Tell me this isn't the kind of thing that is worth fighting about, and if necessary dying for.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/5217424.stm
This sort of story isn't even rare you know. It's ordinary daily life over there.Disturbed by the death of her mother when she was only four or five years old, and her distraught father's subsequent drug addiction, Atefah had a difficult childhood.
She was also left to care for her elderly grandparents, but they are said to have shown her no affection.
In a town like Neka, heavily under the control of religious authorities, Atefah - often seen wandering around on her own - was conspicuous.
It was just a matter of time before she came to the attention of the "moral police", a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, whose job it is to enforce the Islamic code of behaviour on Iran's streets.
Except you can't speak freely, and you can't trust anyone, and you won't ever be safe.Previously arrested for attending a party and being alone in a car with a boy, Atefah received her first sentence for "crimes against chastity" when she was just 13.
Although the exact nature of the crime is unknown, she spent a short time in prison and received 100 lashes.
Atefah was soon caught in a downward spiral of arrest and abuse
When she returned to her home town, she told those close to her that lashes were not the only things she had to endure in prison. She described abuse by the moral police guards.
And no, I don't think everyone in Iran is bad, far from it. Her father has a statement that is heartbreaking, even if it is apolitical enough to keep from getting himself killed too.The moral police said the locals had submitted a petition, describing her as a "source of immorality" and a "terrible influence on local schoolgirls".
But there were no signatures on the petition - only those of the arresting guards.
Three days after her arrest, Atefah was in a court and tried under Sharia law.
The judge was the powerful Haji Rezai, head of the judiciary in Neka.
No court transcript is available from Atefah's trial, but it is known that for the first time, Atefah confessed to the secret of her sexual abuse by Ali Darabi.
However, the age of sexual consent for girls under Sharia law - within the confines of marriage - is nine, and furthermore, rape is very hard to prove in an Iranian court.
"Men's word is accepted much more clearly and much more easily than women," according to Iranian lawyer and exile Mohammad Hoshi.
"They can say: 'You know she encouraged me' or 'She didn't wear proper dress'."
When Atefah realised her case was hopeless, she shouted back at the judge and threw off her veil in protest.
It was a fatal outburst.
She was sentenced to execution by hanging, while Darabi got just 95 lashes.
Shortly before the execution, but unbeknown to her family, documents that went to the Supreme Court of Appeal described Atefah as 22.
"Neither the judge nor even Atefah's court appointed lawyer did anything to find out her true age," says her father.
And a witness claims: "The judge just looked at her body, because of the developed physique... and declared her as 22."
Judge Haji Rezai took Atefah's documents to the Supreme Court himself.
And at six o'clock on the morning of her execution he put the noose around her neck, before she was hoisted on a crane to her death.
There are plenty of Iranian people who love freedom, behind closed doors.For Atefah's father the pain of her death remains raw. "She was my love, my heart... I did everything for her, everything I could," he says.
He did not get the chance to say goodbye.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/sto...830833,00.htmlEvery so often the moral police clamp down on parks and teahouses where girls and boys spend time together. All these guys can tell stories of being stopped by the police. But they live a kind of double life, with a highly attuned sense of what they can get away with.
From what I've seen and heard, young middle-class Iranians break the law daily, if not hourly. Our wonderful young fixer watches Seinfeld and Friends on illegal satellite and has a very beautiful girlfriend with whom he may well commit crimes against chastity on a regular basis.
That's probably why Atefah's story so horrified young Iranians. In the re-telling, they've romanticised her story somewhat.
But they are still cowards. Some things are worth dying for, this is one of them. Allowing these things to happen, condoning them, supporting a religion which mandates them, is being an accessory to their crimes.
How do we tell the innocent Iranians from the "evil people"? They are the ones who arm themselves and kill every single government official and mullah and moral-policemen they can get at, one after another. Nothing less than that will be enough.
That is truly heartbreaking. And the fact that this isn't just one girl's story.... wow.
I'm not sure how I missed this thread before, but I'm bumpin' it now.
It will be a while, if ever, before this world sees much change for "the better."
Now stop being so freaking nice, and buy a stun gun. - Krell
There are pleantyful of countries in the world who have the same problems or even worse.Originally Posted by aqlo
Wanna bomb them, do you?
PS. I take it your reffering to the Iranian controvercy of going to war with Iran?
Every day this world is starting to look more and more like George Orwells 1984 and it scares me....
It'll probably get worse... Infact it will, more than likley.
Not really, no, just pointing out how the words "innocent" and "victim" are linked together in a political context. It's the Iranian people who need to overthrow their government over the right-and-wrong question, it's not something that is really our business per se. Other than to be aware of it and not be misled.
When we do end up fighting Iran, say any day now, it will be for the usual political-territorial reasons, i e they will go interfering in other people's territory and our politics will be such as to crush them like bugs when they do. When this happens, it will be war. And in war there aren't really any "innocent victims". There are heroes, there are cowards, there are traitors, there are winners and losers, but there are no innocents.
Let me give you some examples. Atefah, the 16yo in the story, she might have been a fast girl, she might have been a slut, she might have been a misunderstood adolescent or an admirable rebel or a sexy little vixen whom that judge enjoyed owning and using and then hoisting up gagging and kicking to dance that last dance for his own twisted pleasure. But now she's a hero.
Those guys in the world trade center, they might have been regular guys doing accounting, they might have been evil fuckers exploiting the third world, they might have been coldhearted idiots who didn't know people were the price of profit. But now they are heroes.
That's war, that's how it works. If you allow things to happen, you are responsible for those things. It's no good complaining that there was nothing you could do. Some things really are worth dying for. If these things are happening in your neighborhood, don't be surprised when you die for them.
When those cowards from Egypt and Saudi Arabia took that dive into those skyscrapers, no one I respect went running around complaining and whining about how unfair it was. We hit back, and we keep hitting back, and if there's anyone who doesn't like it, we have a message for them: BRING IT ON !!!
Yep. They just aren't first on my list.
You do realise how spasticated that sounds, don't you?
Want to kindly name the countries?
PS. Your I.Q. criticism seems to coinside with both of your comments mentioned...
Are people basically good or basically bad? I say basically bad and this story proves it. No, not all people will kill others for doing what they consider wrong, but "all have sinned and fall short" seems like a pretty true statement to me.
May God Bless America
and Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan,
Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, and (fill in your country here).
Except for ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, War has NEVER solved anything -- protestwarrior.com
Sounds like a perfect role model for Christian America.
That's terrible isn't it, we better just kill them all then, just to be to safe, we should probably kick them all out of the country as well, I don't like kebabs any way.
I'd like to see Aqlo's country being bombed...
Yes Aqlo... you'd probably go berserk if anyone who could dream of bombing your
country for bullshit social reasons but ooze absolute hypocracy in babbling about some other country's social issues and using them as reasons to bomb them.
I've never read so much dribble about your excuses of your reporting of social matters in Iran and somehow being able to ''save the day'' and ''spread democracy''
It seems desperate.
That comment is just rascist.
I'd veiw it as sarcasm. Rather agressive sarcasm, some might see. But not racism.
But I'm sure its the Arab's and Turk's who eat kebabs and not the pursians (Iranians).
I bet that Aqlo thinks that Iranians are Arabs.
Yes, the problem with the Religous Right in America is something we should get started dealing with, no argument there. I personally don't think it has come to the point where we need to take up arms about it, in my neigborhood at least, I'm still interested in a solution involving revoking tax-free numbers for pseudo-churches who can't stay out of politics.
But I may be wrong. And if some civilized country like say China for example suddenly bombs the hell out of us one day in the course of getting back at say Pat Robertson for example, I won't be surprised or even discouraged, assuming I survive I will just have to adjust my thinking. "Live free or die."
No, I've covered this already, anyone who doesn't like the freedoms America has, or the way we abuse them for that matter, we aren't hiding. I will be likely to be one of the casualties if you can stage a successful attack on US military command, and I'm not afraid of that. Like I already said,
no one I respect went running around complaining and whining about how unfair it was. We hit back, and we keep hitting back, and if there's anyone who doesn't like it, we have a message for them: BRING IT ON !!!You lose that bet too. I know what Persians (Parsi) are, I know what Aryans (Iran) are, I know where the Caucasus is, I even know what Yezidi are. You don't seem to understand your position at all, you are a poser and no one buys your bullshit here. Not here on this board, not at Berkeley or in Chicago, not in Bavaria and certainly not in Whitehall. So next time take the effort to research your opponents before you start making ridiculous claims. Or be a poser with delusions of dupehood for all eternity, no skin off my nose.
What's keeping you from being able to read and understand the responses to your nonsense, btw? Is it the same thing that is responsible for your atrocious spelling and grammar? I indicated quite clearly that social problems in a country are not a reason for attacking them, simply an exercise in the politics of innocence. Here that is again for reference
You are the one who has been trying to make this into a thread about the coming war from your first post, you seem to have a chip on your shoulder of some kind. What's causing your obsession with turning a sad story into some sort of personal showdown with me? You don't have any comments on the actual content of my post at all, only your assumed interpretation of a strawman argument I never made.When we do end up fighting Iran, say any day now, it will be for the usual political-territorial reasons, i e they will go interfering in other people's territory and our politics will be such as to crush them like bugs when they do.
Again, is it the same thing that causes your hookt-on-fonix spelling, cockeyed grammar, low reading comprehension, and inability to pass the initial testing required for membership in any sort of Discordian operation which I've already pointed out? Is it just too much hemp and a sad excuse for an education? I don't really care, I won't be arguing post for post with you anymore, in this thread at least, because I'm more interested in the responses of genuine caring people who might have insights into the picture of Iranian culture Atefah's story seems to paint. I'm hoping someone can make me smarter, that clearly won't be you.
Tell me more, bob. I hadn't though of it that way, I would rather think ordinary people are basically good and people who become addicted to power are the source of most of the bad. But that doesn't mean that the basically good people who don't bother to fight against the bad aren't to blame as well.
But I'd like to understand your view, could you talk it out for me please? Whenever you get the chance.
Yeh, I dont like that comment either................will make sure its addressed.
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