Islam is Mercy!

Although, I had heard of some of the atrocities that the regime has perpetrated on its political dissidents especially the virgin young girls who were raped before they were executed, I was still shocked and horrified by reading the details about this barbaric practice today.Did you know that they hang little girls in Iran? And if you do, do you know too that according to Sharia they should be raped before they hang them so that they won't go to heaven, as virgins are supposed to do? Why is viriginity and purity so important for Islam even in heaven? Is heaven for the muslims a brothel (earthly pleasure) up in the sky? Something to ponder on. Read the harrowing details of rape before execution below:

Excerpts from: Women and the death penalty in modern Iran The 1979 Revolution and the 1980’s.Under the rule of the former Shah a small number of women were hanged, mostly for murder, using the British style long drop method. The Shah was deposed in 1979 and replaced by a fundamentalist Muslim regime led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He won a huge democratic majority for the formation of an Islamic Republic on April the 1st 1979. Under the new government women were required to wear the veil, Western music and alcohol were banned, and the punishments prescribed by Sharia law came into force.Male and female executions became frequent – often for refusing to convert/recognise Islam, or for being a member of an anti-regime political group.There are no accurate records of just how many men, women and girls were executed in the first years of the Revolution.

There is a credible list of 14,028 names available and some sources claim figures of several tens of thousands, although these are not substantiated with names. According to a report published by the Organisation of Women Against Execution in Iran, at least two thousand women were executed between June 1981 and 1990. They have been able to prepare a list containing 1428 names. 187 of these women were under the age of 18, with 9 girls under the age of 13 and 14 between the ages of 45 to 70. The youngest girl executed was just 10 years old.* 32 of these women were reported to have been pregnant at the time of their execution. Many of those executed were high school and college students. Hanging was the most common method of execution for women although some were shot. (Large numbers of men were shot during this period). Men and women were hanged in large groups in Tehran prisons from cranes and fork-lift trucks. Each crane jib or fork-lift had a wooden or steel beam to which the noose were attached and when the preparations were complete the prisoners were simply hoisted into the air.Under Revolutionary law young girls who were sentenced to death could not be executed if they were still virgins. Thus they were "married off" to Revolutionary Guards and prison officials in temporary marriages and then raped before their execution, to prevent them going to heaven*. The Mullahs believed that these women were ungodly and did not deserve paradise in the next life, and that if they were deprived of their virginity it would ensure that they went to hell. Therefore on the night prior to execution, the condemned girl was injected with a tranquilliser and then raped by her guard(s).

After the execution, the religious judge at the prison would write out a marriage certificate and send it to the victim's family along with a box of sweets.Generally details of executions from the early years of the Revolution are hard to find but the case of the ten women hanged in Shiraz in 1983 is well documented.The “crime” of these women was to believe in the Bahá'í religion instead of Islam, and to believe in the equality of men and women.

These were considered to be very dangerous concepts by the Revolutionary regime who had them arrested and tortured in an effort to persuade them to convert into Islam. Several of them were subjected to the "bastinado" - beating on the soles of their feet. They were all given the opportunity to avoid execution by recanting their faith and converting to Islam but none of them chose to.On the night of June the 18th 1983 they were driven in a bus to a polo field on the outskirts of Shiraz where a gallows had been set up.

The bus driver who took them there reported that they seemed to be in good spirits, singing on the way and prepared to meet their fate.The youngest prisoner was Mona Mahmudnizhad, who was just 17 years old. Her father had been hanged some months earlier for his beliefs. At the execution ground she asked to be hanged last so that she could pray for all the other women.

Reportedly she kissed the noose and recited a prayer before she was suspended.The other nine members of the group were :23 year old Roya Ishraqi, a promising veterinary student, was executed with her 50 year old mother, Izzad Janami Ishraqi.20 year old Akhtar Sabit, a graduate nurse, who had taught children’s religious classes.28 year old Mahshid Nirumand was a physics graduate from the University of Shiraz. She is said to have remained resolute in prison and to have shared her food with the others and encouraged them to remain firm.

Shirin Dalvand who was 25 years old and held a degree in sociology from the University of Shiraz. Shirin was an expert in the Baha'i faith. Under interrogation she was asked whether she would ever give up her religion - she told her questioner that she would hold to her faith " Until my death, I hope that the divine mercy will enable me to remain firm to the last breath of my life ".Tahirih Siyavushi was a 32 year old nurse, who had been a member of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Shiraz. Her husband, Jamshid, had been hanged two days earlier.

As a nurse Tahirih helped to look after the other prisoners.20 year old Simin Sabiri, who had been a member of the Committee of Studies Baha' ies of Shiraz.Zarrin Muqimi was 28 years old and also very knowledgeable about her faith defending it vigorously under interrogation.The oldest of the ten was 54 year old Mrs Nosrat Yalda' I who had belonged to the Spiritual Local Assembly of Shiraz and whose house was regarded as the "nerve centre" of the Community life Baha' ie in Shiraz. She had been viciously whipped during her time in prison and her wounds were still visible after her hanging. Both her husband and her son, Bahram had also been executed.

The town’s people of Shiraz groups brought flowers to the mortuary to honour the bravery of these women, despite the dangers of such a protest. The Bahá'í religion is still considered dangerous by the regime and is suppressed.Dina Parnabi was an Iranian high school student, accused of smuggling forbidden literature and criticising the regime in her talks with her classmates. She was hanged on the 10th of July 1984 in a Teheran prison. The hanging was done in private and after the execution was over, her body was stripped, washed and delivered for dissection at medical school. In Iran, female bodies delivered for medical studies often show the rope or cable burns around their necks, indicating that they were all executed by hanging.

Modern day Iran.
Through the 1900’s reported female executions were rare but in the 21st century they have begun to rise.In 2004 it is thought that four women have been hanged, 3 in public. Shooting is no longer used and short drop or suspension hanging in private or public is now the norm.

At least 2 women are thought to be facing stoning at the time of writing in January 2005, although it is probable that their sentences will be commuted to hanging. It is notable that public execution is increasingly used for both sexes and most of the 95 executions that I recorded in Iran during 2004 were carried out in public. Flogging prior to execution is not unusual.

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, however, Iranian law allows the death penalty for boys from age 15 and for girls from age 9. Girls and women can be sentenced to hanging either in private, or now more commonly in public, or to stoning to death. Under external pressure, minors now tend to be kept in prison until they are 18 and then have their death sentence carried out. Iman Farrokhi, who was hanged on the 19th of January 2005, was 17 when he was convicted of murder.

Several other juveniles are under sentence of death.Let us have a look at the individual cases of these women.Everyone of them died a painful and humiliating death, there being no effort made to minimise their suffering or make their execution in any way humane. Pictures of Fariba Tajiani-Emamqoli’s hanging and those of male prisoners show that an American style coiled noose made from modern nylon rope is used and that the prisoner is either stood on a box which is pulled from under them or hoisted into the air by a crane jib as happened with Fariba and 16 year old Atefeh Rajabi.The first execution took place on the 26th of January 2000 when Masoumeh Fathi was hanged in the north-western city of Tabriz for killing a prison warder during an escape attempt. On the same day Alieh Moradi and her male accomplice, Farhang Moradi, were hanged in Kermanshah in western Iran, for the murder of Alieh’s husband.

Her children were present in the prison grounds to watch their mother die. Both executions took place within the prisons.The first public hanging took place at dawn on the 19th of March 2001 when 30 year old Fariba Tajiani-Emamqoli and four men were put to death for drug trafficking in Tehran. Fariba was attended by a woman prison officer and was blindfolded and had her hands tied behind her back. Like most public hangings nowadays the hydraulic crane of a small recovery vehicle was used to hoist her into the air. The whole process took 25 minutes, with the bodies being left hanging for 10 minutes before being taken down A crowd of about 200 gathered to witness the event and chanted "Allah akbar" - God is great and "death to the traffickers, death to the traffickers."

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