Stoning Returns as Punishment

Rooz Online

The controversial “Islamic Punishment” law that was rejected by the Guardians Council returned and eventually was passed last week. To the disappointment of human rights activists and the promises of some Majlis representatives, not only stoning is not negated in the law, it is in fact emphasized.

Hamid-Reza Tabatabai, the vice-chairman of Majlis’s judiciary committee told the press, “Stoning is not negated in the new “Islamic Punishment” law. Its execution has been modified. This was requested by the Guardians Council. According to the law stones do not have to be used to implement the law and hanging, or other innovative methods by the judiciary, can be used to accomplish the same goal.”

He did not provide details about what those “innovative methods” of the judiciary could be. But recently, an extremist Muslim group in neighboring Iraq used an innovative method of the act by throwing blocks of cement on the head of the victim.

Recently the judiciary of the Islamic republic of Iran in the city of Shiraz unveiled an apparatus that had been built to dismember a person’s body organ. As reported by ISNA the tool is nothing but an electric saw made to cut off a person’s fingers. French news AFP compared the tool to the medieval torture tools.

With the new law in place, the judiciary is expected to come up with new “innovative methods” killing people.

The newly passed law had originally been drafted during ayatollah Hashemi Shahrudi’s term as the head of Iran’s judiciary and sent to the executive branch. It was subsequently rejected by the Guardians Council and sent back to the Majlis for changes, which were ultimately made, paving the way for its implementation.

In an interview during his term, Shahrudi had said at one point that the punishment of stoning had been removed from the law and that stoning had stopped being used as judges ruled on other methods of punishment. Just a few months ago on February 17, Shahrudi told Fars news agency that stoning had been removed from the new Islamic punishment law because of its negative international impact and that the final decision lay with the Guardians Council. He also restricted its legal basis to be only used against the most severe offences of adultery and applied only to women.

The spokesperson of Iran’s judiciary also acknowledged the negative domestic and international reaction to the practice. “The eight Majlis removed stoning as a judicial practice and this form of punishment was removed from the new Islamic Punishment law,” he is reported to have said. He did however qualify his remarks by saying that this was a divine concept that existed in the Sharia law.