There is a stoning planned for the near future. Wouldn’t it be nice if, instead of shying away from criticizing this barbaric practice to avoid offending anyone’s sensibilities, there was instead a public outrage about it?
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So what is the iran leaders problem with the film?
Is the film showing a terrible lie to make them look bad?
or
is it showing the true situation to make them look just as they are?
If the film is a lie then why is this on the law books as a proper punishment.
If the truth hurts then change your BS beliefs & laws.
If this is true and you think it is right, then stand up and admit it and stop being a cry baby.
I agree completely. The President of Iran needs to stand up at the UN and explain why stoning women is OK. Seriously.
I’m not even opening a browser for the rest of the afternoon.
Who are the monsters who assemble to throw the stones? That is one horrendous culture.
@gruebait #3,
I guess you haven’t heard about The Lottery. Yes, it’s a fictional short story, but the Milgram experiments show that “our” culture isn’t so much better.
Shawn, we in the west don’t stone women and should be proud of it. However the ability of the west to do horrible things was clearly shown with the torture that followed 9/11.
Bad things should be shown and made graphic wherever they appear.
The idea “we are not much better” is no excuse for not shouting, including when appropriate at ourselves.
I’m with Shawn. They’re not monsters, they’re people, just like you and me. The best way to avoid committing this kind of evil is to recognize your own capacity for it. People will go to great lengths to avoid the thought that maybe what they’re doing is wrong.
@shawn
Yes, I have read The Lottery, though it’s been about 40 years. I also am familiar with the studies with undergrads role-playing as prisoners and jailers. Lord of the flies, etc, etc, yes, people are all capable of awful treatment of their fellows.
The travesty that is Gitmo is not the public torturing-to-death of citizens for what this culture does not even consider criminal.
I’m from this culture.
That culture is horrendous.
Hard to say. We do tend to reserve killing for grievous crimes and kill our priosoners quickly, that is if waiting in a cell for 20 or so years is quick.
But there seems to be something seriously fucked up about burying someone waste deep and throwing a bunch of rocks at them until you kill them that would make you proud you don’t do that shit.
Also that clip is really disturbing. No wonder Iran is pissed, it makes them look like real jerks.
“I’m with Shawn. They’re not monsters, they’re people, just like you and me.”
Sure the Iranians are mainly great. However there is a brutal system that keeps them under the thumb of the rulers and stoning is one horrific means of doing this.
The people actually doing the stoning? Not nice guys, monsters I would say.
But there seems to be something seriously fucked up about burying someone waste deep and throwing a bunch of rocks at them until you kill them that would make you proud you don’t do that shit.
What’s even more f–ked up about it is that sometimes the woman’s mouth is covered so that you can’t hear her cry out in pain, because hey, we can’t have any of the stone throwers suddenly feel some compassion.
@Shawn & others:
Things you don’t see in “our” culture:
-Women forced to wear niqabs
-Female circumcision
-Myths of afterlife orgies
-Adult men marrying 9 year old girls
-High-ranking religious officials condoning such marriages
-Honor killings
-Stonings
With regard to the treatment of and attitudes toward women, not only is our culture *much* better, it’s unfathomably, indisputably better. I don’t know how far back in time you would have to go to find an equivalent level of misogyny in the West.
Yes, actually, you do see honor killings in our culture. We just call them by other names, like domestic abuse and hate crimes. While our legal system doesn’t (overtly) condone these acts, the people who commit them are just as present here as they are there.
Stephanie Z, Granted the people are there, but there is a huge difference between a state that outlaws and punishes these crimes and states that condones and encourage them.
There really isn’t that much difference. The major purpose of putting people in prison is to â??otherâ? them, so that they can be treated badly and denied opportunities so their only pathway is down to the bottom.
That is one of the major reasons for the racial imbalance in prisons.
Kill someone or put them in prison for 10 years where they are treated brutally and end up with PTSD, mental health problems and no job skills, then dump them on the street, and for what? For using a drug that is â??illegalâ?.
Let’s also remember that these are not state-sponsored crimes of humanity, but rather, religious acts in countries that merge religion and religious organizations and the state.
This is, in part, what people fighting to maintain/increase church-state separation are fighting against.
sailor, what Greg said.
Islam was designed as a system of governance. This is what the conflicts are all about. If the Catholic Church was able to enforce it’s prohibition on abortion, we would see much more violence in this country. Put it another way: If priests were able to form and organize their own militias to enforce their ‘laws’, we would see warfare within our own country. (This is not a very good example because unlike Islamic law, at least the Catholic ‘laws’ are much less hostile to us.)
There really isn’t that much difference.
Actually there is. In general the people who get prison sentences here in the United States are dealers, not the people who are caught with small quantities and are considered users. Our drug laws, unjust as they are, do not put us in the same class as Iran.
Also, this story is not about our individual justice systems. Anyone please correct me if I am wrong, the issue is not only the punishment is barbaric, it is that men are not convicted of adultery, only women.
If the cap fits, wear it.
It is their culture and law, and they should be proud of it. The fact that most other folk think this is utterly barbaric should not be a problem in their proud culture.
Anyone, especially anyone female, who wants to move to Iran under the current regime, is perfectly welcome to do so; probably certifiably insane, but away they can go.
“these are not state-sponsored crimes of humanity, but rather, religious acts in countries that merge religion and religious organizations and the state.”
I agree with you about the obvious benefits of dividing church and state, but when you have a theocratic state that stones someone, that is a state-sponsored act of barbarism that to my mind is a crime against humanity. I don’t buy into your subtle distinction between whether it is ordered by the religious branch or the less religious branch – they are all one.
@Stephanie Z: Domestic abuse and hate crimes are not honor killings. What you don’t see in our culture are fathers, mothers and brothers who conspire together or act alone to murder their daughters and sisters who marry against the family’s wishes, or refuse to wear a hijab, or are raped, or otherwise bring “shame” on the family.
By the way, even if we grant that our culture expects women to suffer and accept domestic abuse (highly debatable, and the expectation would be explicit at most), the level of toleration, if any, is eclipsed by the explicit toleration in Iran. Same for hate crimes, where the justice system can and does punish homosexuality by death.
Sailor (21): I don’t think we disagree here on what is going on there. I’m making a point about what is going o here.
Religious fundies don’t want to have their Christian government so they can teach creationism in schools. Creationism is ridiculous and they know it. They have other goals in mind.
Its not the Islamic Law to kill women just like that, u morons… its the law tampered to serve personal interest… ur bible says:
“If any man takes a wife, and goes in on her, and detests her, and charges her with shameful conduct, and brings a bad name on her, and says, ‘I took this woman, and when I came to her I found she was not a virgin…” (Deuteronomy 22:13,14)
“But if … evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones…” (Deuteronomy 22:20,21)
Lev 21:9 And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.
“And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 21:17)”
“For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him. (Leviticus 20:9)”
12.10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die, because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
17.2 If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman who hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God in transgressing His covenant,
17.3 and hath gone and served other gods and worshiped them, either the sun or moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded,
17.4 and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it and inquired diligently, and behold, it be true and the thing certain that such abomination is wrought in Israel,
17.5 then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman who has committed that wicked thing unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die.
17.6 At the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses shall he that is worthy of death be put to death, but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.
22.20 But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel, (unmarried women)
22.21 then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her fatherâ??s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die, because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her fatherâ??s house; so shalt thou put evil away from among you.
22.22 â??If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman and the woman; so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.
all u guys wanna do is bitch n moan abt Muslims n Islam.. How abt female infanticide in India??? U.S Military killing afghans, Basic tools of survival n lives being taken away in Gaza by the Mother Fucker Israelis??
U guys call urself educated?? u cant differentiate between wat the religion preaches n wat ppl follow… wat happened to Sooraiya was unjust n terrible but u blame the society n backwardness of ppl for that not Islam.. Islam no where teaches that if u feel a woman sinned or some casual witness comes along dun waste time n stone the woman so that u can go to ur fucking job.. stoning is not tat simple n easy..
@ Fens – “Things you don’t see in “our” culture:
-‘Women forced to wear niqabs’ – By Islam a woman cant be forced to wear a hijab or to get married. There r more women becoming muslims in the world, why? cause they r sucidal?
-Female circumcision – Bullshit.. its not Islam..
-Myths of afterlife orgies – Bullshit again – the concept of 72 virgins for blowing urself up or otherwise is not in the Quran
-Adult men marrying 9 year old girls – Ur a sick degenerated filth who doesnt understand the cultural practices of ppl 1400 yrs ago.. ur fine wit ur 13 yr old american teens getting laid n carrying babies in their womb but a man marrying one 9 yr old wit her n her parents consent in fact invitation seems gross to u.. wat abt the priests famous for homosexuality with young boys n nuns of the church?? Incest is most widespread n common in ur western society n how abt the famous ‘fuck fest’ in ur civilized country? get women drunk n gang of premature dicks raping the drunk gurl n video taping it??
-High-ranking religious officials condoning such marriages: Islam doesnt allow or appreciate getting a woman married without her consent.
-Honor killings: Honor killing lies in every society.. Especially in Hindu society in India n ur Christian n the Jewish society is not unaffected.
-Stonings” – read my previous post n u shall find out where stoning comes from.. if u have forgotten Christianity is 500-600 yrs older than Islam..