Iran Hangs Former Soccer Player's Mistress
THE GUARDIAN: TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran on Wednesday hanged a former soccer player's mistress — known as a "temporary wife — who was convicted of murdering her love rival, the player's wife, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Shahla Jahed was hanged at dawn, after spending more than eight years in jail, IRNA said, in a case that has captivated the Iranian public for several years.

Jahed had become what is known as a "temporary wife" of former soccer star Nasser Mohammad Khani. She was charged in 2002 with stabbing to death Laleh Saharkhizan, the player's wife, and convicted of murder in 2004 and again in 2009, after her appeal was denied.

Contracts with "temporary wives" are a legal way for Iranian men to have mistresses outside marriage, with the agreements lasting from between several hours to a few years.

Wednesday's death sentence was based on the Islamic law of "qisas" — or eye for an eye retribution.

International human rights groups, including Amnesty International, had campaigned for Jahed's punishment to be halted.

The IRNA report said that just before the hanging at Tehran's Evin prison, the 40-year-old Jahed prayed peacefully, then burst into tears and cries, shouting for her life to be spared. >>> Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press | Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Ugandan Paper Calls for Gay People to Be Hanged
THE GUARDIAN: Gay people named in article face violence and abuse after newspaper claims they are recruiting children

A Ugandan man reads the headline of the Rolling Stone newspaper which calls for gay people to be hanged. Photograph: The Guardian
Human rights activists have warned that the lives of gay people in Uganda are in danger aftera newspaper published a story featuring the names and photographs of 100 homosexuals under the headline: "Hang Them".

At least one woman named in the story has been forced to leave her home after neighbours pelted it with stones, while several others have been verbally abused, according to the campaign group Sexual Minorities Uganda.

The article appeared earlier this month in the Rolling Stone newspaper, a new weekly title started by journalism graduates. Its publication came just days before the first anniversary of the introduction to parliament of a controversial anti-homosexuality bill that calls for the death penalty for those convicted of repeated same-sex relations, and life imprisonment for others.

Inspired at least in part by a group of US evangelicals with close links to Uganda, the bill was heavily promoted by a few preachers and politicians. Its progress through parliament was stalled after an international outcry, though it has not been scrapped.

Gay activists in Uganda say the proposed legislation has fuelled hate speech and created a climate of fear among homosexuals. The media have played a strong role in this.

The widely read tabloid Red Pepper has previously "outed" dozens of gay people under headlines such as "Top Homos in Uganda named". But the Rolling Stone story appears to incite people to violence against gays. >>> Xan Rice in Kampala | Thursday, October 21, 2010

THE TELEGRAPH – BLOG – TOM CHIVERS: Ugandan newspaper calls for 'hanging' of homosexuals >>> Tom Chivers | Thursday, October 21, 2010

Iran Snubs Brazilian Asylum Offer for Stoning Woman
THE GUARDIAN: Official says 'humane and emotional' Brazilian president may not have all facts in Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani case

Iran signalled today that it was likely to reject the Brazilian president's offer to give refuge to an Iranian woman convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning.

The case of 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani triggered an international outcry that prompted Iran to at least temporarily withdraw the stoning sentence. Ashtiani, who has two children, could still be hanged.

Ramin Mehmanparast, a foreign ministry spokesman, said: "A far as we know, [the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula] Da Silva is a very humane and emotional person who probably has not received enough information about the case."

Further information would be provided to the president to clarify the situation about "an individual who is a convicted offender", he added. Iran says Ashtiani has also been convicted of murder. >>> Associated Press | Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Iran Stoning Sentence Woman Asks to Be Reunited with Her Children
THE GUARDIAN: Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani's supporters call for support to free her from prison, after sentence was changed to hanging

The Iranian woman whose sentence of death by stoning was commuted to hanging after an international campaign, today sent a message from inside Tabriz prison calling for further support so that she might be reunited with her children.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, said she thinks of nothing other than hugging her children and that she was mentally broken when authorities flogged her 99 times in front of her then 17-year-old son, Sajad.

She thanked the world for launching the campaign for her release but said part of her "heart is frozen". "Every night before I go to sleep, I think who would throw stones at me?", she said.

The message was read by Mina Ahadi, of the Iran Committee against Stoning (ICAS), at a press conference in Conway Hall, in London, this morning.

"Put Sakineh's picture beside Neda Agha-Soltan's and don't let Iran repeat what it did with Neda again with Sakineh," said Ahadi, an Iranian human rights activist. Agha-Soltan was shot to death in the aftermath of Iran's disputed election in June 2009 and became a symbol of Iran's post-election rebellion. >>> Saeed Kamali Dehghan | Friday, July 30, 2010

Iran Hangs Rebel Leader

Iranian Activists Hanged at Dawn
The protesters clashed with police and Islamist militiamen. Photograph: Times Online
This is just another manifestation of Islam’s credentials to be called the ‘religion of peace’! Geert Wilders in the Netherlands is on trial for highlighting its excesses and weaknesses of this self-same religion. And it is this self-same religion whose book, the Koran, in all its surahs (chapters) bar one, begin with the injunction, 'In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful'!

If Allah is so merciful and compassionate, I wish that Muslims would remember this when they pass sentence on hapless individuals who feel cheated by the repressive Islamic régimes they live under. If Muslims want Allah to show compassion and mercy on them, then maybe it’s time for them to show compassion and mercy on their brothers in Islam!

As for the Netherlands… What can one say about a country, any country, that puts one of its citizens, still less one of its leading politicians, on trial for telling the truth, as Douglas Murray has pointed out. Surely if things go on like this here in the West, a revolution cannot be far off the horizon. – © Mark

TIMES ONLINE: Two Iranians convicted of being "enemies of God" and trying to topple the Islamic regime were hanged at dawn today.

It was the first known execution of opposition activists since June's disputed presidential election prompted massive street protests - although the lawyer of one of the two men insisted that her client was arrested at least two months before the election and was not involved in any demonstrations.

The ISNA news agency said that Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmani Pour were "hanged on Thursday morning" after their sentences were confirmed by a Tehran appeals court, were hanged on Thursday morning”.

Both were convicted of being "Mohareb" - enemies of God - and of trying to overthrow the "Islamic establishment". They were also convicted of belonging to armed opposition groups.

Iran has tried more than 100 political activists and protesters since August. According to official media reports, five have been sentenced to death and more than 80 to prison terms ranging from six months to 15 years.

Reports today suggested that nine more had been sentenced to death in those trials and an appeals court is reviewing their cases.

Some of the latest nine death sentences were reportedly related to deadly clashes on December 27, when at least eight people were killed in the most violent day of protests since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed a resounding re-election win. >>> Philippe Naughton | Thursday, January 18, 2010

THE TELEGRAPH: Iran executes two dissidents and sentences to death nine more: Iran delivered a chilling message of intent to the country's reform movement yesterday when it hanged two men accused of participating in protests following last year's disputed presidential election and sentenced to death nine more. >>> Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent | Thursday, January 28, 2010

The American Way of Death
TIMES ONLINE – Leading Article: A botched execution in Ohio should quicken the end of capital punishment

America is the only big democracy — apart, occasionally, from Japan — that still carries out capital punishment. The botched attempted execution in Ohio this week of a murderer should prompt America to join the rest of the developed world in consigning judicial killing to history. There is inadequate evidence that it acts as a deterrent, it ignores the risk of miscarriages of justice and allows no room for repentance or correction. But above all it is a barbarity that stains civilised society.

There is no question but that the crime committed by Romell Broom was vile. He was sentenced to die for the rape and murder in 1984 of a 14-year-old girl. But his execution on Tuesday was halted when technicians failed, after a two-hour-long search, to find a vein sturdy enough to deliver the three-drug lethal injection.

A one-week reprieve granted by the Governor of Ohio may well be extended indefinitely, partly because it is half a century since any inmate was subjected to more than one execution, and partly because some justices of the US Supreme Court have now begun to wonder if botched lethal injections might not violate the eighth amendment ban on “cruel and unusual punishment”. Last year the court upheld the use of lethal injections. But Justice John Paul Stevens, while concurring, said that imposing the death penalty represented “the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes”. Other justices are believed to share this view.

When Texas became the first US state to introduce lethal injections in 1982, they were thought more humane than the electric chair, gas or hanging. It is time that they went the same way. [Source: Times Online / Comment here] Leading Article | Thursday, September 17, 2009

Hanged for Being a Christian in Iran
THE MORUNG EXPRESS: Eighteen years ago, Rashin Soodmand's father was hanged in Iran for converting to Christianity. Now her brother is in a Mashad jail, and expects to be executed under new religious laws brought in this summer. Alasdair Palmer reports. A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled "Islamic Penal Code", which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against.

Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran's own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs.

And yet few politicians or clerics in Iran see any contradiction between a law mandating the death penalty for changing religion and Iran's constitution. There has been no public protest in Iran against it.

David Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary, stands out as one of the few politicians from any Western country who has put on record his opposition to making apostasy a crime punishable by death. The protest from the EU has been distinctly muted; meanwhile, Germany, Iran's largest foreign trading partner, has just increased its business deals with Iran by more than half. Characteristically, the United Nations has said nothing. >>> Agencies | Sunday, December 21, 2008

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