Befriending Iran

"Exiled Iranian human rights activists such as Toronto-based Maryam Nayeb Yazdi have pointed out that stoning is still a viable legal threat in Iran, for both men and women, and that executions in general are rising."
"Anything less than a continuing diplomatic boycott and the seizure of Iranian government assets [in Canada], as well as a ban on visits by their government officials, would be a betrayal of [Canadian] democracy and of those Iranian-Canadians who have fled that Islamic dictatorship since the revolution that brought these evil men to power in 1979. It would also be a slap in the face to the children waiting in Iran's prisons for their turn on the gallows."
Geoffey Clarfield, Toronto-based anthropologist

Photo of an execution in Iran. (AFP/Arash Khamooshi/ISNA)

The Islamic Penal Code administered by mullahs in the Islamic Republic of Iran is a daunting system of enacting justice. Due process carried out in the Western world is a practise of justice unknown in the Islamic theocracy. There, people can be arrested, interrogated, even tortured even before they ever appear in a court of law and stand before a judge. Trials are short and closed. If a lawyer is hired for the defence he too is often harassed and occasionally arrested on charges of representing the interests of Europe or North America.

Human rights groups make it a point of regularly tracking in particular the war waged by the Islamic Republic against Iranian youth. When murder is committed, under the justice system practised in the West, it is considered a heinous violation of the social contract, devised to ensure security and peace among people, guaranteeing safety under the law. Murder in Iran is viewed as a private matter between families. Should a murder occur, the culprit arrested and tried, possibly condemned to death, the family of the deceased can accept blood money for the release of the murderer.

Execution by hanging is often staged in public where people are encouraged to attend; the event viewed as public entertainment as well as a warning to others. Those heading to the gallows are often first beaten and tortured, then brought out to entertain the crowd. The spectacle can include a botched  hanging where it takes ten to twenty minutes of expressed agony before death by asphyxiation is finally achieved, and justice is seen to be done. That justice is the state's response to unforgivable crimes such as:

• Should a man or woman under the Islamic Shariah of Iran be convicted of fornication out of wedlock four times, he/she can be executed;
• Fornication by a non-Muslim with a Muslim woman can result in execution;
• Anal sex among adult males (over the age of 15) is justification for capital punishment;
• Lesbians are condemned to death if they are caught in a 'criminal act' four times;
• Possession of obscene audio-visual materials can be punished by death;
• Caught drinking alcohol for the third time can seal one's fate in punishment by execution;
• Thefts are punished by amputations; if four such occasions arise, the punishment is execution;
• If one is born a Muslim then seeks to convert to another religion, it is termed apostasy, punishable by death;
• Killing a non-Muslim by a Muslim does not automatically merit the death penalty.

Under Iran's Islamic Penal Code a female is considered a fully responsible adult at 13 years of age, while a male is considered adult at age 15. When youth under 18 are arrested, tried, condemned and set for execution they are thus considered fully adult under the law and the death penalty can be administered lawfully. Iran is responsible for 73 percent of all child executions worldwide, with a 47 percent under-18 population, ranking as the world's top child-executioner.

When Iranian children under age 18 are charged with a capital offence and sentenced to death, Iranian authorities, sensitive to world opinion, allow them to remain incarcerated awaiting their 18th birthday at which time the death sentence is carried out. In this manner the Islamic Republic lives up to the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child which states that those under 18 years of age are to be considered children.

A missile launched from the Alborz mountains in Iran on March 9, 2016, reportedly inscribed in Hebrew, ‘Israel must be wiped out.’ (Fars News)

 

Infamously, Iran threatens world stability through its furtive efforts in streamlining ballistic missiles to accompany the nuclear warheads it claims it has no interest in producing. The Republic's support for terrorist groups such as its proxy militia Hezbollah in Lebanon which it dispatches on missions abroad to produce bloody carnage and which has most latterly been involved along with the Iranian Republic Guards Corps al-Quds division in Syria, is responsible for sectarian conflict in the Middle East.

In this 2015 file picture released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei listens to IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari during a graduation ceremony of officers in Tehran, Iran. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP, File)

In response to Iran's reputation and its penchant for meddling in other countries' affairs to its advantage, Canada's former Conservative-led government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper cut off diplomatic relations with Iran, closing the Canadian embassy in Tehran, and inviting Iran to close its embassy in Ottawa, while taking steps to take possession of its non-diplomatic financial assets in Canada to be used in financing compensatory awards to victims of Iranian terrorism.

Unfortunately, the following Liberal-led government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seeks to reverse all of that under the influence of a pro-Iranian lobby urging the reopening of the embassies and re-engaging in trade with Iran through commerce with companies owned and operated by the revolutionary Islamic government's ayatollahs and their Iranian Republican Guard Corps elite commanders. Canada's Liberal government recently financed a $100-million business deal between Iran and Bombardier, Canada's aerospace conglomerate.

People hold placards displaying portraits of Iranians on death row during a demonstration denouncing Iran's use of the death penalty on 28 January 2016 in Paris, France AFP/Getty Images