Monday 30 September 2013

Stoning - Where is it legal?


I write about human rights, but had no idea that stoning is still a legal punishment in some parts of the Muslim world. It is also practiced extrajudicially in other parts.  Stoning is a form of execution where a group throws stones at a person until they are dead -  mostly as a punishment for adultery. Iran, where stoning is a legal punishment,  has the world’s highest rate of execution by stoning.   

Here is a good infographic by the Thomson Reuters Foundation showing where stoning happens and where it is legal.

The graph also shows that in Iran, the only country where stoning is legal and practiced, men sentenced to dying that way are buried up to their waists, while women are buried up to their chests. If a person manages to escape, they’re free. I assume that no woman can manage that feat…

I find the death penalty abhorrent in any cases, but this slow, painful, cruel, communal way of killing someone is beyond words.

 

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