First, the good news: the Bangladesh High Court has abolished all physical punishments based on the scriptures. Thus, people will no longer be sentenced to lashing, chopping off their hands, or stoning to death.
Unfortunately, Mrs Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is an Iranian widow, and was sentenced to be stoned to death in her country for alleged adultery before her husband was murdered. She has already been lashed 99 times in 2006 for “illicit sex”. The Iranian penal code is very explicit about how the sentence is to be carried out: the stones should not be so large as to kill the victim immediately, and yet large enough to fit the definition of a stone.
While an international outcry has prevented this barbaric punishment from being carried out, Mrs Ashtiani might yet be hanged for the alleged offence. Although Islamic law requires four witnesses to establish that adultery has taken place, in this case the judge has based his sentence on ‘personal knowledge’.
Currently, 15 more suspects are under the same sentence in East Azerbaijan alone. It seems these punishments have been revived under Ahmednijad’s presidency after lying dormant during his predecessor’s less benighted term. [DAWN.COM] Read more
