Iran's Latest Crime Against Humanity
Thursday, February 23, 2006
--- THIS BLOG HAS BEEN ABANDONED. OUR NEW HOME IS: THE WEASEL SOAP BOX ---
Dear reader,I am providing a news article in full because I do not have the written capacity to express what I felt as I read the article. Instead, I am going to post it as it was posted on the originating site, along with two links so that you the reader may go and see for yourself that I didn't make it up.
There are two version, I'm posting the one that I feel is better written as a news piece, but will still provide a link to both articles. The actiom in question has been condemn by Amnesty International but has sadly gone unreported because there is no media outlet in the Islamic Republic of Iran that would fairly recount the girl's story.
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Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.
The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.
Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.
She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.
As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.
The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.
Last week, a court in the city of Rasht, northern Iran, sentenced Delara Darabi to death by hanging charged with murder when she was 17 years old. Darabi has denied the charges.
In August 2004, Iran’s Islamic penal system sentenced a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, to death after a sham trial, in which she was accused of committing “acts incompatible with chastity”.
The teenage victim had no access to a lawyer at any stage and efforts by her family to retain one were to no avail. Atefeh personally defended herself and told the religious judge that he should punish those who force women into adultery, not the victims. She was eventually hanged in public in the northern town of Neka.
Iran to hang teenage girl attacked by rapists
Iran : A 17 year old girl is sentenced to death by hanging.
Iran: Amnesty International calls for end to death penalty for child offenders
