Iran's Barbaric Human Rights Abuse

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright July 9, 2010
All Rights Reserved.                                

             When former President George W. Bush identified Iran on the “Axis of Evil” Jan. 29, 2002 in the State of the Union speech, the outside world learned of intolerable abuses in women’s and human rights.   As long as women wear the Hijab or Burka, they are not subject to the harassment, arrest, detention, beatings and liquidation for violating Persian law.  Iran’s brutality toward women was highlighted on the world stage with the expected stoning of convicted adulteress Mohammadi-Ashtiani, whose crimes earned her the death penalty.  Iran’s religious powers caved under mounting international pressure against stoning, considered in the West as barbaric.  Iran’s mullahs consider it befitting punishment for female adulterers, certainly not men.  “According to the information from the relevant judicial authorities in Iran, will not be executed by stoning,” said London’s Iranian embassy.

            Ashtiani faces no clemency by Iran’s clerics only a different death sentence for her alleged adultery.  Ashtiani’s attorney in Tehran Mohammad Mostafari indicated he received no independent confirmation of the state’s change of heart.  “My client remains in prison” awaiting execution.  He had not idea whether authorities had commuted her sentence or changed its execution, typically by hanging inside the prison.  “It didn’t say the verdict had been overturned, so is she going to face some alternative punishment, is she going to be released or will there be a retrial,” said Mostafari, awaiting some direction from Iranian government.  Once someone is brought inside the Iranian judicial system, there’s no return, as pro-Democracy protestors found out.  When Mir-Hossein Mousavi lost June 13, 2009 to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmandinejad, the election was deemed fixed.

            Waves of protestors following the election were arrested, charged, convicted and liquidated in the most brutal crackdown since Chinese tanks rolled over pro-Deemocracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square April 14, 1989.  While the Chinese openly massacred about 3,000 protestors, no one knows the numbers of Iranians liquidated  during Ahmandinejad’s crackdown.  When 43-year-old mother-of-two Mohammadi-Ashtiani was convicted of adultery in 2006, she was flogged and sentenced to death.  Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have worked round-the-clock to stop Iran’s scheduled stoning.  AI’s Mideast and North Africa deputy director Nassiba Hadj Sahraoui begged Iranian authorities to spare Ashtiani’s life.  “To punish—and in some cases execute—people for being in consenting relationships is no business of the state,” said Sahraoui.

            Faced with more harsh sanctions for its nuclear enrichment program, the Iranian regime has gone rogue, refusing any U.N. supervision for its atomic program and human rights abuses.  Iran neither listens to any international body nor responds to sanctions, rejecting outside pressure.  While it’s a good sign that Ashtiani hasn’t been stoned to death, her death sentence looms as the same Taliban-like brutality that called for regime change in 2001.  Amnesty International indicates that at least 10 other prisoners—seven of whom women—face a stoning death sentence.  Calling Iran’s justice system “medieval,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Iran that the world is watching its barbaric behavior.  More defiance only galvanizes support for eventual regime change.  With Israel threatening to bomb its nuclear facilities, there’s growing impatience with Iran.

            Iranian justice finds any excuse to torture and murder opposents to the Mullahs’ radical agenda.  Nowhere on the planet—other than perhaps North Korea—are there more human rights’ abuses and less tolerance for freedom of speech.  Stoning and beheadings display the kind of savagery that beats dissent into submission.  “Stoning as a means of execution is tantamount to torture.  It’s barbaric and an abhorrent act,” said U.S. State Department spokesman, urging Tehran to cease-and-desist.   Savage-like practices like stoning remind the civilized world that Iran marches to the beat of a different drummer, one that accepts any act of violence as long as it forces conformity and obedience of its citizens.  World powers must take a forceful stance and condemn Iran’s aberrant behavior.  If WW II taught anything, it was that the world can’t tolerate heinous acts of barbarity.

            President Barack Obama needs to take a forceful stance on Iran’s Islamic Republic   He’s repeatedly warned Tehran to cease-and-desist its defiant uranium enrichment program or face more draconic sanctions.  In order for Ahmadinejad to get the message, the U.S. must be prepared to back up its warnings.  As long as the U.S. remains mired in Iraq and Afghanistan, it ties its hands where it counts, especially dealing with the real threats to world peace.  Calling stoning “a particularly cruel method of execution which amounts to torture,” EU Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton strongly condemned Iran’s actions.  Beyond sadistic methods of execution, world powers must stand together and tell Tehran it's crossed the line of civilized conduct.  Stoning is just one more glaring red flag when it comes to Tehan’s egregious human rights abuses and warnings for the civilized world.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.