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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; execution</title>
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		<title>Reyhaneh Jabbari&#8217;s Execution Shows Emboldened Iran</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/reyhaneh-jabbaris-execution-shows-emboldened-iran/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=reyhaneh-jabbaris-execution-shows-emboldened-iran</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Nov 2014 05:30:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abuse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[negotiations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reyhaneh Jabbari]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=244655</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the weakness of the U.S. is creating more victims inside the Islamic Republic. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/1412068835096_wps_19_A_picture_taken_on_July_8.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244656" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/1412068835096_wps_19_A_picture_taken_on_July_8-409x350.jpg" alt="1412068835096_wps_19_A_picture_taken_on_July_8" width="290" height="248" /></a>Despite the surge in executions and human rights violations in the Islamic Republic, the mainstream media and some Western politicians still depict the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and his governmental technocrat team as moderate or reformist.</p>
<p>Recently, a 26-year-old Iranian woman, Reyhaneh Jabbari, was executed in Iran’s prison for allegedly killing the man who raped her. Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, the alleged rapist, was a former employee in Iran’s intelligence ministry. The trial of Jabbari lacked fair and due process.</p>
<p>The intriguing issue is that this execution led to a considerable amount of international outcry from human rights groups. Many requested that the Islamic Republic’s president, Hassan Rouhani, rescind the death sentence against Jabbari.</p>
<p>Normally, when there is significant international pressure, the Islamic Republic has tended to shift the death sentence or postpone it. But the fact that the Iranian government went ahead and executed this women highlights the increasing empowerment and emboldened sentiments of the Iranian regime as it defies, as well as disregards, the international condemnation.</p>
<p>Several crucial factors, including President Obama’s projection of weak foreign policy, leadership, as well as his administration’s appeasement policies toward the Islamic Republic’s domestic and foreign policy, play crucial roles in emboldening and empowering the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>In addition, the new wave of acid attacks against Iranian women appear not to raise any concerns in the Iranian government with regards to its  global and regional image.</p>
<p>A new report by a United Nations Human Rights investigator further highlights the surge in executions and human rights violations, and it underlines the fallacy of the narrative that President Hassan Rouhani is distinct from other Iranian politicians, such as his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.</p>
<p>The new report was provided by a United Nations human rights investigator, Ahmad Shaheed, who was a former diplomat from the Maldives and currently special rapporteur on human rights issues in the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>Shaheed, who has been denied to entry into the Islamic Republic, conducted his report by amassing hundreds of interviews and substantiated records of human rights abuses, including those executions officially reported by the Iranian government. Although he did not directly blame Rouhani, Shaheed recently addressed and briefed the United Nations General Assembly on Iran’s human rights record, which corresponds with the timing that Rouhani had been in office.</p>
<p>The surge in human rights abuses appear to have been carried out on several crucial platforms. First of all, there is an alarming increase in the number of prison and public executions in comparison to the prior year.</p>
<p>In 2012, under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the recorded number of executions was 580 people. This indicates that there has been an increase of approximately 45 percent in executions under Rouhani. In 2013, 687 people were executed.</p>
<p>In addition, the range of charges for executing Iranian citizens appears to have been widened. The legal reasons behind executions include political, economic, human rights activism, and drug trafficking. Addressing a General Assembly human rights committee this week, Ahmad Shaheed pointed out this &#8220;surge in executions in the country over the past 12-15 months.&#8221; Shaheed added, &#8220;At least 852 individuals were executed in the period since June of last year, including eight juveniles.&#8221;</p>
<p>The second manner of human rights violation is targeted at those who are engaged in freedom of information, particularly journalists. In addition, other reporters and posters, such as bloggers, Facebook users, and people who are active on social media, have been restricted as well. The number of journalists who have been detained in the Islamic Republic have also ratcheted up. According to Shaheed, there are currently 35 journalists under detention in Iran.</p>
<p>The third phenomenon appears to represent the concerns regarding the persecution of religious minorities, including the Christians, Sunnis, Dervishes, and Baha&#8217;i community. Currently, 120 people of the Baha&#8217;i community, as well as 49 Christians, have been documented to be in prison in Iran solely for religious practices.  Some members of the Arab community, characterized as “cultural rights activists,” as well as juveniles, have also been put to death sentence.</p>
<p>The fourth category of human rights abuses is linked to the restrictions on and deterioration of women&#8217;s rights in the Islamic Republic. For example, the Iranian government has also imposed a quota on the admission of Iranian girls to universities. According the UN human rights reports, the number of Iranian women being enrolled at universities has come down to 48 percent.</p>
<p>President Rouhani was elected by the majority of Iranian people as a moderate candidate who would potentially promote civil liberties, social justice, and individual freedoms (including freedom of speech, assembly and press).</p>
<p>Instead of taking a more robust position towards the Islamic Republic when it comes to dealing with the Islamic Republic, President Obama will more likely disregard the recent surge in egregious and appalling human rights abuses due to the administration&#8217;s extreme focus on striking a final nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic. The comprehensive nuclear deal would ultimately remove political and economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. The United States should concentrate more on human rights violations in Iran by incorporating this issue with the country’s nuclear defiance.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<item>
		<title>An Execution Wave Against LGBT Iranians</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/an-execution-wave-against-lgbt-iranians/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=an-execution-wave-against-lgbt-iranians</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Aug 2014 04:10:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Abdulla Ghavami Chahzanjiru]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Salman Ghanbari Chahzanjiri]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=238983</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Where is the international outcry?  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1407836736218.cached.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-238986" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1407836736218.cached-440x350.jpg" alt="1407836736218.cached" width="293" height="233" /></a>President Barack Obama has long depicted himself as a defender of women’s and LGBT rights not only in the United States but across the world as well. Yet, where is his voice when it comes to the growing number of executions and the persecution of the gay and lesbian community as well as the repression of women in the Islamic Republic of Iran? In addition, why has the LGBT movement not criticized the Obama administration or made a movement over these injustices, egregious actions, and human rights violations committed in the Islamic Republic against the gays and lesbians?</p>
<p>As the Obama administration continues to communicate and diplomatically negotiate with Iranian officials in Vienna, New York, and elsewhere, President Obama has not even slightly expressed his concern about the unfair actions, executions, discriminations and prosecutions of LGBT individuals, as well as the increasing repressions of women under the Rouhani administration. Where do the Islamic Republic’s human rights abuses belong on President Obama’s agenda?</p>
<p>Two weeks ago, two Iranian men, Abdulla Ghavami Chahzanjiru and Salman Ghanbari Chahzanjiri, were executed in the southern part of the Islamic Republic for reasons that included &#8220;consensual sodomy.&#8221;  <span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/12/iran-s-new-gay-executions.html">According to the Daily Beast</a>,</span> &#8220;Their deaths are part of a wave of executions in Iran, with more than 400 in the first half of 2014 alone, according to the NGO Iran Human Rights.&#8221; One of the Iranian sources <a href="http://www.edgeonthenet.com/news/international/News/164013/reports:_2_gay_men_hanged_in_iran"><span style="color: #0433ff;">pointed out</span></a> that Chahzanjiru and Chahzanjiri were executed in order to &#8220;promote community safety&#8221; as well as to &#8220;reduce the suffering of the victims.&#8221;</p>
<p>Under the Islamist and Sharia law of Iran and Iran’s Penal Code, the punishments for homosexuals range from lashings to executions. For example, <a href="http://iglhrc.org/sites/default/files/UNHCR%20Refworld%20Iran%20Penal%20Code.pdf"><span style="color: #0433ff;">article 109</span></a> of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code states, “In case of sodomy both the active and the passive persons will be condemned to its punishment.”</p>
<p>Article 110 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code emphasizes on killing homosexuals, “Punishment for sodomy is killing; the Sharia judge decides on how to carry out the killing.” Article 111 adds, “Sodomy involves killing if both the active and passive persons are mature, of sound mind and have free will.”</p>
<p>According to other articles of Iran’s Islamist Penal Code, even kissing or standing naked under one roof are considered crimes and subject to punishment. For example, article 124 asserts: “If someone kisses another with lust, he will be subject to Ta’azir of 60 lashes.” Article 123 mandates: “If two men not related by blood stand naked under one cover without any necessity, both of them will be subject to Ta’azir of up to 99 lashes.”</p>
<p><b>Mosaheqeh (lesbianism) Under the Islamist Sharia law of the Islamic Republic</b></p>
<p>When it comes to laws regarding women and lesbianism, the same Islamist laws apply. For example, article 134 states, “If two women not related by consanguinity stand naked under one cover without necessity, they will be punished to less than [one] hundred (100) lashes (Ta’azir). In case of its repetition as well as the repetition of punishment, [one] hundred (100) lashes will be hit the third time.”</p>
<p>It is crucial to point out that these Islamist and Sharia laws apply not only to Muslims but also to non-Muslims, “In the punishment for lesbianism there will be no distinction between the doer and the subject as well as a Muslim or non-Muslim.”</p>
<p>More fundamentally, these executions, discriminations, prejudices and punishments with regards to the LGBT community in the Islamic Republic have created a tremendous sense of fear, horror, and panic among the gay and lesbian community through the imposition of Islamist laws that criminalize sexuality.</p>
<p>Although Iranian LGBT individuals have been living underground for many years, there always exists the fright and likelihood that they will be arrested by the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard Cops, the Islamist religious police, the moral police, or some state’s affiliated militia groups such as the Basij, and then be persecuted, lashed and executed by Iran’s Islamic Judiciary system.</p>
<p>The discrimination against the LGBT community in the Islamic Republic is solely anchored on the basis of their gender orientation.</p>
<p>When it comes to LGBT rights in the Islamic Republic, two crucial issues should be discussed. First of all, on the one hand, the Islamist and Shari’a law of the Islamic Republic clearly does not grant gays and lesbians equal rights and does not treat them as human beings.  But more fundamentally and egregiously, the Islamic Penal Code of the Islamic Republic sentences people to death based on sexuality.</p>
<p>Finally, while the Obama administration is highly concentrated on striking a final and comprehensive nuclear deal with the Iranian regime, President Obama should not turn a blind eye to these executions, human rights abuses, prejudices and punishments imposed by Iran’s Islamist laws against the LGBT individuals in the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>Indeed, it is the obligation of every state and the international community– which is negotiating with the Iranian officials on nuclear issues— to bring the human rights of the Iranian LGBT community, its persecution, and the increasing repression of women, to the attention of Iranian ruling authorities.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Torturing Murderers to Death for the Greater Good</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/torturing-murderers-to-death-for-the-greater-good/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=torturing-murderers-to-death-for-the-greater-good</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 26 May 2014 04:33:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clayton Lockett]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death penalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[electric chair]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[injection]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[murder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rape]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226255</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Left’s cruel war against the death penalty.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Nebraskas_electric_chair.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-226256 alignleft" alt="Electric Chair Doctor" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Nebraskas_electric_chair.jpg" width="167" height="241" /></a>The return of the electric chair has death penalty opponents papering the walls with outraged press releases even though they’re the ones responsible for bringing ‘Old Sparky’ back.</span></p>
<p>Opponents of the death penalty made the most of Clayton Lockett’s prolonged death, but it wasn’t the state that made his death slow and painful. The liberal activists who rushed out to claim that Lockett’s death proved that the death penalty was a cruel punishment had deliberately made it that way.</p>
<p>Oklahoma was forced to use a new and untried drug cocktail to put down the brutal murderer and rapist because death penalty opponents had cut off the supply of reliable pharmaceuticals. Due to pressure by domestic activists and the European Union on pharmaceutical companies, states have been forced to secretly assemble drug cocktails of medications without the knowledge of their manufacturers. Each lawsuit filed by the pro-criminal lobby risks revealing the means by which a medication was obtained and shutting down its supply channel.</p>
<p>Executions in the United States are rare and a tiny part of the market for pharmaceutical companies who would rather please liberal regulators and the medical establishment.  While prison systems work to ease the suffering of condemned prisoners, the death penalty activists who claim to care about them labor night and day to make their executions as painful as possible.</p>
<p>There is a method to their cruelty.</p>
<p>In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that lethal injection did not represent cruel and unusual punishment. The question hinged in part on the risk of pain through the procedure. In 2010, the American Board of Anesthesiologists warned it would decertify any anesthesiologist participating in the death penalty. Then the supply of sodium thiopental, the medication mentioned in the ruling, was cut off.</p>
<p>The goal was to raise the “substantial risk” of serious pain in lethal injections and move the Supreme Court toward outlawing or suspending the death penalty. The worse an execution went, the more likely it was that future executions would be stopped based on the risk of it happening again. By making lethal injection as messy as possible, the pro-criminal lobby was torturing killers now to save future killers.</p>
<p>Lockett’s execution showcased the left’s warped morality and brought its goal closer.</p>
<p>European countries continue to use sodium thiopental, whose export to the United States they refuse to allow because of the death penalty, to kill their own people.</p>
<p>Belgium, which uses sodium thiopental for euthanasia, voted to euthanize children. The Netherlands, which employs sodium thiopental for the same purpose, permits killing children over the age of twelve. The last “minor” executed in the US was a man in his thirties who at the age of seventeen had set a couple on fire after locking them in the trunk of their own car.</p>
<p>In the UK, which was the first to cut off the supply of sodium thiopental, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists proposed “active euthanasia” for disabled children because, “A very disabled child can mean a disabled family.”</p>
<p>European countries condemn the cruelty of lethal injection for murderers, but use the same method to kill their children. Despite their posturing over the death penalty they are not our moral superiors. Like their Third Reich counterparts who also murdered sick and disabled children, they are on the same moral level as the murderers we execute.</p>
<p>It’s no wonder they oppose the death penalty.</p>
<p>Driven by that same foul mix of self-righteousness and sadism, death penalty opponents want to make executions appear as grotesque as possible so that voters, politicians, judges and juries will be more reluctant to follow through when the electric chair replaces the needle.</p>
<p>But they don’t intend to stop there.</p>
<p>While some opponents of the death penalty act on religious grounds, most are pro-criminal advocates. Their agenda is to damage the justice system as much as possible through lawfare that exploits its weak points. They believe that the criminal justice system is a capitalist tool for protecting private property and oppressing minorities. Their lawfare seeks to overload the criminal justice system and make every phase of it as expensive and burdensome as possible so as to discourage and limit its use.</p>
<p>Outlawing the death penalty is only one step in their campaign to free as many criminals as possible.</p>
<p>After California’s death penalty was shut down by a Clinton judge, more Federal judges stepped in ordering California to release 46,000 prisoners after ruling that prison overcrowding was, like the death penalty, cruel and unusual punishment.</p>
<p>Supreme Court Justice Alito warned that “the majority is gambling with the safety of the people of California.”</p>
<p>A quarter of California prisoners are lifers and so the state has gone from tough sentencing laws supported by the voters to a judicial activism forcing it to free 1,400 lifers in the past three years.</p>
<p>81% of California lifers are murderers. 10% are attempted murderers. 6% are rapists.</p>
<p>After 2008, 3,000 lifers were freed; over 1,000 more than had been freed in three decades. Governor Jerry Brown has been responsible for the lowest rate of parole denials of all three previous governors.</p>
<p>The overcrowding ruling was a means of extracting murderers from prison, just as the death penalty ruling was a means of keeping them alive. The endgame for the pro-criminal lobby, whether its members call themselves death penalty opponents or prison reform activists, is to free criminals.</p>
<p>California shows that for the pro-criminal lobby the next step after the death penalty is revolving door prisons for murderers and rapists. Obama has been doing his part to help free drug dealers and crackheads through what his attorney general, euphemistically, calls sentencing reform, but at the state level this is a war fought by leftist lawyers and radical foundations against the families of their victims.</p>
<p>Violent crime rates in the US have dropped sharply because increased prison sentences took career criminals off the street. Average time served for violent criminals increased by 37%. The $10 billion cost criticized by the pro-criminal lobby was modest compared to the savings in human lives and budgets when the murder rate was nearly cut in half.</p>
<p>There were 20,000 fewer rapes, 300,000 fewer aggravated assaults and 270,000 fewer robberies.</p>
<p>These successes gave the public a false sense of security leading to decreased support for the death penalty and increased support for pro-criminal leniencies. Like a patient who wants to stop taking antibiotics because he feels better, some forgot that crime hadn’t been solved; only locked behind bars.</p>
<p>Once crime rates rebound under the impact of the pro-criminal “reforms”, the backlash will lead to a return to harsh penalties. Meanwhile tens of thousands will suffer until the effects kick in on a large enough scale to destroy any public support for the pro-criminal lobby and its killer clients. And then the only legacy of their efforts will be the corpses stacked in morgues and rape victims in hospitals.</p>
<p>Victims of their cruel war against life sentences and the death penalty.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Statistics Show 4% of NY Times Reporters Are Serial Killers</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ann-coulter/statistics-show-4-of-ny-times-reporters-are-serial-killers/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=statistics-show-4-of-ny-times-reporters-are-serial-killers</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 22 May 2014 04:10:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ann Coulter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conviction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Death Row]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[innocent]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Troy Davis]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226028</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Debunking the Left's claims that death row inmates are routinely wrongly convicted. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/save_troy_davis_poster.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-226029" alt="save_troy_davis_poster" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/save_troy_davis_poster-356x350.png" width="249" height="245" /></a>The New York Times has been touting a study purporting to show that 4 percent of death row inmates have been &#8220;falsely convicted.&#8221; &#8220;Falsely convicted&#8221; is not &#8220;innocent.&#8221; But after being processed through the lawyer-to-journalist telephone game, &#8220;insignificant procedural errors&#8221; quickly becomes &#8220;27 guys didn&#8217;t do it!&#8221;</p>
<p>What the study actually shows is that those sentenced to death are more likely to have their convictions overturned than those sentenced to prison.</p>
<p>Yeah, we knew that. Anti-death penalty fanatics fight every execution tooth and claw. Sometimes they get lucky. What the statisticians have proved is that it&#8217;s very difficult to be executed in this country.</p>
<p>Most of the media cited this pointless study to proclaim that &#8220;statistical analysis&#8221; proves that 4 percent of people on death row are innocent. They just have to be! And if you disagree, you must hate science.</p>
<p>Whether innocent people have been executed is not a matter that lends itself to statistical analysis. We have the names of every person who has been executed &#8212; 1,373 since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.</p>
<p>A few dozen lawyers could each take home a stack of case files for the weekend and find the innocent guy &#8212; if there were one. But despite years of searching by single-minded zealots, they still don&#8217;t have the name of one innocent person executed in at least the last half-century.</p>
<p>Identifying the innocent has lead to embarrassments in the past. In this week&#8217;s and next week&#8217;s columns, we&#8217;ll review the left&#8217;s last few poster boys for &#8220;innocence.&#8221;</p>
<p>First: Troy Davis.</p>
<p>The day of Troy Davis&#8217; execution, MSNBC and CNN went live until midnight to cover it, much like the 9/11 terrorist attack. Rachel Maddow posted an article claiming there was &#8220;persistent doubt that the death-row inmate is guilty of the crime of which he was convicted,&#8221; under the headline, &#8220;Georgia plans to kill Troy Davis tomorrow.&#8221;</p>
<p>(This was a delightful change from Rachel&#8217;s usual nightly smirk-fest.)</p>
<p>A reporter for the British Guardian claimed Davis was &#8220;very possibly innocent.&#8221; Amnesty International issued a statement after the execution, announcing that Georgia had &#8220;executed a person who may well be innocent.&#8221; (In the same sense that I &#8220;may well be&#8221; an astronaut named Smitty.)</p>
<p>The New York Times editorialized about &#8220;A Grievous Wrong&#8221; being done to Troy Davis, citing &#8220;reports about police misconduct, the recantation of testimony by a string of eyewitnesses and reports from other witnesses that another person had confessed to the crime.&#8221;</p>
<p>In all criminal appeals, defense lawyers roll out claims of &#8220;police misconduct,&#8221; preposterously unbelievable &#8220;new&#8221; witnesses and a surprise &#8220;confession&#8221; by someone else.</p>
<p>In fact, that&#8217;s a single typewriter key at the Times, used for all reports on criminal convictions. I have my own typewriter key to describe Times&#8217; editorials on executions: &#8220;reports about extreme self-righteousness, excessive moral preening, obliviousness to the facts, and lies from a string of journalists.&#8221;</p>
<p>Always check to see if the person suddenly confessing to a crime will face any penalty for doing so. You will find that surprise confessions invariably come from those already serving the maximum sentence or that the statute of limitations has run.</p>
<p>(The Times editorial didn&#8217;t mention the police officer murdered by Davis. A few days later, an article on the execution did mention the victim in the fifth paragraph &#8212; and then spelled his name wrong.)</p>
<p>Those of you who follow my work assiduously know that Davis shot and killed an off-duty cop, Mark MacPhail, in a busy Burger King parking lot in front of dozens of witnesses, including people who knew him, as well as a van full of Air Force airmen. (He didn&#8217;t recant.)</p>
<p>After shooting the cop once, Davis sauntered up to the cop&#8217;s body and shot him again, directly in the head. As one of the airmen told the jury in identifying Davis: &#8220;You don&#8217;t forget someone that stands over and shoots someone.&#8221;</p>
<p>The much-ballyhooed &#8220;recantations&#8221; in Davis&#8217; case were typical, which is to say: nothing of the sort. Years after the trial, defense lawyers trick witnesses into making small, inconsequential alterations to their testimony. Then the lawyers rush to the press claiming the witness has &#8220;recanted.&#8221;</p>
<p>For example, Davis&#8217; lawyer prepared an affidavit for the girlfriend of the homeless man Davis was beating when MacPhail intervened and got shot. The affidavit was consistent with her trial testimony in all respects &#8212; including identifying Davis as the killer &#8212; except that the lawyer altered her description of events to say that Davis had been &#8220;arguing&#8221; with her boyfriend before shooting the cop.</p>
<p>The girlfriend would have had no way to know &#8212; years later &#8212; that this was any different from her original trial testimony. She signed the lawyer-drafted affidavit, but didn&#8217;t consider it important enough to get notarized. Then she died.</p>
<p>Out of 34 witnesses for the prosecution, that was one of the five purported &#8220;recantations.&#8221; Normal people hear that and say, &#8220;ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THAT&#8217;S WHAT YOU&#8217;RE CALLING A &#8216;RECANTATION&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
<p>One begins to see why the criminal lobby has turned to statistics, rather than specific cases, to claim that America executes the innocent.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Lockett &amp; Load</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ann-coulter/lockett-load/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=lockett-load</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ann-coulter/lockett-load/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 May 2014 04:10:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ann Coulter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clayton Lockett]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[murder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rape]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stephanie Neiman]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=225033</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The details of Clayton Lockett's heinous crimes that the media refuses to tell. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/stephanie_neiman-450x300.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-225034" alt="stephanie_neiman-450x300" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/stephanie_neiman-450x300.jpg" width="360" height="240" /></a>The next time liberals get indignant when we say they care more about criminals than the victims of crime, remember their hysterical weeping over Clayton Lockett. I refer, of course, to the vile rapist-murderer, whose execution last week is getting more press than Chris Christie&#8217;s bridge scandal.</p>
<p>This week we will review some facts about the case that The New York Times edited out of its capacious articles on Lockett. This is the information that was not fit to print. Next week, we&#8217;ll discuss the death penalty, with particular reference to Clayton Lockett.</p>
<p>The main category of facts you won&#8217;t read about Lockett in the Times, or elsewhere in the NFM (Non-Fox Media), is what he did to his victims &#8212; which is to say, his last four victims. It may surprise you to learn that Locket had a long felony record.</p>
<p>In 1999, Lockett and two confederates broke into Bobby Bornt&#8217;s house to rob him. Bornt recognized Lockett as the man he had hired a few weeks earlier to cover a tattoo.</p>
<p>Lockett savagely beat Bornt for 15 minutes with a shotgun, as Bornt&#8217;s 9-month old son wailed in the next room. The three men bound Bornt&#8217;s hands together with duct tape and set about searching his home for something to steal. Indeed, Lockett pushed Bornt off the couch, complaining that he was bleeding too much into what he called &#8220;my couch.&#8221;</p>
<p>About that time, Bornt&#8217;s friend, Summer Hair, showed up to invite him to a party. The thieves pulled her inside, threw her against a wall and hit her, holding a gun to her head until she called her friend waiting in the truck outside, to tell her to come inside. That was Stephanie Neiman.</p>
<p>Stephanie walked in, and she, too, was beaten until she relinquished the keys to her truck. All three victims were locked in the bedroom with Bornt&#8217;s infant child, while Lockett and Co. ransacked the home, pausing only to pull Hair out and gang-rape her. One of Lockett&#8217;s crew orally sodomized her, then vaginally raped her. Lockett raped her vaginally, anally and orally.</p>
<p>Lockett directed one of his conspirators to steal a shovel from Bornt, loaded them all up in Bornt and Neiman&#8217;s trucks and drove to a remote area. Lockett took Hair from one of the trucks and again raped her vaginally and orally. He returned her to the truck, where the third man forced her to perform oral sex on him.</p>
<p>(Let&#8217;s pause here to reflect on The New York Times&#8217; hysteria over <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_campus_rape.html">hazy date rape allegations</a> by drunk coeds on college campuses.)</p>
<p>Lockett demanded that his victims promise not to tell the police what he had done. Bornt and Hair promised, but Stephanie would not, so he yanked her out of the truck and directed one of his confederates to start digging a grave.</p>
<p>(He later told the police that he wanted to kill all three adult victims so that his parole officer wouldn&#8217;t find out he had left the county.)</p>
<p>Stephanie stood by the grave being dug for her for 20 minutes. Lockett shot her, but his gun jammed. So he walked back to the truck to fix it, listening to Stephanie cry, &#8220;Oh God! Please! Please!&#8221; The three men laughed at her.</p>
<p>Then he returned and shot her again. But Stephanie was still breathing &#8212; so Lockett told the others to bury her anyway. She coughed as dirt was heaped on her face. She was buried alive.</p>
<p>Lockett warned Bornt and Hair that they&#8217;d be murdered, too, if they went to the police, then drove them back to Bornt&#8217;s house. Bornt and Hair reported the rapes, kidnapping and murder the next day. One of Lockett&#8217;s accomplices quickly confessed and brought the cops to Stephanie&#8217;s body.</p>
<p>These facts are not contested by Lockett, who, as he wrote in a letter from prison, &#8220;told that fool&#8221; &#8212; the district attorney &#8212; &#8220;I did shoot that bitch.&#8221;</p>
<p>All four adults who lived through the evening with Lockett &#8220;snitched&#8221; on him &#8212; his two co-conspirators, as well as the two victims. (For this, he strove mightily from prison to orchestrate hits on all four of them &#8212; letters that came in handy during his clemency appeal!)</p>
<p>A jury sentenced Lockett to death, but he lived for another 15 years after committing these savage crimes, during which time he was fed, housed and given medical treatment by the generous people of Oklahoma.</p>
<p>In addition to plotting hits against the four witnesses against him, while in prison, Lockett repeatedly threatened guards, was caught with homemade weapons, destroyed prison property, and threw feces and urine at officers bringing him food.</p>
<p>When called to account for his attack on one prison guard, he explained, &#8220;F-ck this kangaroo court, next time it will be a knife.&#8221; Four days later, he was caught with an 11-inch shank and 23-inch club in his cell.</p>
<p>Another time, when a homemade shiv was found on Lockett, he told the officer, &#8220;You know that I could have stuck this in your f-cking heart.&#8221;</p>
<p>Lockett was so violent that other prisoners refused to be housed in the same cell with him, even though they could be punished for their refusal.</p>
<p>In letters from prison, Lockett said that he planned to &#8220;put a bullet in&#8221; Bornt. He wrote to his aunt &#8212; the mother of one of his accomplices &#8212; warning her that his &#8220;homeboys&#8221; in prison are &#8220;waiting on him.&#8221;</p>
<p>Lockett also planned to kill his ex-girlfriend, of whom he said, &#8220;She was gone&#8221; (going to) &#8220;get done real, real bad! And she still is. Her ass better get the fucc out of Perry&#8221; (Oklahoma) &#8220;cause my little brother coming down here from San Diego and niggaz think I was crazy then wait till cuzz get here! He already on the run from New Orleans for murder.&#8221;</p>
<p>New York Times editors may not have slept well after Lockett&#8217;s execution, but Bornt, Hair and about a dozen other specific individuals surely did.</p>
<p>In letters to the under-sheriff, Lockett bragged about his gang affiliations, his previous crimes and his intention to murder Bornt and Hair. &#8220;Cuzz Im a California Hoover Crip!&#8221; he says. &#8220;We don&#8217;t get down at all like these Hooverz from Oklahoma. Why you think so many niggaz beat cases out that way? Cause Im an assassin &#8212; point blank!&#8221;</p>
<p>This is the murderer whose recent execution has thrown liberals into deep despair.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>To Execute a Victim of Attempted Rape</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/iran-executing-a-victim-of-attempted-rape/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=iran-executing-a-victim-of-attempted-rape</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Apr 2014 04:36:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rape]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reyhaneh Jabbari]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rouhani]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=224010</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Islamic Republic unveils its true face. . .again.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/jabbari21n-2-web.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-224011" alt="jabbari21n-2-web" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/jabbari21n-2-web-335x350.jpg" width="234" height="245" /></a>A few days ago, the United Nations and various international human rights groups joined a growing call for the Islamic Republic of Iran to halt the execution of a woman scheduled for Monday.  </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iran’s court has sentenced Reyhaneh Jabbari to death for the 2007 killing of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, who was a former employee of Iran&#8217;s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Jabbari was acting in self-defense against Sarbandi, who attempted to rape her, and she never received a fair trial and due legal process.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to testimony of “reliable sources” and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sarbandi hired the 19-year-old Jabbari, an interior designer, to work in his office. While Sarbandi was attempting to sexually harass and rape Jabbari, a struggle began, and she stabbed him.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Therefore, Jabbari was sentenced to death for her action under the Islamic judiciary system of Iran. Why would a young professional woman be executed for defending herself against unwelcome actions from her superior, a sexual abuser?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The profound irony, and the peak of the Islamic Republic’s hypocrisy, became clear this week in a speech marking Women&#8217;s Day, when Iranian president Hassan Rouhani made international headlines by condemning any form of sexual discrimination and advocating for equal opportunities and rights for women.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to Fars News, while speaking at the National Forum on Women Shaping Economy and Culture in Tehran Rouhani pointed out, &#8220;We will not accept the culture of sexual discrimination.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The liberal and mainstream media took these remarks as promoting and projecting a democratic and humane image of the Iranian president.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to the 104-page UN report and UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran Ahmed Shaheed, the number of executions of women and the number of prisoners on death row has increased under President Rouhani’s rule.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Beyond these sweet remarks, President Rouhani did not even scratch the surface of women’s rights regarding the actual day-to-day discrimination that women face in the Islamic Republic. He solely commented on investing in electronic technology and marketing to lay the ground for women’s scientific progress.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In other words, there was no tangible, legitimate, or nuanced explanation about how to address the institutionalized discrimination against women or how secure equality for them.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">For example, he did not mention practical solutions for ongoing gender inequality in terms of marriage and divorce, citizenship rights, nationality, international travel, employment, inheritance, child custody, among other things.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Many Iranian women activists who live in the Islamic Republic, and several of those campaigners whom I have interviewed, shed light on a different reality for women rights under Rouhani’s presidency.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Many women voted for Rouhani due to his promises for social freedom, gender equality, and for being a moderate candidate.  Nevertheless, as Sima, an Iranian teacher and women’s rights activist who lives west of Tehran in the city of Karaj, stated, </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“President Rouhani has been successful in making a nuclear deal and resolving some of the tension regarding nuclear issues, but the reality is that women’s conditions have not changed. The conditions are still the same as those of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s era.”</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In mid-2013, based on a ruling passed by the constitutional body in the Islamic Republic, women are banned from running in presidential elections. A recent university policy excluded women from entering 77 courses of study. These are only few examples of recent laws being passed.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Some might make the argument that Iranian women are serving in the parliament or that President Rouhani has three female vice presidents (Elham Amin-Zadeh, Shahindokht Molaverdi, and Masoumeh Ebtekar).  However, we need to comprehend the fact that a handful of carefully selected women does not represent the conditions that millions of other disenfranchised women in the Islamic Republic face. According to the World Bank, the female population in Iran (last measured in 2011) is roughly 49.54 percent, approximately 38.1 million people.</span></p>
<p>The contradictory messages from the Islamic Republic intriguingly come from top officials and from within the system. While President Rouhani has rhetorically urged for gender equality and promotions of women&#8217;s rights, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pointed out in comments this week that gender equality is &#8220;one of the biggest mistakes of the Western thought.&#8221;</p>
<p>For the Supreme Leader, women’s rights and employments are acceptable as long as these rights do not come in conflict with &#8220;the main issue” of family. In other words, from the Iranian hardliners and conservatives’ point of view, based on underlying ideological biases, women’s primary role in society is the fulfillment of the &#8220;family environment and household.”</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Rouhani’s message and position should not be analyzed as a reversal or a renegade move vis-à-vis the hardliners. Rouhani’s social base is the moderate, pragmatic section of the society and the millions of women who voted for him. This social base will be needed for Rouhani to run for reelections in a few years.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The likelihood of any positive shift in women’s rights is close to zero due to the institutionalized, unfair process in Iran’s judiciary system, Islamic and Sharia law, the fundamental ideological commonalities among moderates and hardliners when it comes to women&#8217;s critical rights, as well as the power of the Basij, the moral police, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and other governmental hardliner forces in enforcing the law. </span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Islam and Human Rights</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/islam-and-human-rights/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islam-and-human-rights</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Apr 2014 04:50:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[apostate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[violence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=223588</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why there can never be compatibility between the two. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/militants1n-3-web.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-223589" alt="militants1n-3-web" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/militants1n-3-web-450x343.jpg" width="315" height="240" /></a>Recently, I met a Syrian Salafist while speaking to Leaders of Democracy Fellows about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Islam and human rights violations in Syria.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The individual who lives in Syria, and who seems to sympathize with Jubhat Al- Nusrah (Al-Nusrah Front), drew several distinctions between Islamic objectives of the global Jihad movement, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and Jubhat Al-Nusrah.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The argument was that these powerful movements in Syria and beyond attempt to create an Islamic state anchored in Shari’a law, the teachings of Islam, Muhammad, and Allah. But the difference between Jubhat Al-Nusrah and ISIL, according to the person, was that the mission of the Jubhat Al-Nusrah aims at only establishing Islamic social order and an Islamic state in Syria. Whether this mission spreads to other countries is not a part of their objectives, though other countries can adopt this political Islamic platform if they desire.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">On the other hand, the objectives and mission of ISIL is a return to the Caliphate system and establishment of an Islamic state throughout the region. In other words, creating an Islamic state and Shari’a law-based government in Syria or in Iraq is not sufficient and will not fulfill the desire of God, Muhammad, and Islamic teachings.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Currently, we can contend that Syrian oppositional groups are functionally dominated by Jihadists from around the world, other Islamist groups, and external groups attempting to create an Islamic order and pursue their own ideological goals.  </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Regarding these Islamic movements, my major question is on where human rights stand for them, regardless of the minor or significant differences between these Islamist oppositional groups.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Recently, a seven-year-old boy died because fighters believed him to be an apostate. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a 15-year-old Syrian boy was also killed in the northern city of Aleppo in front of his parents because the Islamist groups believed what the boy said was heretical.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Some of the proponents of Islam and Islamic laws would point out that the ideology and religion of Islam sit at the heart of human rights standards and are totally compatible with the modern notion of human rights. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But when I delve into the issue, and going into the nuances and details of the question, they seem to dodge answering. How can Islam be compatible with a modern notion of human rights and gender equality, when social and legal laws of Allah’s words in Quran, depict women as inferior to men in every aspect?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Article three of the universal declaration of human rights, states that &#8220;Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.&#8221; But in Islamic countries, a person who rejects and abandons Islam has no right to life. According to Islam, unbelievers commit the gravest sin in Islam.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">While article four of the universal declaration of human rights says “one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms,&#8221; slavery is officially recognized and accepted in Quran.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Article five states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Cases of stoning, lashings, and other violent acts are rampant in Islamic countries.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">How can Islam be compatible with human rights when, according to Muslims and the Quran, Allah specifically states in the Quran that a woman’s testimony in a court of law is considered half the value to that of a man?</span></p>
<p><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8220;And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses. And if two men be not found then a man and two women.&#8221; </i>[<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Qur&#8217;an (2:282)]</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A Muslim told me that scientific data shows women’s logical and speaking neurological center in brain are at the same place, and as a result, they are more forgetful than men! And so, this is why God made their testimony worth half. I was totally confounded and baffled by this ungrounded logic.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">How can Islam be compatible with human rights when according to Muslims and the Quran, Allah states that women inherit less than men in several instances?</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">They ask thee for a legal decision. Say: Allah directs about those who leave no descendants or ascendants as heirs. If it is a man that dies, leaving a sister but no child, she shall have half the inheritance: If a woman, who left no child, Her brother takes her inheritance: If there are two sisters, they shall have two-thirds of the inheritance: if there are brothers and sisters, the male having twice the share of the female. Thus doth Allah make clear to you , lest ye err. And Allah hath knowledge of all things. (Quran 4:176)</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">All Muslims are expected to follow and implement the rules of Islamic inheritance clearly stated in the Quran, verbatim words of God, accordingly.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In addition, how can the ideology of Islam be in line with human rights when abandoning Islam triggers punishments, including execution? Or does the law that allows a man to marry four wives respect the rights of women? Do these Islamic laws comply with the article one of the universal declaration of human rights that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The aforementioned laws reveal how women are restricted and seen as inferior. While men can marry any women from any other religion, Muslim women are not allowed to marry a non-Muslim.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">There are also the rights of an accused person to a fair trial, which is mentioned in the Universal Declaration of Human rights. While a women’s testimony is worth half, non-Muslims are not permitted to testify against Muslims.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">These are only samples of the contradictions and incompatibilities between the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Islamic laws and doctrines. The critical phenomenon is that as long as the Quran is perceived to be the words of God—and hence should be implemented word by word— and as long Islam views itself as part of the state, I think there can never be compatibility between the modern notion of human rights and Islam.</span></p>
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		<title>Iranian Prisoner Cries, Begs to See His Mother</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/iranian-prisoner-cries-begs-to-see-his-mother/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=iranian-prisoner-cries-begs-to-see-his-mother</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Mar 2014 04:03:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220992</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the Islamic Republic terrorizes and controls its people. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/hassan_rouhani.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-220995" alt="hassan_rouhani" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/hassan_rouhani.jpg" width="246" height="184" /></a>A shocking and disturbing amateur </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://neobservatory.org/human-rights/iran-execution-prisoner-denied-final-request-beaten-before-hanging/">video</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> documenting a recent public execution from the Islamic Republic of Iran has recently emerged and gone viral since its release.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In this video, a young man is going to be publicly hanged in the city of Karaj, near the capital city of Tehran, on February 25</span><sup style="line-height: 1.5em;">th</sup><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.  The hanging is held in front of a large crowd that has gathered to watch the execution. Until now, there have been no reports identifying the name of the person who is about to be executed or the precise charges brought against him by the Islamic judiciary court of Iran.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Before being executed, it appears in the video that the young man is pleading with and begging the regime executioners, guards, and henchmen to allow him to receive a final embrace from his mother who is also in the crowd. His mother’s voice can be heard, yelling to her son and raising her voice in a sign of protest against the regime and this act.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As usual, the Iranian regime’s henchmen and the Islamic guard, who are preparing for the commencement of the public execution, deny the man his final request. After the denial, the prisoner becomes defiant, visibly agitated, and publicly attempts to resist the start of the execution process. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The prisoner repeatedly kicks over a ladder that was going to be used for his execution, and struggles against the guards. At some point he lashes out, breaks his handcuffs, wrestles away from his guards, and tries to escape from  the Islamic guard around him.</span></p>
<div id="attachment_220994" style="width: 460px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/unnamed2.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-220994 " alt="unnamed2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/unnamed2-450x277.png" width="450" height="277" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">The prisoner breaks free and attempts to escape.</p></div>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">What is intriguing in this scenario, though, is that the same crowd that has gathered to watch the execution starts cheering the resistance of the young man and his attempt to escape. The regime guards protecting the scene began yelling at the crowd to be quiet and to move back.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Soon after, in this powerful scene, the man is savagely beaten into submission by swarms of Iranian and Islamic guards, his body was lifted onto a podium, hoisted onto the ladder, and the execution noose was forcefully wrapped around his neck. Even after the noose is placed around his neck, and even after the beatings, the young man’s spirit appears to remain resistant and defiant. An Iranian man in the crowd can be seen at the end of this public execution pointing out, “Regardless of his crime he should have been allowed to see his Mother.”  Some people in the crowd are heard saying to the regime henchmen to forgive him.</span></p>
<div id="attachment_220993" style="width: 460px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/unnamed.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-220993 " alt="unnamed" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/unnamed-450x277.png" width="450" height="277" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">The condemned man struggles as the regime henchmen forcefully put the noose around his neck.</p></div>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/human-rights/c738aeb067cb" target="_blank">Hamid Yazdan Panah makes anintriguing argument</a> by referring to Michelle Foucault who stated,  “The public execution is to be understood not only as a judicial but also as a political ritual. It belongs, even in minor cases, to the ceremonies by which power is manifested.”</p>
<p>Iran is ranked number one, surpassing China and North Korea, in leading the world in executions per capita.  Hundreds of people, including women, human rights activists, and political activists, have been executed since January 2014. Recently, the United Nations <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/21/us-iran-executions-idUSBREA1K1CN20140221" target="_blank">human rights</a> spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani referred to the rise of executions in the Islamic Republic by saying, “the surge in the use of the death penalty … has dampened hopes for human rights reforms under President Hassan Rouhani.”</p>
<p>But the major question revolves around why the Islamic Republic of Iran and its judiciary system insist on conducting public executions in the modern era? The logic, ritual and rationale of public execution is also well illustrated by Foucault in his work <i>Discipline and Punishment, </i><i>an analysis of 18<sup>th</sup> century. According to the argument </i> <a href="https://medium.com/human-rights/c738aeb067cb" target="_blank">Mr. Yazdan Panah</a>  makes, Michelle Foucault points out:</p>
<blockquote><p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;"></b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It is a ceremonial by which a momentarily injured sovereignty is reconstituted. It restores that sovereignty by manifesting it at its most spectacular. The public execution, however hasty and everyday, belongs to a whole series of great rituals in which power is eclipsed and restored… Its aim is not so much to re-establish a balance as to bring into play, as its extreme point, the dissymmetry between the subject who has dared to violate the law and the all-powerful sovereign who displays his strength.</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And if you are questioning why the Iranian people gathered around the scaffold to watch the execution, it is not because people enjoy watching other human being be executed. As Foucault states, “If the crowd gathered round the scaffold, it was not simply to witness the sufferings of the condemned man or to excite the anger of the executioner: it was also to hear an individual who had nothing more to lose curse the judges, the laws, the government and religion.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The fact of the matter is that the Islamic regime of Iran utilizes its judiciary system and its Islamic/Sharia laws to repress its population by imposing horror and fear on the society and punishing defiance and resistance through acts such as public execution. In addition, the so-called moderate Rouhani has ratcheted up the rate and number of executions in Iran. As Shamdasani pointed out, “It appears at least in the past seven weeks that in fact executions have been scaled up.”</span></p>
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		<title>Beneath the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Charm Offensive</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/beneath-the-islamic-republic-of-irans-charm-offensive/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=beneath-the-islamic-republic-of-irans-charm-offensive</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 10 Jan 2014 05:05:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[While leftist European diplomats were regaled in Tehran, almost 40 Iranians were executed. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/iran-execution_crane.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-215029" alt="iran-execution_crane" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/iran-execution_crane-400x350.jpg" width="320" height="280" /></a>Even after the secret deals revealed by several outlets including <i>The Washington Times</i> between President Barack Obama and the Islamic Republic of Iran, President Obama continues to urge the international community and American people to place trust in the Iranian regime regarding its nuclear ambitions and economic sanctions. It is crucial to examine some of the recent underlying human rights records in Iran, which have surprisingly not elicited any criticism from the liberal politicians, and have gone untold in the liberal media. This raises an intriguing issue, as President Obama has not mentioned or even condemned the Islamists in Tehran for this appalling human rights record.</p>
<p>Although the new Iranian government has tried to project a moderate picture, and although President Obama seems to believe in the charm offensive of this Islamist state, recent human rights reports show that there has been no improvement in the Iranian regime’s human rights records. In fact, the situation has deteriorated under the new Iranian government. In addition to the continued persecution of minorities and non-Muslims, the recent appalling human rights records have shown an upswing in stoning and public executions, reminiscent of the Islamic Middle Ages and Sharia laws.</p>
<p>For the first several months of the new Iranian president’s term, activists both inside and outside of Iran have formed campaigns aiming to end executions in Iran, and to put an end to stoning and public executions.</p>
<p>The Islamic Republic of Iran is ranked second in the total number of executions, only after China. Though, if the proportion of the total population to the number of secret executions were considered, Iran would be ranked number one. According to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, at least 529 people have been put to death in cities across the nation in 2013. Intriguingly, more than half of these executions, around 300, were carried out since President Rouhani assumed office in late August. Meaning that more than half of the executions were carried out in only the past four months.</p>
<p>It is also worth mentioning that most of the people who are executed, did not receive due process in court, and were mainly executed because of violations based on Islamic and Sharia law. Many of Iran’s condemned were accused of being a “Moharebeh” or “Mofsed fi Alard”, translated as meaning something near “waging war” against God and Islam.</p>
<p>Ironically, on Human Rights Day, the Head of Iran’s Judiciary, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani told high-ranking Judiciary officials, “The Judiciary will not take notice of irrational words and lies and will resolutely continue its work, because we believe that the highest human rights values are recognized in Islam.”</p>
<p>The stepped-up pace of public executions and stoning come as the new Iranian government is working to achieve its political objective of pushing for the West to take initiatives in lifting economic and political sanctions on Iran. President Obama has already taken steps to release billions of dollars, based on the recent executive order and nuclear deal.  Yet, there has not been any, or even slight, condemnation for this appalling and egregious human rights record.  The number of executions and stoning are on an upswing, as Iranian leaders are reaching another deal with the United States and the P5+1.</p>
<p>It is crucial to point out that the number of reported executions is official, and public— there are hundreds of others who are executed in secret locations, with some even executed collectively. For example, according to several credible reports, in Karaj’s Ghezel Hessar prison, eight prisoners were collectively executed on Thursday, December 18.</p>
<p>Recently, the European Parliament delegation returned from a six-day visit to Tehran, marking the first official visit to Iran in more than six years. The five-member delegation was led by the chairwoman of the European Parliament&#8217;s friendship delegation with Iran, an MEP for the Left party Cornelia Ernst, Austrian Social Democrats Isabelle Durant and Josef Weidenholzer, and Tarja Cronberg from Finnish Greens.  During their five-day visit, at least 38 death sentences were carried out, according to Iranian media sources. Many other executions in prisons were conducted in secret, with no news were released.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the crucial issue is that there has been no condemnation or criticism issued by any liberal politicians in the delegation or from mainstream media. Instead, the liberal media and politicians continue to praise the new Iranian government for its charm offensive and “moderate” policies.</p>
<p>Many opposition activists have pointed out that the current Obama administration is the weakest in US history when it comes to dealing with the threat of Islamists in Iran and their hegemonic agenda. The Iranian Islamists are attempting to impose their geopolitical hegemonic ambitions and agenda, both in the region and globally. They have recently been extremely successful with this, because of the deals with President Obama and the process of lifting sanctions and pressures. The Iranian regime has also been able to increase its lucrative oil sales as well.</p>
<p>On the contrary, while in Islamic Republic of Iran Tarja Cronberg told EuroNews that she was impressed that women are now serving in the Iranian Parliament. Though the leftist and democratic members who are impressed by this face failed to mention the fact that only nine out of 290 parliament members are women.</p>
<p>While the leftists and social democrats remain silent in Europe regarding Iran’s appalling human rights records of executions and stoning, and while President Obama is proceeding with removing pressures and sanctions on Iran, it remains unclear whether President Obama will issue any sort of statement condemning or criticizing this appalling record of stoning and public executions.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Saudi Arabia to Give Public Beheadings the Axe?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/frank-crimi/saudi-arabia-to-give-public-beheadings-the-axe/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=saudi-arabia-to-give-public-beheadings-the-axe</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Mar 2013 04:04:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frank Crimi]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A swordsman scarcity rattles the Sharia prison-state. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frank-crimi/saudi-arabia-to-give-public-beheadings-the-axe/sorcery-saudi-woman-beheaded-for-sorcery-284x300/" rel="attachment wp-att-182467"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-182467" title="Sorcery-Saudi-Woman-beheaded-for-sorcery-284x300" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Sorcery-Saudi-Woman-beheaded-for-sorcery-284x300.jpg" alt="" width="254" height="229" /></a>A lack of qualified swordsmen may relegate the barbaric Saudi practice of public beheadings to the historical ash heap, although such a change is unlikely to slow down the swelling numbers of people being put to death in the Saudi Kingdom.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia’s Sharia-based judicial system has long considered public beheadings, along with the occasional crucifixion and stoning, to be acceptable Islamic forms of capital punishment.</p>
<p>While those punishments come to those convicted of murder, rape, sodomy, drug trafficking, and armed robbery, other offenses, such as apostasy, adultery, drug use, and witchcraft can also earn a date with the swordsman.</p>
<p>However, a Saudi government committee has found that an alarming “scarcity of swordsmen and their unavailability in a number of regions” cannot keep pace with the several thousand people estimated to be on death row throughout Saudi Arabia’s 13 administrative regions.</p>
<p>As a result, the committee <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/saudi-arabia-runs-short-of-swordwielding-executioners-20130312-2fwz8.html">recommended</a> that firing squads be used as an acceptable method of execution for capital sentences, one which would not only be cost effective but limit the unprofessional specter of executioners either running late for their appointed rounds or showing up at the wrong venue.</p>
<p>That latter problem was specifically highlighted in the committee report, which found that swordsmen delayed by excess travel requirements “causes security confusion” an issue exacerbated by “the resulting spreading of rumors through modern technology.”</p>
<p>While some Saudis may have feared that firing squads would not be Sharia compliant, those concerns were allayed by the committee which found the practice “does not constitute a religious violation.”</p>
<p>That viewpoint was <a href="http://www.arabianbusiness.com/death-by-firing-squad-acceptable-by-sharia-says-saudi-cleric-492888.html">reaffirmed</a> by a senior Saudi cleric, Sheikh Ali Al-Hakami, who said, “Beheading by sword is the best way to achieve the purpose of punishment in Islam because it does not cause any torture.”</p>
<p>Of course, that opinion may be clearly up for debate for those facing a public beheading, a form of execution that usually takes place in town squares, such as the one in the capital of Riyadh, known menacingly as “Chop Chop Square.”</p>
<p>There the condemned, usually dressed in white, kneels handcuffed and blindfolded facing in the direction of Mecca. If the public facility is not equipped with a drain in the center, a plastic tarp is spread around the prisoner to make cleaning up easier.</p>
<p>As the prisoner kneels, the executioner will pray with him or her before lightly jabbing their neck with the blade of the sword, an act which serves to make the prisoner stiffen upwards. Then, with a quick stroke, the head is cleaved from the body, whereupon both the body and head are placed on a stretcher and removed to a waiting van.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many instances have been recorded in which the executioner misjudged his target, such as hitting the shoulder blade, or cutting only halfway through the neck, necessitating several swings to finish the job. In some cases, the head is stuck on a pole separately from the crucified torso and publicly displayed for several days.</p>
<p>While some truly unfortunate few will be crucified alive, dying a slow and painful death with hands and feet nailed with steel spikes to a wooden cross, beheadings remain by far the most popular Saudi form of execution.</p>
<p>In fact, Saudi Arabia, which has the highest execution rate per capita in the world, has reportedly beheaded 18 people so far in 2013 and over 80 people in each of the past two years.</p>
<p>Trying to keep up with that dizzying pace are Saudi government swordsmen, whose duties were graphically and chilling expressed by a Saudi executioner, Muhammad Saad al-Beshi, in an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jun/06/saudiarabia.features11">interview</a> back in 2003.</p>
<p>Al-Beshi, who said at the time he beheads up to 10 people a day, began his career as a prison guard handcuffing and blindfolding condemned prisoners, a task in which he “developed a desire to be an executioner.” Recalling his first execution, al-Beshi said, “The criminal was tied and blindfolded. With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled meters away.”</p>
<p>Al-Beshi maintained that since he is doing God’s will, his work does not upset him, although he can’t say the same thing for those who watch him perform his deadly task.</p>
<p>According to al-Beshi, “There are many people who faint when they witness an execution. I don’t know why they come and watch if they don’t have the stomach for it. Me? I sleep very well.”</p>
<p>In addition to the four foot scimitar he uses to lop heads from shoulders, al-Beshi’s other tools of trade include a “special sharp knife” he utilizes to carry out amputations of convicted criminals, such as severing hands, feet and even tongues. According to al-Beshi, “When I cut off a hand, I cut it from the joint. If it is a leg, the authorities specify where it is to be taken off, so I follow that.”</p>
<p>While the Saudi committee’s recommendation to consider firing squads has not yet been government approved, it was recently taken out for a test run when the Saudi government <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/03/201331221118103218.html">executed</a> seven young men by firing squad.</p>
<p>The men, who were arrested in 2006 and convicted of theft and armed robbery, had been sentenced to death in 2009, their bodies to be beheaded before their headless torsos then crucified.</p>
<p>While the barbarity of the sentence sparked international outrage, so did the fact that many of the men were not only juveniles at the time they were arrested but that they had also been reportedly tortured into confessing their crimes.</p>
<p>While the Saudi government still carried out the death sentence, it did change the method of execution, opting for a firing squad instead of a group beheading and crucifixion, a nod more toward assuaging international concerns than an acknowledgement of the barbarity of its Sharia-based justice system.</p>
<p>To that end, before carrying out the execution, the Saudi Ministry of the Interior released a statement which <a href="http://www.latinospost.com/articles/14372/20130313/seven-men-executed-saudi-arabia.htm">read</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The punishment of those who wage war against God and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.</p></blockquote>
<p>That said, it’s difficult to fathom that any punishment in the afterlife will match the barbarity inflicted by the rulers of Saudi Arabia in the here and now. That is the true disgrace in this world.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Savage Escalation in the War on Afghan Women</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/frank-crimi/savage-escalation-in-the-war-on-afghan-women/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=savage-escalation-in-the-war-on-afghan-women</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/frank-crimi/savage-escalation-in-the-war-on-afghan-women/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Dec 2012 04:15:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frank Crimi]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attack]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[violence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=168195</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["Is there anything other than death that can help me?”]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/frank-crimi/savage-escalation-in-the-war-on-afghan-women/2012-03-28-afghanistan-women-khadijapatel-706-410/" rel="attachment wp-att-168204"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-168204" title="2012-03-28-afghanistan-women-khadijapatel-706-410" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2012-03-28-afghanistan-women-khadijapatel-706-410-450x329.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="197" /></a>Violence against Afghan females is rapidly escalating in both frequency and savagery, its latest victim a 14-year-old girl named Gastina who was nearly <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/02/in-afghanistan-a-14-year-old-girl-is-beheaded.html">decapitated</a> with a hunting knife for refusing a marriage proposal from her 25-year-old cousin.</p>
<p>Gastina was walking to her home in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province when she was attacked by her cousin Sadeq and another male relative, both of whom proceeded to break her hands and feet before slitting her throat nearly to the bone.</p>
<p>Gastina’s ghastly death sentence was carried out because her family had reportedly turned down Sadeq’s repeated marriage requests, claiming Gastina was too young for marriage. That rebuff was apparently so stinging that it necessitated Sadeq brutally murder the young teenager.</p>
<p>It should be noted that such horrific acts of violence are unfortunately the norm throughout Afghanistan’s highly patriarchal society, where cultural and religious tenets have long allowed most Muslim men to treat women and girls little better than human chattel.</p>
<p>As such, Afghanistan has been <a href="http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2012/11/12/women-in-afghanistan-a-human-rights-tragedy-a-decade-after-september-11.html">named</a> the “world’s most dangerous country in which to be born a woman,” a nightmarish hell where nearly 90 percent of women and girls have reportedly experienced some form of “physical, sexual or psychological violence.”</p>
<p>Yet despite that disturbing misogynistic track record, Afghan government officials and human rights activists have found that the violence levied against woman and girls is reaching, even by Afghan standards, terrifying new heights. As an official with Afghanistan’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs recently <a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/12/violence-against-afghan-women-on-the-rise/">said</a>, “The violence is more severe than in previous years.”</p>
<p>That severity was <a href="http://www.aihrc.org.af/">documented</a> by Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), which recorded over 4,000 cases of violence against women and girls in 2012 &#8212; 550 cases in September alone &#8212; a nearly 25 percent increase from 2011.</p>
<p>These acts of violence include “domestic violence and abuse, torture, beatings, physical mutilation, murder, and rape.” Perhaps most disturbing, AIHRC found that 80 percent of the cases involved girls under 18.</p>
<p>In the past two months, these acts of barbarism include a 20-year-old newlywed in Heart province beheaded by her in-laws for refusing their demands that she become a prostitute; a 16-year-old girl in Ghazni province publicly whipped over 100 times for allegedly having an affair; a woman in Herat stabbed to death by her husband for seeking work outside the home; and a 20-year-old woman in Badakhshan province who was imprisoned for several months in the home of a married couple who sexually abused, beat and tortured her.</p>
<p>Afghanistan, <a href="http://www.aihrc.org.af/">according</a> to AIHRC, has also been plagued by an upsurge in the number of honor killings. These victims include a 30-year-old woman beheaded by her divorced husband in Ghazni province; a 22-year-old woman choked to death by her husband in Kunduz province; a 40-year-old woman beheaded by her husband in Khost province; and a 26-year-old woman in Baghlan province who was first choked to death and then burned up with boiling hot water.</p>
<p>While the cause that sparks these individual acts of brutality may vary, the one common theme that joins them is the involvement of family members in the majority of the cases.</p>
<p>To that end, the Afghan Ministry of Women’s Affairs <a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/12/violence-against-afghan-women-on-the-rise/">found</a> that more than 50 percent of the victims in the nearly 500 cases of violence against women the department registered in 2012 were a result of domestic violence.</p>
<p>An offshoot of that familial violence also includes women and girls killing themselves each year to escape failed, and often violent, forced marriages. These marriages more often than not come complete with a torrent of physical and emotional abuse issued from the bride’s husband and family.</p>
<p>As such, these desperate women and girls will flee their matrimonial hell through an assortment of gruesome means, such as taking rat poison or insecticides, hanging themselves, and even self-immolation.</p>
<p>In fact, some girls don’t even wait around for the nuptials to take place. Such was the case in November 2012 when a 17-year-old girl named Farima tried to escape her impending forced marriage by <a href="http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20121129/NEWS0107/211290388/">jumping</a> from her apartment building, a fall in which she survived, but broke her back.</p>
<p>For its part, the Afghan government has said that despite the spike in gender-based violence, it has taken proactive steps, often citing the Elimination of Violence Against Woman law (EVAW). The EVAW, which was enacted in 2009, criminalizes such things as child marriage, forced marriage and domestic abuse.</p>
<p>As Qodsia Niazi, an Afghan prosecutor, <a href="http://iwpr.net/report-news/violence-against-afghan-women-more-extreme">said</a>, “We have dealt with 1,320 cases of violence against women since last year, mostly concerning assault, harassment, coercion to prostitution, sexual abuse and mutilation…Such trials are very effective in reducing violence against women.”</p>
<p>Yet, not everyone agrees with that assessment. For starters, a UN <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40491&amp;Cr=violence&amp;Cr1=women">report </a>in November 2011 found that the EVAW act was rarely enforced, citing as an example the 2,299 crimes reported in 2010, of which only 155 cases, or just 7 percent, were prosecuted.</p>
<p>That lack of judicial zeal may stem from the fact that when Afghan women do seek help from Afghanistan’s courts and police, they are often pressured by authorities to withdraw their complaints, or failing that, find themselves arrested and jailed for committing “moral crimes.”</p>
<p>As one human rights activist has said, “The government&#8217;s failure to effectively enforce the 2009 law on elimination of violence against women encourages men to believe that they can kill and attack a women with impunity.”</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, that impunity has given an increasingly large number of women and girls precious little hope that their viscous maltreatment will end anytime soon.</p>
<p>That sentiment was perhaps best expressed by a young woman named Kamela, who was first married off to a 35-year-old man when she was 14. That marriage ended shortly after their wedding when he found out she had been sexually abused by her cousin, a transgression which caused him to terminate the marriage.</p>
<p>Upon returning home, Kamela’s father, his familial honor now “disrespected,” brutally beat Kamela before locking her in a barn, only to free her four months later after he sold her to a 78-year-old man for $30,000.</p>
<p>As Kamala <a href="http://iwpr.net/report-news/violence-against-afghan-women-more-extreme">said</a>, “People are usually aggrieved with other people, but I am aggrieved at God. It would have been better if He hadn’t created me in the first place if I was fated to live with so much suffering. Is there anything other than death that can help me?”</p>
<p>Sadly, it’s a tragic question being asked by an ever increasing number of Afghan women and girls.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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