Young Man to be Executed for a Crime Committed as a Juvenile

Seriously Islamic Republic of Iran? You want to stone a woman for adultery even though no one accused her of it besides some deranged judges? And execute a young man whose co-defendants exonerated him of a murder that was committed when he was 15? Seriously?

Some countries just can't catch a break...

Please protest both the planned stoning of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani and the execution of Mohammad Reza Haddadi

Here is what the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran says about the case of Ashtiani:

The terms of the sentence under Iranian law call for Ashtiani to be killed with medium –sized stones, so she will die slowly, in great pain.  She has already been punished with 99 lashes for having an “illicit relationship,” and later again charged, for the same crime, with adultery, which carries the death penalty in Iran.  According to her lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaie, no evidence exists in her file to justify an adultery conviction, and as a member of the Azerbaijani minority, her inability to understand the language of the court prevented a fair trial.

United4Iran has a letter that you can send to halt the imminent execution of Haddadi.

There is a petition to end stoning at Amnesty International and another petition to stop the execution by stoning of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani at Go Petition. Please do what you can.

"I will not stand by while my neighbors are denied basic human rights just because they are Baha'is"

From the folks at MideastYouth.com:



The first time I attended an all women's party in Iran, there were many Bahais, a couple of Christians, a Jew (me), and several Muslim women. One of the Bahai women told me that although the Iranian regime had become less tolerant of the Bahai, the Iranian people had become more tolerant since the revolution. I know that many in Iran would like to see a lot more religious tolerance in their country. I am tempted to close with Inshallah, but we all know that tolerance is our own personal choice and not subject to the will of God.

BTW, This video was made by predominantly Muslim youth...

Leaving Iran...

There are several ways to leave Iran. Among them: marry an American, claim asylum in the Netherlands if you are gay, apply for a student visa or residency, or win the Green Card lottery. For Christians and Jews and Ba’hais, there is another way: asylum based on religion. It requires a few months stay in Vienna or another city where paperwork is processed and “homeless” Iranians find temporary housing before moving on to new homes in Orange County, Chicago, or Virginia.

If Muslims could do the same they would. They would pick up and move out in higher numbers than the minorities. Iranian law may be harder on minorities, but the minorities I know express no more displeasure with their lives in Iran than do the Muslims I know.

Awhile ago, a Ba’hai family that I met told me that Iranian society had become more tolerant since the revolution. The law, they explained, had become less tolerant, but their neighbors and friends had become more tolerant.

I asked a young Jewish friend how his parents felt. He told me that they would agree. “Before the revolution, Iranians were much more religious. If my father would visit a shop or the home of a Muslim, they would clean everything. They felt he was dirty. Now, it is never a problem. Muslims shake my hand all the time. Most of my friends are Muslims.”

“My grandmother was that way,” Keivan added. “She would clean the house from top to bottom if a Christian came over. My mother, no. I had a Christian friend who was always over.”

An Armenian friend of ours recently made the move to Vienna to await her paperwork for residency in the US. “My father is broken-hearted. He loves Iran,” she told me. “Iran saved our family. They were refugees from Turkey. They all love Iran so much, but it is too hard to continue. He is sick of lying all the time so we are moving to America.”

Soon, Iran will have almost no religious minorities. They won’t be able to point to their “big” Jewish community of 30,000. In Hamadan, where the tomb of Esther and Mordecai is located, only 17 Jews are left. Iran reports that there are 30,000 Jews here, but every day the number gets smaller. It isn’t because of any “special” persecution. It’s just that they *can* leave.

What has Iran ever done for me?

A commenter recently asked:

what are the main contributions to the health and happiness of the world that iran has made outside of its borders in the last 50 years?

Another commenter responded that Iran houses more refugees than any other country in the world. That is true. There are many Afghanis and Iraqis here. Someone from the UN told me that it is hard to count the number of Afghanis because they make every effort to disappear into Iranian society.

Going back a bit more than 50 years, we should not forget that Iranian diplomats were instrumental in saving many Jews during the Holocaust and that many Armenians found refuge in Iran as well when they were being killed by the Turks.

That's not too shabby, I would say...

Returnees

GM from San Francisco sent a link to this article in the Jerusalem Post: “Exclusive: Immigrant moves back 'home' to Teheran”

"I have a lot of Muslim friends and they all knew I'd moved to Israel," he said. "They asked me, 'Why did you come back?'" His Jewish friends in Iran already knew the answer.
Despite the declaration last week by Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel must be wiped off the map, the Shihab missiles displayed in Teheran with "Israel" painted on them, the broadcasting of anti-Semitic films on national television and the much-publicized trials of 13 Jewish Iranians on spy charges, Ishak insists that life in Iran is far better for Jews than life in Israel.
"If you have problems there, people help you - and they know you are Jewish," said Ishak, who has now briefly returned to Israel to sell his shop and leave for good. "But here, everyone is looking out for himself. You can't trust anybody."

Is it nostalgia? True? Or the interactions of a minority? I don’t know. I do know that when you are part of a minority, you get accustomed to a certain type of group behavior that is decidedly un-majority. I often wonder what happens to Iran’s Christians when they find themselves in majority Christian countries like America. Are they excited to be part of a big majority or do they retain the characteristics of a minority group. Any Armenians from Iran out there who want to respond?

Religion as law…Opinion as fact
It has been some years since I lived in America. In all that time, I have been unwilling and incapable of becoming an expatriate in the sense of how I have seen it lived by many expatriates: as knee-jerk anti-Americanism. When listening to their anti-American rants, I have often felt that it is much easier to count the sins of a nation/people than its virtues. Not that I want to close my eyes to the mistakes, injustices, and even evils of my nation/people, no not that. I just cannot close my eyes to its virtues. I cannot close my eyes to the idea of America as an unfinished project rather that as something complete, dead, and defined. As a child I struggled with conflicting views of America: one that saw America through the eyes of the Viet Nam war and one that saw America through the eyes of my immigrant relatives. I struggled to reconcile these conflicting views of America and was able to. As a result, my understanding of America is complex. I can never relinquish my American identity. It is not an identity that I shrink from. This does not mean that I am always proud of it or uncritical of it. No. It means that it is mine, and it is complex, and I will not disown it. I have been proud and amused by the way American ingenuity is so touted by us. I guess the real ingenuity is giving so many of the world's population opportunities to invent, work, and study. That has been our true ingenuity.

That said, I feel that my identity is under attack. Will my Americanism become a relic? Will people find me out of date, quaint even? Are free press, free speech, immigration, religious freedom, and the separation of church and state all coming under attack?

I have a friend here in Iran who is brilliant in his field but cannot complete his studies here because somebody (or bodies) has determined that he is not Islamic enough. Iran is a country that has shown itself willing to lose most of its best and brightest to the rest of the world: all in the name of ideology. America, having become wildly paranoid since 9/11, will no longer issue visas to these people. Trust me, they will go elsewhere. When they do go elsewhere, America will suffer.

My religion is a minority religion in both the US and in Iran. I do not want to live under the religious rule of either. I do not want them to live under the rules of my religion either. Why would I? When religions rule, they set themselves up as superior to civil law and other religious beliefs. Many Muslims believe that they should only do business with other Muslims. Many Christians believe the same. (To be fair, other peoples and religions believe the same, but I am only addressing the dominant religions of America and Iran.) This is how they interpret their religious mandate in the world. Disrespecting the wishes and even the legal protections of others is acceptable under religious rule because the ruling interpretation of God's word is more important than anything else. And that is key: interpretation. Law is always subject to interpretation. Proponents of religious law, however, can always claim that God is on their side which essentially means that you must bow to God's word. The ruling interpretation of God's word often needs to combine their interpretation with violence in order to enforce their ideas. After all, violence is acceptable with God on your side. We've all seen it.

When I was nine or ten, I heard a story from the Talmud about a group of Rabbis arguing about a law. One of the Rabbis argued that God was on his side and that he could prove that by performing a series of small miracles. None of the miracles was enough to convince the other Rabbis that their reasoning was incorrect and that they should change their opinion so that it was in alignment with the opinion of the Rabbi who had God on his side. In the end, God approves of their dissent. God says, "The Law is not in heaven."

Law is subject to change and interpretation.

The Women's Party

Women

I was invited to a women's party. When I got there, there was a room full of women elegantly dressed and me in my baggy muslin pants and gray t-shirt. I felt like such a slob. The women had their hair streaked, curled, and set. They were wearing tight, tight pants and low-cut nylon stretch shirts. They were wearing beautiful dresses and elegant pant suits. They wore gold and pearls. The house was amazing: three floors of marble with an indoor pool.

The women were also amazing. Once I overcame my fashion faux pas, I started talking to the women about everything: food, men, politics, religion, culture. This was such a new experience for me. Alone, these women were so relaxed. They didn't attend to my every desire or worry that I was not eating enough. At one point I said, you guys are so different when men are not around. "Yes," one woman answered. "With men we cannot be ourselves."

There were women of all ages there from 6 to 80. Everyone crowded around a big table where delicious food, ripe fruit, nuts, and cakes were laid out. There was a lot of talking and laughing. At one point, the conversation turned to politics and religion. It turned out that most (not all) of the women were Ba'hai. They told me a little about the Ba'hai faith and its respect for all religions. They also told me about all of the Ba'hai who were killed during and after the revolution. There were graphic throat slitting motions all around the table.

"Every religion has its martyrs," one woman told me. "At the beginning of every religion: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, many people were martyred. Here too, with the Ba'hai. Pregnant women and children were even martyred."

"My grandfather was a mullah," another woman told me. "He and his brother accepted Ba'hai, and here we are today."

"Most of the Islamic people I know are very warm and caring," a bulldog of a woman told me. "There are just a few who are intolerant and crazy."

"There were more intolerant people before," said the first woman. "Now we Iranians like each other more. Now we are more tolerant of each other."

This comment surprised me since most Iranians tell me how much worse people are since the revolution. On the other hand, I was not surprised because the people I have met here have been surprisingly tolerant and open. I told them that even the very religious Muslims that I meet in Iran profess a desire for freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

Later we spoke about America. One of the Islamic women attending the party told us how much she liked Bush. She also told me that she felt Sharon was fighting for freedom of religion.

You never know what you are going to hear.