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A killing spree

A killing spree

A killing spree

  • Posted by Maryam Namazie
  • On October 22, 2012
  • 12 Comments
  • execution, Iran

In the past 48 hours, the Islamic regime of Iran executed 13 people (in a report received by Mina Ahadi and the International Committee against Execution).

3 were executed this Sunday on charges of ‘corruption’ and ‘enmity against god’ in Sistan Baluchestan, namely Yahya Charizehi, Abdoljalil Kahrazehi and Abdolbasset Rigi.

10 others, including Saeed Sadighi and a father and son, were executed Monday morning in Tehran’s Evin prison for ‘drug-related’ offences.

Hundreds protested to stop the executions in Tehran. Security forces attacked the protesters and even threatened to shoot at them. This  marks the first time that the families of ordinary (not political) prisoners were involved in public protests against executions.

A ‘killing spree‘, and just another day in the life of this regime…

Per Iranian poet Ahmad Shamlou:

The lock clanked open.

The smile on his lips trembled
like the dancing reflection of water on the wall
when the sun is shining.

The lock clanked open.

Outside

magical colors of dawn
were wondering around
like lost notes
trying to find refuge
in the holes of a bamboo flute.

The lock clanked open,
the smile on his lips trembled
like the dancing reflection of water on the wall
when the sun is shining.

The lock
clanked open.

 

 

12 Comments

busterggi
This makes America's fundie Christians soooooo jealous! They used to be able to do this when their theocrats were in charge and they would love to be able to again.
    Julia Gasper
    Why don't you go and live in Iran then if you dislike the democratic West so much? If all you can say after the execution of 13 people is to make snide remarks about Americian "fundies" then you would be very popular there.
      busterggi
      The democracy of the US is what has kept such fundies out of power here - since you are so fond of fundamentalism then iran is much more your place than mine.
Marcus Ranum
The USA only has the death penalty for crimes of first-degree homicide Treason and Espionage. Ask Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
    Corvus illustris
    FWIW, they could not have been charged with treason, since the US was not at war with the Soviet Union. Wikipedia contradicts itself on this subject, asserting that they were condemned for conspiracy to commit espionage and for "transmitting or attempting to transmit to a foreign government information 'relating to the national defense'." Of course this does not change the fact that judicial homicide is rampant in the US and has been applied to many crimes other than murder. Point of info for non-US readers: many crimes are defined and punished by the laws of the individual states. Some of these have never had capital punishment (or rejected it before any executions took place), e.g., Michigan and Wisconsin. In some respects we're not all Texas.
Julia Gasper
The USA only has the death penalty for crimes of first-degree homicide, i.e. pre-meditated or multiple murder, particularly brutal killings, and terrorist crimes that attack the whole of society. (Most murders get a prison sentence.) When charged, the accused person has a right to full legal representation and if sentenced to death, the appeal system means that they can spend up to 30 years in prison without being executed. All that time they have a lawyer and can campaign through the press. Secondly, the USA is a democracy where people can vote for or against the death penalty at federal or state level. That is why it has been abolished in many states. Thirdly, in the USA people can elect their own judges. So the sentences given must have democratic approval. None of those things are true in Iran. So your comparison with America is just wrong. No Western country executes people for blasphemy offenses, and no civilized country does it in my humble opinion.
    Corvus illustris
    Secondly, the USA is a democracy where people can vote for or against the death penalty at federal or state level. That is why it has been abolished in many states. Thirdly, in the USA people can elect their own judges. So the sentences given must have democratic approval.
    Would that many of these things were true. Voting directly for or against a given law--the referendum--is not possible in every state, while (e.g.,) in Michigan, New Jersey and Wisconsin capital punishment was abolished legislatively. Moreover, although judges are elected in many states, they are appointed (subject to approval by the legislatures) in many others. All Federal judges are appointed. Sentences may be prescribed by law in some cases and thus not subject to judges' discretion. The patchwork-quilt character of US law, and its not-necessarily-democratic nature, are not always obvious.
      biasedfreethoughts
      biasedfreethoughts. @Julia Gasper, your reply reminds me the following. One of the reporters of a TV channel asked George Bush. You went to Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction, couldn’t find the same but destroyed a rich, prosperous nation and “mass murdered”---about 1.2 million women , innocent civilians out of which 40% are children. George Bush replied: We brought democracy in that country.(his hidden agenda-I m protecting robber Israel) I never saw, read or watched Mariam Namazie asking democratically elected leaders of USA and its allies when they are rampaging nations and butchering innocent civilians of other countries(except when dimwit like me ask her about her hidden agenda she does/did, only to defend herself as a show off,..Maryam Namazie never questioned with affairs of these arrogant powerful elected gang leaders unless until someone questioned about her decomposedfreethoughts. Mariam Namzie posted (latest) a twisted dimension of her argument for my question calling me a dimwit … Yes, you freethoughts arrogantly think other free thoughts are silly but you are always intellectual and right,..That is why award winning biased Mariam Namazie gets angry if you tell her the truth with statistics of democratic USA. You all democraZy ( I am for democracy with certain ideology for better society) people have the license by helping to kill people of other democratically elected nations (Gaza of Palestine etc.. for example..) In mass and destroy their land with deadly weapons.. Stealing lands by force, expanding land by force, settling people of other nations on stolen land by force..when peace loving people ask them why?,..They have readymade answer.-we are democratically elected people but those who oppose us are not. When Palestinians retaliate, you brand them as terrorists inspired by Quran and Islam.. And dancing on dead bodies of Palestinian children by singing the song “democracy democracy here we came”…(sorry, my English is bad) Some democratically elected system follow different ideology which is against your freehiddenthoughts, so you blame them…when you kill people and destroy nations, you justify it by using the most glittering word called “DEMOCRACY”…. You oppose democratically elected other systems because that system punishes the killers of their husbands or wives, criminals, child abusers, anti social elements where you have no problem with your own system which is lenient with heinous criminals or kill them by giving your own definition.. …Also, “your own democracy” –ideology- is very tactical in stealing Palestinian land…is/was ruthless in destroying nations and killing innocent civilians and children to legitimize the land which was stolen about 60 years ago. You just analyze the situation of terrorists attacking- interests of “only” USA, Israel and UK and some of its allies-- not Switzerland or New Zealand ,….. why Islam is so much demonized these days? .. If you didn’t analyze before, try now. I am for two nation peaceful solution for Israel and Palestine planed by Bill Clinton and road map by George Bush …as soon as it happens; I hope nobody is going to listen Mariam Namazies shattered communist voice which has its own roots of crimes with Stalins…Maos…Polpots etc. - and was buried long ago. As I said, I am neither an Iranian nor a Shia. I am for peace I, and all of you must agree, I am a dimwit / troll.
        Julia Gasper
        I have not said anything remotely like the speech you quote from George Bush. You seem to have a simplistic view of everything. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was not a peaceful, prosperous country. It had already been involved in two wars under Saddam - one with Iran and the other when it invaded Kuwait. People have short memories. I never condoned the invasion of Iraq and it has nothing to do with what I said about the death penalty in America. As for your remarks about "dancing on dead bodies of Palestinian children " they are so hysterical and melodramatic they do not merit any serious answer.
biasedfreethoughts
From January 2012 to October 15-2012, total executions in USA is 45. Read: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/execution-list-2012 Don’t think I am favoring Iran…I am against shia ideology.. But did you ever raised any voice against executions in USA(and other western countries?.
    Maryam Namazie
    I am opposed to the death penalty in all instances and for many years now, including executions in the USA. What's interesting and utterly annoying in your comment is that it seems we are not allowed to speak of executions in Iran without also mentioning executions in the USA. Really? It seems this is only a requirement we must adhere to. I don't think you have written to anti-DP campaigners in the USA, asking them why they haven't mentioned executions in Iran. FYI, people in Iran are human too.

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