Pious License to Kill

From Shariar Zangenh:

The New York Times has a news item on its Thursday's front page that is old news to most, if not all, Iranians.

The Islamic vigilantes in the pay of the state who had admitted to gruesomely stoning, drowning and burying alive five people to death were exonerated by the Islamic Republic's Supreme Court. The one page opinion affirms the right of the pious, explicitly granted in the Holy Book, to shed with impunity the blood of those they deem "morally corrupt".

Should an error of judgment have been committed by the pious, the victim's family is entitled to blood money compensation, Diyya, officially set by the state and adjusted annually to reflect inflation. The rate of compensation is based on the market value of camel, the hoofed animal, and doled out at the rate of full face value for male deceased and half of that for female or non-moslems of officially tolerated religions; all others are not entitled to anything.

Those who have followed this case know the number of victims of this particular gang to be far greater than the five mentioned in the official documents. They also know that this is not an aberration; rather, it is the norm in the Islamic Republic.

What sets this latest publicly acknowledged episode apart from the others is the Islamic Supreme Court's ruling. Up till now the other cases were either not reported, were swept under the rug by the authorities, the victims were demonized posthumously and if all failed, a show trial was staged, a sentence announced and the culprit(s) never saw a day of incarceration, let alone capital punishment so favored by the Islamic courts.

Based on this Islamic Supreme Court's precedent setting ruling, vigilantism is now the official law of the land. One, any one of any race creed or color, can at any moment become a victim of any self proclaimed "pious" -- and, should by an outside chance be possible to prove that he was mistaken in his evaluation, as long as he has had good intention in enforcing the pious' unwritten code of conduct, blood money will be paid as proscribed by law and all will be well in the land of believers.

Perhaps the Lady Nobel Laureate, famed Iranian lawyer who rightly champions the cause of the incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, would find the time to effectuate her often declared and yet not actuated threat of filing grievances at "relevant international entities". While she is contemplating the drafting of the long awaited complaint, in light of the recent ruling, she might want to extrapolate on her mantra of compatibility of Sharia jurisprudence with those of democratic values