From time to time, I've had the occasion to
discuss why I won't argue America's interaction with the world from a zero-sum,
morally neutral point of view.
Atefeh Rajabi appears to have
been a fairly normal 16-year-old: sulky, disobedient, and eager to have sex. In
London, those attributes earn lectures from parents and teachers on the
importance of acting responsibly and not being offensive. In the city of Neka in
Iran, where Atefeh Rajabi comes from, they get you hauled up in front of a
judge.
Atefeh's typical
teenage behaviour meant that she was charged and found guilty of "acts
incompatible with chastity". The judge in the Islamic court ruled that the
appropriate penalty was death. That's right: death. Her sentence was confirmed
by Iran's Supreme Court.
And that
penalty was carried out, by hanging her from a crane in full view of the city.
Pour encourage les
aûtres.
Ordinarily, even the
"sin of unchastity" for an unmarried teenager wouldn't have merited the death
penalty under
sharia.
But Atefeh managed to compound her crime by sassing the judge, and "undressing"
in the courtroom. She took off her
hijab:
It
seems that all she did was to take off her headscarf and insist that she was the
victim of an older man's advances: but even if she had stripped naked and called
the judge a fat ignorant bastard, those actions would hardly merit death, even
under Islamic law. Nevertheless, the judge was so outraged that he decided he
would personally put the noose round the child's
neck.
Makes perfect sense.
Welcome, fellow travelers, to the
21st century.
The writer, one
Alisdair Palmer, writes with eminent good
sense:
What would be
headline news if it happened in America (can you imagine the response if a
16-year-old girl was executed for having sex in Texas?) is, because it happens
in an Islamic state, apparently too banal to count.
Posted @
06:24 PM
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Posted in
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Sendit
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Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
