Iran Vs. US

Iranians poured into the streets to show their solidarity with the families of the victims of the terrorist attack at America.

It's interesting how the Iranian government's vitriol is regularly reported in the news, while the opinions of everyday Iranians don't seem to count for anything, not in their own country nor in the West, as our profound ignorance in regards to their lives, their struggles, their hopes and fears demonstrates all too well. Iran executed 94 people in 2005. Alarmingly, the execution of women and children is justified by a warped sense of equity, one that deems them deserving of a punishment ostensibly meant to rid societies of their most dangerous citizens. (Here, here, here.)

Nobody in the media seems at all concerned with the plight of Ashraf Kalhori, for example. Kalhori is a 37-year-old mother of four who has been sentenced to death for having an extra-marital affair. She is awaiting a ruling on whether or not she is to be stoned to death for her indiscretion. Her lawyer Shadi Sadr has posted a letter that reads, in part:

As an Iranian lawyer and a human rights defender, I am writing to you to ask you to help me save the life of a woman sentenced to death by stoning! Asharf Kalhori, who is currently in Evin prison in Tehran, is scheduled to be stoned to death by the end of July 2006 for the crime of having "sex".

I am voluntarily representing Ashraf, the mother of four children of ages 9 to 19 to save her from stoning. She had an extramarital affair because she never loved her husband, but her request for divorce had been rejected by the court based on the fact that she had children and, therefore, had to resume living with her husband. Therefore, some women whose divorce requests are denied opt for extramarital affairs.

If you believe that stoning is not an appropriate punishment for a woman having sex with a man other than her husband, if you believe that having sex is not a crime and does not turn a person into a criminal, and if you believe that Ahsraf Kalhori does not deserve to die for having had sex, then please express your opposition to stoning.

In this world too many ordinary citizens like Ashraf Kalhori are silenced by dictatorial tyrants. It is therefore high time those of us in the West, where we still possess a modicum of freedom to hurl our opinions and objections at govenments and more especially at religious zealots, to make some small effort to improve this draconian situation. Most (if not all) of the Iranians I've met have said that the large majority of the country is in fact opposed to the ruling religious junta, but that this opposition only results in more arbitrary detentions, police beatings and sometimes execution. The least we can do is sign the petition Mr. Sadr is presenting to the Judiciary Chief of Iran to spare Mrs. Kalhori's life. People are people. Still.