Iran: Female Blogger Receives 50 Lashes


Iran: Female Blogger Receives 50 Lashes

Posted 15 September 2011 23:41 GMT
Written byFred Petrossian

These are the words Iranian blogger Somayeh Tohidloo wrote [fa] in her blog after receiving 50 whip lashes in Evin Prison on September 14, 2011:

Be happy, for if you wanted to humiliate me, I confess that I feel my entire body is suffering with degradation.

Somayeh TohidlooSomayeh Tohidloo

Somayeh was active during the 2009 presidential election in the campaign for Mir Hussein Mousavi, and she was jailed for 70 days in 2009, after a mass protest movement erupted in Iran. She was released after paying bail, but the flogging sentence was eventually upheld.

Green City writes [fa]:

Here is Iran, where Somayeh Tohidloo, a PhD-graduate is lashed while a $3 billion dollar fraud [over a Lake Urmia] happens, and nothing is done to punish the fraudulent acts.

14-Year-Old Girl Lashed to Death for Islam


The BBC reports the utterly barbaric death of a 14 year old girl in Bangladesh.

Can you possibly guess why? Yep, no surprise or shock, its what we expect. Just one single word sums it all up … “islam”. (Yes, I’ve not used upper-case, I refuse to do so)

She was accused of having an affair, so a village court consisting of elders and clerics passed the sentence. When challenged, they claim that the punishment was given under Islamic Sharia law. She was sentenced and then given 80 lashes. She was then later admitted to a hospital after the incident and died there six days later.

The authorities have (quite rightly) stepped in, so far four people have been arrested and another 14 are still wanted.

“What sort of justice is this? My daughter has been beaten to death in the name of justice,” Mosammet’s father, Dorbesh Khan, 60, told the BBC.

Here are a couple of links that give you a lot more information about all this. First we have the BBC report on it here, then we also have the Newspaper report in the UK’s Guardian here.

Check out the Guardian page, some of the folks writing comments there have been removed, some of the others still in place are more or less dancing on her grave. These are (as you might expect), the islamic believers doing the, “Oh thats not ‘real’ islam dance that they always do when faced with such incidents. It becomes a “them” and “us” song about how islam is really all about peace and that true muslims would never do this … er no, sorry but you don’t get to play that card … period.

Choosing to believe in a made up supernatural entity and claiming that it has given you a book of bizarre rules for you to impose on others is at the root of all this. The truth is that lots of smart folks do truly believe many weird things, and I’m OK with that. However, the moment you start to impose anything on others you have crossed a line. islam (as do many other beliefs) crosses that line and must be robustly challenged and told, “believe whatever bullshit you like, but you don’t get to dictate to others”. If not, then this is where it will lead you.

When faced with the claim that religion is a forced for good in the world, be skeptical. The evidence does not support that claim.

Preacher implicated in torture


Friday, January 14, 2011

Preacher implicated in torture

“OKAKU – A 33-year-old woman and her 15-year-old daughter were seriously injured after their relatives allegedly tortured them with an electrical wire that they connected to a car battery with the intention to extract a confession from them about a cellphone that had gone missing from the culprits.

Martha Hamutenya from Omakolombongo village of Okaku Constituency and her daughter, Indila Ikumwa, were treated at Oshakati Intermediate Hospital with burnt wounds last week.The two were tortured by their relatives allegedly on the verbal instructions of Hamutenya’s aunt who is also a preacher at the Anglican Church. The relatives allegedly accused the mother and daughter of having stolen a cellphone. Three relatives, a woman and two men, were arrested and charged with assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

MORE: http://www.newera.com.na/article.php?articleid=36864