July 24, 2006

Islamic Justice - Iran: 16 Year Old Girl Hanged For "Immorality"

Horror from the Muslim country which wishes to increase its influence in the world, as reported in yesterday's Sunday Mirror. A 16-year old girl was hanged for offending public morality. The report in the Sunday Mirror acknowledges that the girl was hanged on August 15, 2004, but the society in which she was judged has actually worsened in the intervening two years, after the Islamist fanatic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in August last year. The girl was officially killed when Iran was said to be in a period of liberal reform.

Atefeh Rajabi was hanged in Neka, northern Iran, 250 miles from Tehran, the capital. Neka is described as a "humid, overcrowded industrial town that sits on a busy highway linking Tehran with the north of the country."

The authorities stated that she was 22 in order to carry out the hanging, even though her father had produced her birth certificate, to prove she was aged only 16. Mr. Shadi Sadr, who had acted as her lawyer said: "Under Iran's Islamic Law, girls over 9 years of age are punishable for the crime of chastity and it appears that the execution of a 16 year old girl is viewed as an appropriate punishment."

By the time her life ended, she had been convicted five times for having sex with unmarried men, and for each offense, she had been given jail and 100 lashes. Her first court appearance was when she was 14. Atefeh's tragic life had begun with poor luck - her mother died when she was very young, and her father Ghasseem was a heroin addict. He abandoned her to the care of her grandparents.

A neighbour in the town said: "I think the death of her mother had a devastating effect. Before that, she was a normal girl. Her mother was everything to her. After she died, there was no one to look after her."

Mina,a childhood friend of Atefeh claimed that she had been abused by a close male relative.The friend said: "She never dared talk about it with an adult. If she had told her teacher they'd have called her a whore. Tell the police? They lock you up and rape you."

The men she was accused of having sex with had denied their guilt, and had been whipped and released. Atefeh admitted her "crimes" and was jailed. In prison she was raped, and her condition of bi-polar disorder grew worse.

FULL STORY