily, quoting a statement from a group of lawyers and women’s rights activists, said the stoning was carried out at Behesht Reza cemetery in the first week of the Iranian month of Day, which runs from December 21 to 26.
“One of them named Mahmoud, an Afghan national, was able to save himself from the stoning hole with serious injuries, but two others died,” it said, identifying one of the men killed as Houshang Kh….
An Iranian newspaper reported earlier this month that a man named Houshang Kh. had been executed for rape and adultery. It said the man was a follower of the banned Bahai faith.
What a surprise!
Iran’s judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi issued a directive in 2002 imposing a moratorium on such executions.
The rights group quoted by Etemad Melli “voiced concern at the stoning sentence being carried out contrary to Ayatollah Hashemi Shahrudi’s order” and “called on the authorities to put an end to this punishment”.
Under Iran’s Islamic law, adultery is still theoretically punishable by stoning, which involves the public hurling of stones at the convict buried up to his waist. A woman is buried up to her shoulders….