‘Necessary for Security’: Veteran Taliban Enforcer Says Amputations Will Resume

THE GUARDIAN: Nooruddin Turabi, in charge of Afghan prisons, says executions and removal of hands will restart, but possibly not in public

Afghanistan’s Taliban leader Mullah Nooruddin Turabi. ‘No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam.’ Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP
The Taliban will resume executions and the amputation of hands for criminals they convict, in a return to their harsh version of Islamic justice.

According to a senior official – a veteran leader of the hardline Islamist group who was in charge of justice during its previous period in power – executions would not necessarily take place in public as they did before.

The Taliban’s first period ruling Afghanistan during the 1990s, before they were toppled by a US-led invasion in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks, was marked by the grisly excesses of its perfunctory justice system, which included public executions in the football stadium in Kabul.

In an interview with Associated Press, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi – who was justice minister and head of the so-called ministry of propagation of virtue and prevention of vice during the Taliban’s previous rule – dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, and warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers.

Under the new Taliban government, Turabi is in charge of prisons. He is among a number of Taliban leaders, including members of the all-male interim cabinet, who are on a United Nations sanctions list.

“Everyone criticised us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi said in Kabul. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Qur’an.”

“Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security,” Turabi added, saying it had a deterrent effect. He said the cabinet was studying whether to carry out punishments in public and would “develop a policy”. » | Peter Beaumont | Friday, September 24, 2021

Barbaric laws for people who live in darkness, for people who are shackled to a bygone age. – © Mark

Afghanistan: Executions will return, says senior Taliban official: The Taliban's notorious former head of religious police has said extreme punishments such as executions and amputations will resume in Afghanistan. »

Will It EVER Stop? Now ISIS String Up Hostages and Burn Them ALIVE in Sick Revenge Killing

The four prisoners were burnt alive at a location in the west of Iraq

EXPRESS: DEPRAVED fanatical terror regime Islamic State (ISIS) has murdered four hostages by suspending them over fire and burning them alive.

The group’s sick propaganda machine released perhaps its most disturbing video yet today showing the men enduring a slow and painful death.

In the footage, which is too harrowing to show, the victims are strung up by their hands and feet before a fire is lit beneath each of them.

ISIS claim the men were spies from a rival Shia sect but terror experts believe the atrocity could be a revenge killing following the burning to death of an ISIS fighter this weekend.

In that incident, an Iraqi soldier known as the 'Angel of Death' was filmed carving the flesh from the body of a burnt ISIS fighter who had been strung up over a fire.

Issuing a warning to ISIS militants that “we will cut you like shawarma”, Ayyub al-Rubaie, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Azrael, reportedly burned the man alive and hung his body from an electricity pylon in Baiji. Read on and comment » | Tom Batchelor | Monday, August 31, 2015

The West Likes to Think That 'Civilisation' Will Defeat Isis, But History Suggests Otherwise

THE INDEPENDENT: We cling to our belief that barbarism will never outlast the power of the righteous

Hitler set a bad example. He was evil. His regime was evil. His Reich was destroyed, the Nazis vanquished, the Fuhrer dying by his own hand in the ashes of the European nightmare. Bad guys lose. Good guys win. Morality, human rights, law, democracy – though with the latter, we should perhaps speak carefully – will always prevail over wickedness. That’s what the Second World War taught us.

We have grown up in a Western society that believes in such simple, dodgy, history lessons. The world’s major religions teach us about goodness, humility, family, love, faith. So why should we not – however liberal, agnostic, cynical – cling on to our fundamental belief that violence and torture and cruelty will never outlast the power and courage of the righteous?

Isis is evil. It massacres its opponents, slaughters civilians, beheads the innocent, rapes children and enslaves women. It is “apocalyptic”, according to the Americans, and therefore it is doomed. Better still, Ash Carter – the US Secretary of Defence who accused the Iraqis of running away from Isis – lectured the Iraqi Prime Minister last week. His message – I could hardly believe this naivety – was Hollywood-clear. “Civilisation always wins over barbarism.” » | Robert Fisk | Sunday, July 26, 2015

Woman Accused of Witchcraft Axed to Death in Papua New Guinea

Local tribes men from Enga, Papua New Guinea

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Woman accused of being a sorceress has been hacked to death by a mob

Police in Papua New Guinea vowed to find the men who axed to death a woman accused of using witchcraft to spark a measles outbreak in the country's remote jungle highlands, a missionary said on Wednesday after meeting authorities.

The woman, Mifila, was one of four women accused with 13 of their family members of using sorcery to cause measles deaths last November in the village of Fiyawena, in Enga province, said Lutheran missionary Anton Lutz.

Women are often accused and killed in witch hunts even though laws passed in 2013 make revenge killings over black magic punishable by death. Human Rights Watch earlier this year named Papua New Guinea as one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman due to gender based violence. » | Agencies | Wednesday, May 27, 2015

ISIS Barbarism. When Will the Civilised World Put a Stop to This Crap?

Read the Daily Mail article here | Jay Akbar for MailOnline | Saturday, May 16, 2015

Watch: ISIS Destroys Artifacts in Iraq Museum

ARUTZ SHEVA: ISIS destroyed artifacts dating back thousands of years in Mosul, claiming it was 'idol worship.'

The Islamic State group released a video Thursday in which terrorists in Iraq are seen destroying ancient artifacts that included idols, which are prohibited by the Muslim faith, AFP reports.

The five-minute video shows terrorists at the museum in Mosul knocking statues off their plinths and smashing them to pieces with sledgehammers.

In another scene, a jackhammer is used to deface a large Assyrian winged bull at an archeological site in the city, which the Sunni extremist group captured last summer.

"Muslims, these artifacts behind me are idols for people from ancient times who worshipped them instead of God," said a bearded terrorist speaking to the camera. » | Arutz Sheva Staff | Thursday, February 26, 2015

Why Don’t More Muslims Denounce Their Co-Religionists’ Barbarism?

NEW YORK OBSERVER: Talking to you, Reza Aslan.

To paraphrase Raymond Carver, it’s time to talk about What We Talk About When We Talk About Islam.

Sometimes it feels like we are living in a giant self-esteem seminar.

When ISIL started beheading men, crucifying Iraqi Christians and sexually enslaving teen girls, a Facebook page and Tumblr sprang up called #Muslimapologies. Now, you might think the people behind this movement were motivated to bring together the good, peace-loving Muslims to renounce the barbarism being done in the name of their common god and holy book.

But no. The hashtag is a forum in which to assuage their sense of group victimization.

Huffpo culled “The Top Ten” such tweets, which ooze condescension and superciliousness, that would be, needless to say, politically incorrect coming from members of any other of the three dominant religions.

“I’m sorry for inventing surgery, coffee, universities, algebra, hospitals, toothbrushes, vaccinations … “

“I’m sorry if my beard scares you, it’s hormonal, I swear.”

And the most offensive of all: “I’m sorry Muslim women had rights 1,400 years ago while you were still discussing if women had souls.”

Barrel of laughs!

Imagine the outrage if Jews had set up a religiously self-congratulatory hashtag and Tumblr during the bombing of Gaza, or if Christians started patting themselves on the back about their compassion after W. rained Shock and Awe on Baghdad.

Muslims might actually want to, if not apologize for, at least renounce, loudly and frequently, what’s being done in the name of their religion. Yet, in the current climate, to say that is to risk being accused of Islamophobia and much, much worse. Read on and comment » | Nina Burleigh | Wednesday, October 29, 2014

New Dark Age Alert! Campaigners Warn of 'Breast Ironing' in the UK

While attention is finally turning to FGM, campaigners warn that breast ironing, which involves placing hot objects on girls' chests, is also happening in the UK. Channel 4 News speaks to one victim.

Read the Channel 4 article here | Friday, April 18, 2014

The Boy Killed for an Off-hand Remark about God - Sharia Spreads in Syria

BBC: The murder of a boy accused of blasphemy has come to symbolise concerns about the power of Islamist radicals in Syria's armed uprising. Paul Wood reports from Aleppo on how Sharia is spreading in rebel-held areas.

Mohammed Qataa's mother wanders the streets of Aleppo looking into strangers' faces as she tries to find her son's killers.

She knows she would recognise them. She was looking right at them when, in front of a dumbstruck and terrified crowd, Mohammed was shot dead, accused of blasphemy.

She remembers Mohammed as a happy, dutiful son, well known and well-liked in the Shaar neighbourhood where the men of the family scrape a living with a coffee cart.

He was 14 years old, but with no schooling possible because of the war he was usually to be found on the busy main thoroughfare through Shaar, selling the thick, sweet coffee they prefer here.

One day last month, someone asked him for a free cup. "Not even if the Prophet himself returns," he had replied, laughing. That remark was a death sentence.

It was overheard by three armed men. They dragged him to a car and took him away. Half-an-hour later, a badly beaten Mohammed was dumped back in the road by his cart.

The men, showing no fear that anyone would question what they were doing, summoned a crowd with shouts of "Oh People of Aleppo. Oh people of Shaar." Their bellows alerted Mohammed's mother.

Recalling what happened next, she buries her face in her hands and weeps.

"One of them shouted: 'Whoever insults the Prophet will be killed according to Sharia'," she told me.

"I ran down barefoot to the streets. I heard the first shot. I fell to the ground when I got there.

"One of them shot him again and kicked him. He shot him for a third time and stamped on him.

"I said: 'Why are you killing him? He's still a child!' The man shouted: 'He is not a Muslim - leave!'" (+ video) » | Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Left-wing Policies Have Promoted the Rise of Barbarism

EXPRESS: THE fashionable progressive agenda is wrecking our once stable, free society. In the name of tolerance, the craven political establishment has promoted barbarism in our midst. For decades, our rulers have presented mass immigration and multi-culturalism as forces for social advancement.

But in the aftermath of the Woolwich atrocity, the malign consequences of this strategy are all too clear. Far from bringing harmony and compassion, the politically correct state has achieved the very opposite. The transformation of our social fabric has led to segregation rather than integration, distrust instead of unity, fear in place of freedom.

Multi-cultural diversity might be portrayed as a liberal policy but in practice it has led to discrimination, misogyny and oppression across our urban areas, while encouraging the growth of extremism.

In a speech in 2011 David Cameron proclaimed that “a genuinely liberal country believes in certain values and actively promotes them: freedom of speech; freedom of worship; the rule of law; and equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality.”

His rhetoric was laudable but has hardly been matched by the actions of the Government, which has long shown a craven reluctance to uphold the liberal traditions of Britain.

OBSESSED with the ideology of diversity, our political masters have not only allowed the immigration rate to reach more than 500,000 arrivals every single year, but also have refused to demand that newcomers accept the British way of life.

Instead immigrants have been encouraged to cling to their own cultures and customs.

During their 13 years of misrule, Labour was particularly enthusiastic about enforcing this destructive strategy, partly through their instinctive loathing for their own country, which they liked to portray as outdated and racist, and partly through their desire to expand their client army of supporters, given that 80 per cent of immigrants vote Labour.

What is so tragic is that a party of the Left, trumpeting its supposedly liberal credentials, should have pursued a policy that is so fundamentally illiberal. Labour’s fixation with identity politics and mass immigration had led to the import of deeply reactionary, anti-democratic, superstitious tribalism on an epic scale. Read on and comment » | Leo McKinstry | Thursday, May 30, 2013

Saudi Arabia Employers 'Hammer Nails' Into Sri Lankan Maid


Related: here and here

Protect the Human Rights of Migrant Workers in the Middle East

Immigrant Worker Abuse in Middle East Condemned by Human Rights Group
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: International human rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has implored Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to make more effort to protect its immigrant workers, after shocking stories emerged about the abuse of three domestic workers.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, HRW said that it had received allegations from a maid in Kuwait whose employer drove nails into her body, a maid in Saudi Arabia who had nails forced into her body, and a maid in Jordan who had been both beaten and forced to swallow nails.

The watchdog said the stories implied a “broader pattern of abuse”, and that the goverments of the three countries needed to create a stronger legal framework to protect their foreign workers.

"The wanton brutality alleged in these cases is shocking, but reports of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and labour exploitation such as non-payment of wages are nothing new,'' said Nisha Varia, a senior women's rights researcher at HRW.

Many domestic workers in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait come from Asia, Africa and other countries in the Middle East in the hope of receiving higher salaries. Because employers in Middle East countries often act as workers' "sponsors" however, they exert extreme power over their staff. Employers can prevent workers changing jobs or leaving the country, and often withold salaries for years. >>> Leah Hyslop | Thursday, November 18, 2010

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Doctors remove 19 nails from Sri Lankan maid: A Sri Lankan housemaid whose Saudi employer allegedly embedded 24 nails in her body was recovering in hospital on Friday after doctors removed 18 of them during a three-hour surgery. >>> | Friday, August 27, 2010

MIGRANT RIGHTS: Mission statement: Through the power of the web we wish to raise awareness about the plight of migrant workers in the Middle East and encourage social action to end the violations of their human rights and dignity. Unfortunately, very little is done to prevent the modern-day slavery many workers endure in the region. Our job is to change that. >>>

Indonesian Maid Tortured in Saudi Arabia, Another Beaten to Death
MIGRANT RIGHTS: This week, two cases of severe abuse of Indonesian maids by their Saudi sponsors have surfaced, one of them ending in death and the other in serious injuries.

The first case, of 23-year-old Sumiati BT Salan Mustapa was first reported by the Saudi Gazette. This initial report mentioned that Mustapa arrived in Saudi-Arabia in July to work for a family in Madina. On November 6th Mustapa was admitted to a private hospital in Madina injured from head to toe in an unconscious state. The private hospital was unable to treat her serious injuries and she was transferred to the King Fahd hospital. A worker there told the Gazette that Mustapa’s body “was burned on many places, both legs were almost motionless, some parts of her skin on her head were removed and strong marks of old wounds were on her body including skin loss on lips and head, a fractured middle finger and a cut near an eye.” Mustapa also showed signs of malnutrition or excessive blood loss. >>> | Friday, November 19, 2010

Indonesia[n] Maid 'Killed in Saudi Arabia'
BBC: Indonesia has demanded an inquiry into reports that a maid working in Saudi Arabia was killed by her employers and her body dumped in a bin.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said a team had been sent to the Saudi town of Abha to investigate reports of the murder of 36-year-old Kikim Komalasari.

It comes as officials arrived in Saudi to follow up claims of torture against a second Indonesian maid.

Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa is recovering in hospital in Medina.

Her injuries include gashes to her face and cuts to her lips, allegedly inflicted by her employers using scissors. She was also burned with an iron, officials say.

Indonesia's president has demanded justice for the "extraordinary torture".

Indonesian media reported on Thursday that the Saudi Arabian government had arrested the female employer of Sumiati, and apologised for her treatment. >>> | Friday, November 19, 2010

It appears that Saudi Arabia is in urgent need of Christian missionaries! – © Mark

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad May End Up as Genghis Khan with a Nuclear Bomb
THE TELEGRAPH: Iran will not be shamed into abandoning stoning, or its nuclear ambitions, says Alasdair Palmer.

Joseph Stalin was once described as "Genghis Khan with a telephone". President Ahmadinejad may soon be Genghis Khan with a nuclear bomb. Admittedly, Ahmadinejad hasn't yet committed mass murder on that scale, although when he promised to "wipe Israel off the map", he showed that he would – if only he could. And he may treat his own people slightly better than Genghis Khan treated his. But as Dr Johnson said, "there is no settling orders of precedence between a louse and a flea".

Ahmadinejad has imprisoned thousands for protesting against the brutality, incompetence and illegitimacy of his rule; he has condoned the imposition of the death penalty for any Muslim who converts to another faith; and he supports punishing adultery by stoning those involved to death.

There has been a global campaign to persuade Iran to end stoning, a disgustingly barbaric punishment which inflicts pain of the same order as impaling, Genghis Khan's favourite method of execution, and may take even longer to cause death. It centres on the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 44-year-old mother and widow who was convicted of adultery in 2006 and punished with 99 lashes. She has been in prison ever since, as the judges decided that 99 lashes wasn't a severe enough sentence for the crime of loving someone who isn't your spouse: she deserved to be stoned to death. Continue reading and comment >>> Alasdair Palmer | Saturday, September 04, 2010

New Dark Age Alert! Pictured: Islamic Militants Stone Man to Death for Adultery in Somalia as Villagers Are Forced to Watch
MAIL ONLINE: This barbaric scene belongs in the Dark Ages, but pictures emerged today of a group of Islamic militants who forced villagers to watch as they stoned a man to death for adultery.

Mohamed Abukar Ibrahim, a 48-year-old, was buried in a hole up to his chest and pelted with rocks until he died.

The group responsible, Hizbul Islam, also shot dead a man they claimed was a murderer.

But the verdict was so shocking that it prompted a gun battle between rivals within the group that left three militants dead, witnesses said.

The executions took place yesterday in Afgoye, some 20 miles south-west of the capital of Mogadishu.

Hizbul Islam fighters ordered hundreds of residents to a field, where a rebel judge announced that the two men had confessed to murder and adultery.

A woman who had confessed to fornication had been sentenced to 100 lashes, he added.

'This is their day of justice,' the judge, Osman Siidow Hasan, told the crowd. 'We investigated and they confessed.' >>> Mail Foreign Service | Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Barbarism in the First World
How can America criticize Saudi Arabia for barbaric beheadings when this sort of thing goes on in the States? – © Mark
THE GUARDIAN: Defence attorneys for Bobby Wayne Woods argued for state to spare inmate following low scores on IQ tests

Texas has executed a child killer at the centre of a bitter dispute over what defines legal mental impairment after several courts ruled that he could be put to death despite a low IQ.

Bobby Wayne Woods, 44, was killed by lethal injection for raping and murdering his girlfriend's 11-year-old daughter after the US supreme court denied a last minute appeal by lawyers who argued that the condemned man fell within a ruling by the same court in 2002 that the mentally impaired could not be sentenced to death.

After being told that the supreme court had refused to intervene, Woods' last words were: "Bye. I'm ready."

Tests on Woods in prison put his IQ as low as 68, below the widely accepted cut off for mental impairment of 70. However, in pursuing the death penalty, the state fell back on other tests conducted when he was a child that put his IQ as high as 86.

Maurie Levin, a University of Texas law professor who represented Woods, said that he is "transparently childlike and simple" and described the execution as "a travesty".

Despite the supreme court ruling seven years ago barring the death penalty for the mentally impaired, individual states are left to decide what defines severe learning disabilities. The court said that an IQ test of "around 70" was an indicator but did not set a specific test.

Recent studies have shown that men with IQ scores lower than 70 have been executed in several states, including Texas and Alabama. Texas executes man at centre of mental disability row >>> Chris McGreal in Washington | Friday, December 04, 2009

LE FIGARO: Texas : un homme souffrant 
de retard mental exécuté : Bobby Woods a été condamné à mort pour le meurtre d'une petite fille. Son exécution relance le débat de la peine de mort des attardés mentaux, interdite depuis 2002 par la Cour suprême. >>> J.J. (lefigaro.fr) avec agences | Vendredi 04 Décembre 2009

NZZ ONLINE: Todesurteil an Kindermörder in USA vollstreckt >>> sda/afp | Freitag, 04. Dezember 2009

Stoning to Death: Bringing the Horrors of Islam to Life!


First you'll hear a speech, then a man gets flogged. The stoning of two women starts 6 minutes into the video. Watch till the end.

The stoning of women is practiced in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia.

Warning: even if the film quality is poor, the images are extremely powerful and are not recommanded for all. [This is NOT suitable for children, for those who have a weak stomach, or for those who are of a nervous disposition.]

Hat tip: Apostates of Islam >>>

This is the barbarity that the law-makers of Aceh province have voted to make law; and this is the religion that our politicians – almost to a man – are in denial about. They call it the 'religion of love and peace', when anyone with an atom of common sense and intelligence knows full well that Islam symbolizes anything but either love or peace. Islam is a cruel, heartless cult. And I use the word 'cult' not as an insult but because that is what Islam truly is. A cult, by definition, venerates a particular figure. In this case, Muhammad. All devotion in a cult is directed towards that figure. In Islam, all devotion is directed towards Muhammad; indeed, Muslims are to love their prophet more than they love their own mothers, fathers, wives, or children. Therefore, the old name for Islam, Muhammadanism, is a very apt term for Westerners to use. Perhaps we should revert to the term! – © Mark

Model Who Drank Beer to Be First Woman Caned in Malaysia
THE TELEGRAPH: Muslim model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno has become the first woman in Malaysia to be sentenced to a caning after being caught drinking beer in a beach resort.

The 32-year-old will receive six lashes at a woman's prison next week in what is being viewed as an example of the growing influence of Islamic hardliners on the country.

The mother-of-two who lives in Singapore with her husband, paid a fine of £860, but declined to lodge an appeal so she could get the punishment over with and put the episode behind her.

The harsh sentence has provoked anger among women's rights groups who fear it is another sign of the creeping influence of conservative Islam on Malaysian society.

In the northern backwater state of Kalentan ruled by the hardline Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, authorities have decreed that supermarkets must have separate checkout queues for men and women and beaches be segregated.

Young couples caught sitting too close together on park benches in the state capital, Kota Baru, are hunted down by the city's moral enforcers and fined up to £285 in Sharia courts.

The Islamic alcohol prohibition laws in Malaysia's eastern Pahang state date back more than two decades. But Malaysian-born Kartika, who now has Singaporean citizenship, is the first woman to fall foul of them.

She was arrested in July last year in a hotel nightclub in the beach resort of Cherating during a raid by the state's religious department and admitted drinking beer.

An Islamic court fined her and ordered her to be caned at Kajang women's prison next week, but spared her a jail term of up to three years.

She received word of the sentence from her father and said she would be returning to Malaysia from Singapore.

"I accept the punishment," she said. "I am not afraid because I was ready to be punished from day one. [The authorities] hope to use my case as a way to educate Muslims. So go ahead. I want to move on with my life." >>> Ian MacKinnon in Bangkok | Wednesday, August 19, 2009

New Dark Age Barbarism! British Hostage Edwin Dyer 'Executed by Al-Qaeda' in Mali
THE TELEGRAPH: A British hostage Edwin Dyer has been executed by Al-Qaeda's North African branch in Mali, according to a statement issued by Gordon Brown.

Edwin Dyer: The group had threatened to kill Mr Dyer if the UK Government did not release Jordanian extremist Abu Qatada, who has been in prison since 2005 and is awaiting deportation to Jordan. Photo courtesy of The Telegraph
"We have strong reason to believe that a British citizen, Edwin Dyer, has been murdered by an Al-Qaeda cell in Mali. I utterly condemn this appalling and barbaric act of terrorism," Mr Brown said in a statement.

"This tragedy reinforces our commitment to confront terrorism. It strengthens our determination never to concede to the demands of terrorists, nor to pay ransoms.

"I want those who would use terror against British citizens to know beyond doubt that we and our allies will pursue them relentlessly, and that they will meet the justice they deserve."

One report suggested that Mr Dyer had been beheaded but a statement from al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) did not say how he was killed.

The group had threatened to kill Mr Dyer if the UK Government did not release Jordanian extremist Abu Qatada, who has been in prison since 2005 and is awaiting deportation to Jordan. A multimillion-euro ransom is also thought to have been demanded.

AQIM "killed Dyer on May 31, finding that Britain is unresponsive and does not seem to care for its citizens", the US-based monitoring SITE group quoted an online statement as saying. >>> | Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Visions of Sharia: Vengeance Allowed But No Less Barbaric
ORLANDO SENTINEL: Although the principle that "the personal is political" was first popularized by the American Women's Movement of the 1970s, the same wisdom may have much to teach us about relations between the West and Islam. The widely-publicized and ongoing tragedy of Ameneh Bahrami and Majid Movahedi offers a glaring example of precisely how.



At first glance, Bahrami's story seems like a tale of medieval injustice. After the Iranian electronics student resisted the persistent and unwanted advances of Movehedi for more than two years, he blinded and disfigured her in a 2004 acid attack.

Such attacks are still all too common in much of Asia -- most notably in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. They are often orchestrated against women who refuse to don the hajib or who resist unwanted proposals of marriage.

Such attacks are barbaric. However, Iranian law provides for an equally barbaric remedy. Under the Islamic rule of qias -- roughly translated as equivalence -- the victims of such attacks may demand identical treatment for their assailants. Bahrami, now receiving free medical care in Spain, has demanded that Movehedi be blinded too.



At her request, an Iranian court recently ordered that sulfuric acid be dropped into one of his eyes. (Apparently, since Iranian law does not view men's eyes and women's eyes as having equal value, Bahrami must pay 20,000 Euros if her spurned suitor is to lose both eyes.) >>> Jacob M. Appel | Special to the Sentinel | Monday, March 30, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
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