The barbaric practice of stoning to death must end now.

  • by: Omar Kuddus
  • recipient: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon United Nations , H.E. Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser President The General Assembly United Nations , Ms. Michelle Bachelet Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women , Hillel C. Neuer executive director of

In commemoration of 11 July, International Day against Stoning, we call on people worldwide to demand an end to the barbaric practice of stoning to death.

 

11 July has been chosen by the International Committee against Stoning to mark the day that 31 year old mother of two, Maryam Ayoubi, was stoned to death in 2001 under Khatami’s ‘reformist’ presidency. Though she had fainted out of sheer fear, she was nonetheless carried out on a stretcher and stones were thrown at her body until she was dead.

 

Stoning, or lapidation, is a form of capital punishment whereby a group throws stones at a person until the person dies. No individual among the group can be identified as the one who kills the subject, yet everyone involved plainly bears some degree of moral culpability. This is in contrast to the case of a judicial executioner. Slower than other forms of execution, stoning is a form of execution by torture.

Stoning is a medieval act of barbarity that the Islamic regime in Iran and other Islamic gangs and states use to mete out punishment against women who have sex outside of marriage and in some cases also against men and homosexuals. It is a tool to frighten people into submission.

 

Even so, there is ample opposition and resistance to stoning in countries where women are stoned to death. In Iran, in particular, where the regime has stoned to death hundreds of people, there is an extensive social movement against stoning. It has become impossible for the regime to stone people in public for a very long time now and the practice of stoning has effectively been suspended, particularly after the campaign to defend Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.

 

Millions of people all over the world came to the fore to defend Sakineh, demand an end to stoning and condemn the regime. Whilst Sakineh is still in prison (as is her lawyer Houtan Kian), the Islamic regime of Iran has been forced to suspend her stoning sentence and even speaks of cancelling her execution as well as her possible release. This is all thanks to the worldwide movement against stoning. This movement has saved many a life in the past few decades.

 

Islamic Sharia Law is based on the Quran, the hadith, and the biography of Mohammed. Based on these hadiths, in some Muslim countries, such as Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, married adulterers will get capital punishment, while not-married adulterers will be flogged 100 times. The Qur'an forbids all sexual intercourse outside the marital bond as sinful, but makes no distinction between them. The punishment is flogging 100 times for those found guilty.

Stoning (rajm) as a punishment for adultery is not mentioned in the Quran, so some modernist Muslim scholars like Quran alone Muslim Scholars take the view that stoning to death is not an Islamic law

On 11 July, the International Committee against Stoning calls on everyone to remember the victims of stoning and those languishing under stoning sentences and to demand an unequivocal end to the barbaric practice of stoning in Iran and everywhere.

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