This was also posted on Joe Gandelman’s blog The Moderate Voice.
Yes, you could say it’s barbaric — but you could also say that it might act as a deterrent.
An Iranian accused of murdering at least 20 kids was executed in front of a large crowd in a most unnice way that might make other child killers in Iran give it at least a passing thought:
Mohammad Bijeh, 24, dubbed “the Tehran desert vampire” by Iran’s press, was flogged 100 times before being hanged.A brother of one of his young victims stabbed him as he was being punished. The mother of another victim was asked to put the noose around his neck.
The execution took place in Pakdasht south of Tehran, near where Bijeh’s year-long killing spree took place.
The killer was hoisted about 10 metres into the air by a crane and slowly throttled to death in front of the baying crowd.
Hanging by a crane - a common form of execution in Iran - does not involve a swift death as the condemned prisoner’s neck is not broken.
Hanging by crane? Gee, I didn’t think those birds were that tall. But we digress:
The killer collapsed twice during the punishment, although he remained calm and silent throughout.Spectators, held back by barbed wire and about 100 police officers, chanted “harder, harder” as judicial officials took turns to flog Bijeh’s bare back before his hanging.
Bijeh was stabbed by the 17-year-old brother of victim Rahim Younessi, AFP reported, as he was being readied to be hanged.
Officials then invited the mother Milad Kahani to put the blue nylon rope around his neck.
The crimes of Mohammed Bijeh and his accomplice Ali Baghi had drawn massive attention in the Iranian media.
They reportedly tricked children to go with them into the desert south of Tehran by saying they were going to hunt animals. They then poisoned or knocked their victims out, sexually abused them and buried them in shallow graves.
“Hey, what about rehabilitation?” All murders are contemptible but kid killing is the lowest of the low.
Attorney Eugene Volokh writes:”I like civilization, but some forms of savagery deserve to be met not just with cold, bloodless justice but with the deliberate infliction of pain, with cruel vengeance rather than with supposed humaneness or squeamishness. I think it slights the burning injustice of the murders, and the pain of the families, to react in any other way. And, yes, I know this aligns me in this instance with the Iranian government — but even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and in this instance the Iranians are quite correct.”
Yes, seriously: what could be worse than seeing a young life snuffed out before it has a chance to live due to some sick sadistic or sexual needs of an adult? There are several people killed when a kid is butchered: the kid, the siblings and the parents. Scott Peterson should consider himself lucky he doesn’t live in Iran.
Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are two Iranian bloggers who have been arrested and jailed for blogging.
Sigarchi was arrested on January 17, after responding to a summons from the intelligence ministry in the northern city of Rashat. He has been held at Rashat’s Lakan Prison where he has been denied the right to see a lawyer and bail has been set at 200 million rials (about $25,000 U.S.). The authorities have put pressure on his mother to deny that her son has been arrested.His weblog had been banned by authorities in Iran for speaking out against recent arrests of cyberjournalists and bloggers (see below) and is inaccessible within the country. In addition to his blog, he is the editor of the daily Gylan Emroz. A few days before his arrest he was interviewed by two foreign radio stations, the BBC World Service and Radio Farda.
Saminejad was arrested and later freed, but still faces charges:
Mojtaba Saminejad was released on 27 January after almost three months in detention. He has been charged by the Tehran prosecutor’s office and is due to be tried soon. It is uncertain what crime has been alleged and what bail, if any, he has had to pay.
There is more info here on how you can help, including sending letters and emails to Iranian representatives.
You can sign a petition here.
From the Telegraph :
As one young woman awaits sentence and another faces death this week, Alasdair Palmer reveals the Iranian legal system’s shocking barbarity towards children“My mother doesn’t visit me in prison. If you see her, tell her she promised to bring me cheese curls and chocolate. And she shouldn’t forget to bring my red dress.”
Those pathetic words may be among the last utterances of a 19-year-old girl, identified only as Leila M, who has been condemned to death in Iran for “acts incompatible with chastity”.
According to Amnesty International, Leila has a mental age of eight. What evidence there is of her life so far records an existence of unrelieved misery and brutality.
She was sold into prostitution at the age of eight by her parents.
[…]
There is every indication that the Supreme Court will decide that Leila must die. Earlier this year, they upheld a sentence of death on 16-year-old Atefeh Rajabi. Atefeh had also been convicted of “acts incompatible with chastity”.In her defence, she said she had been sexually assaulted by an older man. The judges did not care. So, on August 16, at 6am, Atefeh was taken from her cell and hanged from a crane in the main square of the town of Neka.
Witnesses report that she begged for her life as she was dragged kicking and screaming to the makeshift gallows. She shouted “repentance” over and over again – a gesture which, according to Islamic law, is supposed to grant the accused the right to an immediate stay of execution while an appeal is heard.
Atefeh’s cries were in vain. Haji Rezaie, the judge who presided over her trial, put the noose around her neck himself.
[…]
In the case of Hajieh Esmailvand, a young woman found guilty of adultery with an unnamed 17-year-old boy, the Supreme Court has not only confirmed the death sentence imposed by the lower court, but changed the means of death from hanging to execution by stoning.Hajieh’s original sentence had been for five years’ imprisonment followed by death by hanging. A month ago, the Supreme Court annulled her jail sentence – but only so that Hajieh could be stoned before December 21, and with the recommendation that she should be.
In the next two days, it seems likely that Hajieh will die from wounds caused by stones thrown by “executioners”. The Iranian Penal Code states that women should be buried up to their breasts before being stoned. Article 104 is specific about the type of stones that should be used when a woman is to be punished for adultery. They “should not be large enough to kill the woman by one or two strikes, nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones”. Hajieh will die slowly, in agony, buried in sand, as officials lob correctly sized stones at her head.
It is a fate that also awaits Zhila Izadyar, a 13-year-old girl from the northern province of Mazandaran. She has been sentenced to be stoned to death after her parents reported that she had had an incestuous relationship with her 15-year-old brother and had become pregnant by him.
Zhila has already received a “preliminary punishment” of 53 lashes.
[…]
The barbarity towards children of the Iranian legal system is all the more surprising in that it contradicts the international legal obligations on the treatment of children, which the Iranian government has adopted. Iran is a signatory both to the International Convention on Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, both of which explicitly forbid the execution of minors - let alone their killing by stoning.
[…]
There are no plans to change any of the provisions of the Penal Code that relate to children, and which state that girls as young as nine can be executed (boys have to reach the age of 14 before they can be killed).
[…]
…those who are disgusted by judicial decisions cannot even safely express their condemnation of a system that not only hangs children, but beats them to death in public: Kaveh Habibi-Nejad, a 14-year-old boy, suffered this fate on November 12 for eating on the streets during Ramadan. A witnesses said that they thought he died because “the metal cable being used to flog him hit his head”.
Ok, how many people thing it would be a good idea to let these people have nuclear weapons? How many people think that an act of war - a pre-emptive strike - against their nuclear weapons facilities would not just be justified, but essential, should they start weapons manufacture? Alternatively, how many people think that this regime won’t use nukes to fry Jews and Americans at the earliest possible opportunity?
We have to be serious about stopping the Mullahs from getting nukes by peaceful means, because if we don’t, we’ll have to do it by force.
We’re losing the close race between the Iranian Nuclear program, and the revolution that will sweep the mullahs out.
The media is playing a very dangerous game in their continued softball handling and spoon feeding of John Kerry on foreign policy issues. This partisan setup question on Iran lobbed to John Kerry by Tom Brokaw is so condesending that it makes my hair hurt.
Brokaw: …in moving through that part of the world. There’s strong evidence that Iran is in pursuit of a nuclear weapon at some stage. There’s also strong evidence that it’s now meddling in Iraq. So was President Bush wrong to characterize it as part of the Axis of Evil? Iran?Kerry: I think that the term Axis of Evil is a misapplied term, frankly. Historically and in terms of the president. Iran is a problem. Iran in fact was a greater problem than Iraq at the time that the president started the war in Iraq. North Korea was a greater problem than Iraq at that time the president started the war in Iraq.
I believe this administration has ignored some of the things we could have done with respect to Iran. Look at what the British, French and Germans did with respect to their initiative. The United States should be leading that initiative, Tom.
The United States of America should have long ago offered the following deal. If Iran is serious about not pursuing nuclear weapons, we’ll supply you with the nuclear power and we’ll contain the nuclear material that’s created as a result. And therefore you get your power if it’s really only for peaceful purposes. We also could have pursued a far more aggressive and thoughtful counter-proliferation effort on nuclear and chemical and biological weapons internationally than this administration has.
So I believe the president took the license given him in Afghanistan to fight al-Qaida. And frankly has ignored some of the most critical challenges to the security of our country. I will provide a greater security — to the United States by pursuing more aggressively those opportunities than this administration has.
Iran sits atop one ofthe world’s largest reserves of gas and oil, it has no need for nuclear power to generate electricty. Why Kerry would parrot such a useless meme is puzzling and insulting to informed voters. One also wonders how Kerry will get France on board given that Clinton had little success, even after pandering to France’s oil and gas interests.
“French Scoff at U.S. Protest Over Gas Deal With Iran”The French government warned the United States on Monday not to
retaliate, but the Clinton administration vowed to “take whatever action
is appropriate under the law.”A spokesman for the European Union in Brussels said any American
retaliation would be “illegal and unacceptable.”The exchanges underscored the marked divergence between Europe
and the United States over how to approach Iran. They also revealed
the recurrent French irritation — intermittently shared by other
European nations — at what is sometimes seen as an American attempt
to impose its policies in the post-Cold-War world.Defending the contract signed with the National Iranian Oil Company,
Jacques Rummelhardt, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Monday
that it was “compatible with our policy toward Iran.” He described the
French policy as based on frank political exchange and the conviction
that “it is counterproductive to impose restrictions on the development
of commerce with Iran.”
In April of 1998 Lee Hamilton opined:
Second, the policy of “dual containment” of Iran and Iraq is not working, and is not sustainable. Seven years after the Gulf War, friends and allies have little enthusiasm for open-ended U.N. sanctions against Iraq. At least with Iraq, the international community agreed to impose those sanctions. On Iran, there is no such basis for agreement, and no prospect that we can persuade our allies to accept broad-based sanctions. No country in the world has followed the U.S. lead in sanctioning Iran.Our efforts to isolate and contain Iran have not only been unsuccessful, they have been counterproductive. They have caused great strains with our allies in Europe, and our Arab friends in the Gulf.
Key Arab states boycotted the U.S.-backed economic summit in Qatar, but all Arab states attended the Islamic summit in Iran. The Saudis sent no one to the Qatar meeting, but they just hosted former President Rafsanjani for two weeks in the Kingdom. Our policy is not isolating Iran—it is isolating the United States.
Third, the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act is harmful to U.S. interests. Given the politics of an election year, it was easy in the summer of 1996 for the Congress to vote to impose sanctions on foreign companies that invest in the energy sectors of Iran and Libya. ILSA passed the House on a unanimous, recorded vote—including mine. I supported the bill with many reservations, which I explained at the time, and I now believe that my vote was a mistake. The administration also had strong reservations about this sanctions bill. It secured some improvements, but the bill was still bad. In a political season, the president signed the bill into law. Now he is struggling mightily to avoid applying it.
Because of last September’s announced investment in Iran’s South Pars gas field—involving the French firm Total, the Russian firm Gazprom, and the Malaysian firm Petronas—the president now confronts a series of unacceptable choices. If he decides to impose sanctions on these firms, he takes an enormous gamble. A decision to sanction will:
- Create a huge fight with our European allies;
- Undermine the already difficult effort to maintain international support for U.S. policy toward Iraq;
- Weaken international support for efforts to contain Iran;
- Harm our efforts to draw Iran’s democratically elected president into a dialogue;
- Jeopardize our ongoing efforts to persuade Russia to shut down missile cooperation with Iran;
- Make it more difficult to gain access to Caspian oil;
- Force the European Union to take disputes on ILSA and Helms-Burton back to the World Trade Organization, threatening the integrity of that vital organization; and
- Provoke retaliation against U.S. exports and investment—costing U.S. jobs.
But, if the U.S. decides to impose and waive sanctions, the costs are also high:
- The president would face a firestorm of public criticism, especially from the Congress;
- Even if waived, the impact of sanctions on U.S. relations with the EU and Iran would be almost as harmful;
- An improvement in policy toward Iran would be even more difficult than it is; and
- U.S. energy firms would complain bitterly. Foreign competitors would be allowed to go forward with investments in Iran, while U.S. firms could not.
Right now, the administration is carrying out the most rational policy: to study the question, and to do nothing. But the job of the president is to carry out the law, and ILSA puts him—and keeps him—in a terrible box. In our effort to isolate and sanction Iran, we are harming a wide range of other U.S. interests. Our current policy toward Iran is deeply flawed.
Deeply flawed indeed, Albright’s waiver of the ILSA signaled that the US was not serious in containing Iran and gained us little in the way of support from our European allies, as France continues to run interference for Iran’s Atomic Ayatollahs.
Kerry voted to extend the toothless ILSA in July 2001, but how will he enact real sanctions against Iran, and it’s client states such as France, without deepening the rift betwen the EU and the US?
Kerry’s vague response is not satisfactory in the dangerous waters we find ourselves treading since 9/11. Kerry cannot finesse foreign policy issues, such as Iran and North Korea with sound bites. In this election voters must have a clear understanding of his policy and intended implementation. Should Kerry be elected, he must hit the ground running, as the 9/11 commission report proves, we can no longer gamble on a President-elect’s learning curve.
Blog Iran passes on this impassioned plea from Ramin Parham:
bq.. “In my article, I related the story of Tannaz, an Iranian student, and asked the question the West is facing: Between Jannati, Secretary of the Guardian Council of the Iranian theocracy, and Tannaz, which one will you choose? A few years ago in Serbia, between Milosevic on one hand and the Serbian students and Zoran Djindjic on the other, a united West chose the students and their leaders. Today, the entire Balkan region has been stabilized and democratic nations are being built. Tomorrow, in Iran, which way will the West go? Will we all harvest the seeds of democracy or the grapes of wrath and resentment of a disillusioned youth? That is the question.
For Reggie, Charlie, and Tannaz to celebrate Democracy Day in a freedom parade in Tehran, we do not need bullets. Rather, to witness the Iranian D-Day we need the West’s immense information-projection power. We need the West’s vastly influential think tanks to advocate a policy of freedom for the people, not détente with a regime whose Majlis (Parliament) inaugurates with chants of “Death to America” and whose Friday “prayers” serve as recruiting speeches for suicide bombers.
We need congressional hearings and testimonies given by young Iranians describing the hopelessness of existence under theocracy; the complete lack of normalcy and dignity; the day-by-day attrition of life. We need a tiny fraction of the West’s financial support channeled to the families of Iranian political prisoners and jailed journalists with international monitoring. We need your soft power, and all of it. We need it in a barrage of heavy-media artillery, think-tank platforms, and the solidarity of Western NGOs. We need U.S. and EU campus events with young Iranians “yearning for freedom” standing hand in hand with Western students. We need Western artists lending their music and their voices to the Joyless Generation.”
If you’re interested, the entire article is available at NRO of all places.
Hungarian Ambassador Simonyi discussed the power of Rock & Roll in an excellent Guest Blog series here at Winds of Change.NET. Does the mullahs’ atomic program give this kind of ‘soft power’ strategy enough time to work? I’m not sure it does - but I know that we should start anyway, and make a serious attempt.
The Europeans are too corrupt to follow, of course, too busy cutting deals with Iran’s theocratic jailers and torturers. “Blood for Oil,” indeed. That still leaves the USA - and this is an option America absolutely has not pursued seriously enough.
Stronger, please.
This Editorial is an adjunct to our special briefing on Iran at Winds of Change.NET, courtesy of Project: Free Iran at ActivistChat.com.
Our overview and assessment of the game being played out in Tehran is as follows: First and foremost, both history and fact prove that there is essentially no difference between the “reformers” and “hardliners”, and that this “reformer” creation of the Islamic Republic was intended to give the politically savvy Iranian people hope that their demands for freedom would eventually be answered, and also to mask the true face of the regime and disguise itself as a democracy to the world.
Our theory is that several months ago when the Mullahs realized that the Iranian people were going to overwhelmingly boycott the upcoming elections, which would show to the world the illegitimate nature of the regime, they decided to do something to avert such a situation. What better way to avert such a crisis than to create a pseudo-crisis, which would be used to convince the world that the “hardliners” are the bad guys and the “reformers” are the good guys who are liberal-minded and pro-democracy. Anyone up for a game of “Good Cop – Bad Cop”?
It is likely that the regime had hoped to pull the Iranian people into the streets in support of the “reformers”, but that hope hasn’t materialized. The Iranian people have shown that they are overwhelmingly uninterested in the same old game and instead await the moment when they can rush into the streets, not in support of the “reformers”, but in support of freedom, justice and democracy.
Regardless of what some journalists, politicians and others who have been lobbied by the regime profess as truth, the only truth is that the regime in Iran is far more dangerous and brutal than Saddam Hussein’s ever was, and if America plans on winning the “War on Terror”, the regime in Iran must fall.
He who controls Arakis, controls the Spice, and he who controls the Spice, controls the Universe!And right now, in Iran, information is the Spice. It is being controlled by the regime, on just about all fronts. They've jammed incoming news from the outside world, both free broadcast and satellite. They've stepped up efforts to confiscate personal satellite dishes. They've intimidated or warned off foreign media representatives in the country, and moved to shut down almost all print media sources within the country not regurgitating faithfully the line of the mullahs. They've blocked or restricted access to the internet, and its wealth of resources. Just prior to nightfall on the 9th, they shut down or disrupted the cell phone networks in at least Tehran, probably disrupting a major means of inter coordination between potential leaders of any demonstrations.
- Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
(Dune, Frank Herbert)
And we saw the immediate results. Only brief snatches of stories - only hints of the beginnings of gatherings. While the pundits may critique the content of the story filed by Muir of the BBC, it was practically the only credited byline to come out of Iran to the West on the 9th, other than the story the regime wanted to let be publicized - the statement by the student leaders calling the whole thing off. Can we know for sure if there really was not a lot to report, or if the intimidation or threats against the foriegn journalists was heeded by all save Muir?
Fomentation of confusion, suppression of words and news that could spread like sparks amongst dry timbers. The distractions readily on display, in the form of the pushed stories of the fate of the conjoined twins, and ElBaradei's visit and discussions.
The handling of the media and the information coming from Baghdad for the last few months of the Ba'athist regime was at once inelegant, with some loathsome aspects, such as the discovery of major media outfits trading the truth of the story for continued access 'on the scene'. But the shaping of the story at the hands of Baghdad Bob is certainly amateurish compared to the coordinated, and largely successful manipulation, at a variety of levels, currently taking place in Iran. For a bunch that many would easily write off as longing for the joys of the 6th Century, the regime of the mullahs has shown a tremendous capability and understanding of the means, methodologies, and value of controlling the flow of information into and out of Iran.
And the steps that they've taken, as mentioned above, have had the desired effect, for now. In the West, the impression has been given that the movement to overthrow the regime is not at or even near the point of boiling over, due to the lack of anticipated anarchy and chaos on the 9th. This is partly due to the lack of western media to pick the story up and run with it, but consider, what was there really to pick up and run with? Not much. There were gatherings, and there were clashes. But the reporting of those events did not take place - to neither serve as a catalyst or call for other Iranians that the time had arrived, nor for the world to watch intently. By shutting off the informational flow, the regime effectively contained the sparks, preventing the situation from reaching a point of volatility.
Which may be just as well. By all accounts, the regime was alert and ready for trouble, and the results could have been very, very costly for the Iranian people.
The causes for discontent have not gone away. The circumstance has not substantially changed. It will flare again.
In the meantime, work must be done to circumvent, to defeat, the regime's absolute hold on information. While they are savvy to the means and methods, Iran is in a much more advanced state than Iraq, and the avenues for the flow of information much more numerous, and therefore much harder to completely control.
Jeff Jarvis has a key piece of the puzzle, when he mentions that weblogger contacts have built bridges of understanding, and avenues of conversation. The potential of the net to serve as a conduit for the words, dreams, desires and hopes of the people of Iran has not yet even begun to be exploited for the purpose of resisting, and potentially bringing down the regime, despite outward appearances.
A lot of self pride was expressed following previous events, heralding the growing influence and importance of this thing we call blogging. Exposure of the New York Times, the refusal to let go of the Trent Lott story, the shortening of the turn cycle for information coming from Iraq - all great examples of potential. Potential that could be applied, and help stoke the firestorm, to help engulf the despots clutching a country.
Continue the contacts. Build the bridges - and at the same time, set up the back channels, the conduits of information. E-mail, FTP 'dead-drops', any alternate, and obscure path that will be difficult if not impossible to disrupt or deny, without completely pulling the plug on the entire country. There are a lot of ingenious people out there, on both sides of the conversation, and I'm certain some pretty ingenious methods could be arranged.
We need to make it tougher for them to shut us, and their own people up than by simply blocking Blogger and a couple of other sites hosting Iranian Weblogs. They want to hold onto power - and we should do everything - however limited - at our disposal, to make that as tough for them as possible.