Western Resistance

We wrote on June 29 of the Islamic "justice" which was issued by a court in the city of Urmia, in the northwest of Iran.

A woman, Malak Ghorbany, was accused of adultery. Her husband, Mohammad Daneshar and her brother Abu Bakr Ghorbai were also in the court. The two men had murdered her alleged "lover", and for this crime, the court awarded them a sentence of six years' jail.

But for Malak, the court sentenced her to be stoned to death. Under Iran's Penal Codes, she will be buried up to her breasts in a hole in the ground, and then small stones - their size is even determined under Iran's Penal Code, Article 104 - will be pelted at her until she is dead.

This is that article

Iran: Islamic Justice - Woman Adulterer To be Stoned To Death, Murderers Get Jail

A court in the Islamic Republic of Iran has sentenced a woman to death for adultery, states AKI. The Kurdish woman, Malak Ghorbany, was on trial in the city of Urmia, in the northwest of Iran.

In a measure of the hypocrisy of Islamic justice, two men who were found guilty of murder in the same court were only given jail sentences. Malak's brother, Abu Bakr Ghorbai, and her husband, Mohammad Daneshar, were found guilty of killing her alleged lover. They both received sentences of only six years.

AKI states that stoning sentences declined under the leadership of Mohammed Khatami, the reformist, as a result of international pressure. Though stoning sentences had virtually been abolished by the end of the 1990s, the punishment remained in the Republic's penal code.

A petition by the Committee For The Defence of Human Rights of Iranian Kurdistan has been launched, to try to spare Malak Ghorbany's life.

When a woman is stoned to death in Iran, as happened frequently in the wake of the 1979 revolution, she is covered in a white sheet and buried up to her breasts in a hole. Article 102 of Iran's Penal Code says that men should be buried up to their waists, and women up to their breasts.

Only small stones are used, to prolong the agony of the punishment, though these must be larger than a pebble. Article 104 of Iran's Penal Code states that when adulters are stoned that the stones should "not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes, nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones."

Often, the face of the woman is covered, so she does not see her assailants, and they do not see her. In films I have seen of public stonings, it takes several minutes for the victim to die. The woman pictured above was stoned to death in Iran.

If you really want to know what happens when such "Islamic justice" takes place, a truly disturbing video of stonings can be found HERE. Warning - the video is graphic, and upsetting.

Update, July 2: Although I have done extensive web searches to find out more information on the case of Malak Ghorbany, the article in AKI seems to be the only English-language source to reference it. Though cases of stoning in Iran are rare nowadays, they do still carry on. The pro-Shah Iranian news website Iran Focus stated on December 27, 2005 that Iran's Supreme Court upheld sentences on men from a bandit gang. Two men were sentenced to be hanged, and one man was sentenced to be stoned to death.

In a more recent account, it appears that a man and a woman were stoned to death in May this year. A report from Iran Focus from 5 June states that Farsi-language websites had reported that the stoning had taken place at night in a graveyard in the north-eastern city of Mashad three weeks previously.

The woman, Mahboubeh Mohammadi, was a teacher, who had apparently murdered her husband eight years before. Her accomplice was her sister's husband, who was also stoned to death. The woman's involvement in her husband's death had apparently only been discovered in 2005.

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We noted at the time of the news, that a petition was being arranged. Petitions can work. We urged you, our readers to sign the petition to save another Iranian woman from being hanged, Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi. Nazanin's hanging was postponed, and as a result of the international pressure, she will have a retrial in August.Nazanin was attacked by a rapist and killed the man in self-defense.

Malak Ghorbany is a human being, with every right to live a life. Her "crime", that of adultery, is hardly a crime that can be proved. Even under Islamic sharia, there must be four witnesses to such an act to validate a conviction. It is highly doubtful that this has happened.

I tried numerous web searches to find the petition, but I offer a heartfelt thanks to our reader, Lily Mazahery, who has sent us a message, with details of the petition. Thank you Lily.

What is now important is for every one who comes here to sign the petition, and if you have a weblog of your own, or a favourite blogsite you visit, please publicise this, and send messages to your contacts, with this information.

The petition is addressed to Kofi Annan of the United Nations. Please do not just ignore this. Public pressure can make a difference. We cannot stop all the wrongs in the world committed by Islam, but we can help to save a woman's life, in the name of decency and humanity.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION TO SAVE MALAK'S LIFE

Please sign up. Thank you.