 FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - The Army has charged the suspect in the Fort Hood shooting spree with 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. The charges are in addition to the 13 premeditated murder charges filed against Maj. Nidal (Nee-DAHL) Hasan (Huh-SAHN') in the Nov. 5 massacre at Fort Hood. The Army says the attempted murder charges filed Wednesday are related to the 30 soldiers and two civilian police officers injured in the shooting at a soldier processing center on the central Texas post. Hasan's attorney, John Galligan, says the additional charges may not affect Hasan's punishment if he is convicted, because premeditated murder carries the death penalty. Authorities haven't said whether they plan to seek the death penalty. Breitbart
 The Islamist Hamas-run government ruling Gaza has approved a legal change that will allow for the execution of convicted drug dealers, its attorney general said on Monday. "The government has approved a decision to cancel the Zionist (Israeli) military law with regard to drugs and enact Egyptian law 19 of 1962," Mohammed Abed, the attorney general, said in a statement. "The latter law is more comprehensive in terms of crime and criminals and the penalties more advanced, including life sentences and execution."
Egypt administered the Gaza Strip from 1948 until 1967, when Israel seized the territory in the Six-Day War along with the Sinai peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and east Jerusalem. "The Zionist law included light punishments that encouraged rather than deterred those who take and trade in drugs, and there is no objective, national or moral justification for continuing to apply it," Abed said. Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in the summer of 2005. Two years later, Hamas seized control after a bloody internal struggle with the secular Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. Abbas' remit has since been limited to the West Bank.
Hamas, meanwhile, has cracked down on drugs, saying it has arrested more than 100 alleged drug dealers and users, with dozens of kilograms (pounds) of contraband, mostly marijuana, seized. Abed said the Egyptian law on drugs would remain in effect until a new law could be passed by the Palestinian parliament, which has met only rarely since elections were held in 2006.
The patchwork of laws governing the Palestinian territories reflect their turbulent history, with ordinances left over from the Ottoman Empire, the British Palestine Mandate, Egyptian, Jordanian and Israeli authorities.
 An "horrific" public execution and crucifixion of a man in Saudi Arabia has been condemned by Amnesty International. Ahmed bin 'Adhaib bin 'Askar al-shamlani al-'Anzi was beheaded and his body crucified in a public place in Riyadh on Friday.
He had been sentenced for the alleged abduction and murder of a father and son. He was also punished for previous offences of Luwat (homosexual intercourse), possession of sexually explicit materials and for raising a gun against security forces seeking to arrest him.
"It is horrific that beheading and crucifixions still happen," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Programme Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa programme. "King Abdullah should show true leadership and commute all death sentences if Saudi Arabia is to have any role to play as a global leader or member of the G20."
Trial proceedings in Saudi Arabia fall way short of international fair trial standards. They usually take place behind closed doors without adequate legal representation. Convictions are often made on the basis of "confessions" obtained under duress, including torture or other ill-treatment during incommunicado detention.
Those who are sentenced to death are often not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them or of the date of execution until the morning they are taken out and beheaded.
Saudi Arabia continues to defy the UN General Assembly resolution adopted in 2007 and 2008 calling for a moratorium on executions.
Amnesty International recorded a total of 102 executions in Saudi Arabia in 2008. Due to the strict secrecy of the criminal justice system in Saudi Arabia, it is not possible to know how many have been sentenced to death, but Amnesty International is aware of at least 136 individuals currently believed to be awaiting execution. Source: www.amnesty.org
 Lawmakers and scholars are demanding death penalty for anyone trying to import Chinese-made contraption into country
Egyptian lawmakers and scholars are furious over an attempt to import a device allowing women to fake virginity, and are demanding death penalty for anyone trying to bring such a device into the country, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported Monday. Professor Abdul Mouti Bayoumi of the al-Azhar University said supplying the item was akin to spreading vice in society, a crime punishable by death in Islamic Sharia law. According to the report, the device is said to release liquid imitating blood, allowing a female to fake virginity on her wedding night.
In some conservative Arab societies, the BBC says, there is a stigma about pre-marital sex. The contraption is seen as a cheap and simple alternative to hymen repair surgery, which is carried out in secret by some clinics in the Middle East, the report adds. The device is produced in China and has already become available in other parts of the Arab world. It is reported to be on sale in Syria for $15. According to Prof. Bayoumi, it undermines the moral deterrent of fornication, which he described as a crime and one of the cardinal sins in Islam. The BBC says members of parliament in Egypt have also called for banning import of the item. Source: YNet
Seeking Saudi Money to Counterbalance "Pro-Israel Pressure Groups" A delegation from Human Rights Watch was recently in Saudi Arabia. To investigate the mistreatment of women under Saudi Law? To campaign for the rights of homosexuals, subject to the death penalty in Saudi Arabia? To protest the lack of religious freedom in the Saudi Kingdom? To issue a report on Saudi political prisoners? No, no, no, and no. The delegation arrived to raise money from wealthy Saudis by highlighting HRW's demonization of Israel. An HRW spokesperson, Sarah Leah Whitson, highlighted HRW's battles with "pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations." (Was Ms. Whitson required to wear a burkha, or are exceptions made for visiting anti-Israel "human rights" activists"? Driving a car, no doubt, was out of the question.) Apparently, Ms. Whitson found no time to criticize Saudi Arabia's abysmal human rights record. But never fear, HRW "recently called on the Kingdom to do more to protect the human rights of domestic workers. There is nothing wrong with a human rights organization worrying about maltreatment of domestic workers. But there is something wrong when a human rights organization goes to one of the worst countries in the world for human rights to raise money to wage lawfare against Israel, and says not a word during the trip about the status of human rights in that country. In fact, it's a virtual certainty that everyone in Whitson's audience employs domestic servants, giving her a perfect, untaken opportunity to boast about HRW's work in improving the servants' status. But Whitson wasn't raising money for human rights, she was raising money for HRW's propaganda campaign against Israel. Someone who claims to have worked for HRW wrote to me, "I can tell you that the people on the research and policy side of the organization have little, if any, contacts with people on the donor side." If that's true, apparently this is yet another exception HRW makes for Israel: Ms. Whitson, who gave the presentation to potential Saudi donors, is director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa Division. Also, as a Nathan Wagner comments at Opinio Juris: "Surely there is a moral difference between raising funds in free nations through appeals to ideals of universal human rights and raising money in repressive nations through appeals highlighting pressure brought against their enemies. [Moreover], the former type of fundraising does not imperil the organization's mission, but fundraising Bernstein highlights does, since any significant reliance on such funds will necessarily mute criticism of the repressive government." Finally, some would defend HRW by pointing it that it has criticized Saudi Arabia's human rights record rather severely in the past. The point of my post, though, is not that HRW is pro-Saudi, but that it is maniacally anti-Israel.
The most recent manifestation is that its officers see nothing unseemly about raising funds among the elite of one of the most totalitarian nations on earth, with a pitch about how the money is needed to fight "pro-Israel forces," without the felt need to discuss any of the Saudis' manifold human rights violations, and without apparent concern that becoming dependent on funds emanating from a brutal dictatorship leaves you vulnerable to that brutal dictatorship later cutting off the flow of funds, if you don't "behave." Mr. Bernstein is a professor of law at George Mason University and the author of "You Can't Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Anti-Discrimination Laws." This article first appeared on the Volokh Conspiracy web site. Source: WSJ
 "Great wisdom" in killing apostates, he saidBy Melody Y. Yu Harvard Islamic chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser ’96 has recently come under fire for controversial statements in which he allegedly endorsed death as a punishment for Islamic apostates. In a private e-mail to a student last week, Abdul-Basser wrote that there was “great wisdom (hikma) associated with the established and preserved position (capital punishment [for apostates]) and so, even if it makes some uncomfortable in the face of the hegemonic modern human rights discourse, one should not dismiss it out of hand.” The e-mail was forwarded over Muslim student e-mail lists and later picked up by the blogosphere, sparking debate and, in many cases, criticism of Abdul-Basser from those who have interpreted his statement as supporting the execution of those who leave the Islamic religion. Read more ...Source: Harvard CrimsonH/T: Jihad Watch
ISTANBUL - In the latest hearing of a Muslim-born Egyptian's effort to officially convert to Christianity, opposing lawyers advocated he be convicted of "apostasy," or leaving Islam, and sentenced to death.
Assyrian International News Agency - February 26, 2009
More than 20 Islamic lawyers attended the hearing on Sunday (Feb. 22) in Maher Ahmad El-Mo'otahssem Bellah El-Gohary's case to obtain identification papers with Christianity designated as his religious affiliation. Two lawyers led the charge, Ahmed Dia El-Din and Abdel Al-Migid El-Anani.
"[El-Din] started to talk about the Quran being in a higher position than the Bible," one of El-Gohary's lawyers, Said Fayez, told Compass. "[El-Din said] people can move to a higher religion but not down, so people cannot move away from Islam because it is highest in rank."
Memos submitted by opposing lawyers asserted that cases such as El-Gohary's form part of a U.S. Zionist attack on Islam in Egypt, that Christianity is an inferior religion to Islam and that Copts protect and defend converts from Islam at their own peril.
"We received 150 pages from them that talked about religion," said Fayez. "We are not in a position to talk about religion, we are only talking about the law."
El-Gohary Beaten
El-Gohary was not present at the hearing, as attendance would put him at extreme personal risk. He had planned to obtain papers authorizing attorney Nabil Ghobreyal to act as his proxy representation in court, but staff members at the registry office swore at and beat him, lawyers said.
Judge Hamdy Yasin was forced to adjourn the case until March 28 because El-Gohary did not obtain the necessary proxy representation documents.
"I am now in a position where I can't do anything else," El-Gohary, who has been in hiding, told Compass. "I have to go [to court] despite the danger. I believe God will protect me. It's a very hard decision, but I have to go."
Copts and Christian converts have to face such systemic prejudice daily in the battle for their rights, he said.
"Our rights in Egypt, as Christians or converts, are less than the rights of animals," El-Gohary said. "We are deprived of social and civil rights, deprived of our inheritance and left to the fundamentalists to be killed. Nobody bothers to investigate or care about us."
El-Gohary, 56, has been attacked in the street, spat at and knocked down in his effort to win the right to officially convert. He said he and his 14-year-old daughter continue to receive death threats by text message and phone call.
But he also has received text messages, he said, of encouragement from other Muslim-born converts too fearful to take a similar stand.
"Everyday I get calls from people who have converted but are secret," said El-Gohary. "They ask me every day about what is happening, because it affects their future."
The danger to himself and his daughter has led El-Gohary to suggest that he will most likely leave Egypt, but not until the case is over.
"He wouldn't go without doing this trial, he doesn't want to leave before it is finished," said attorney Ghobreyal. "Because it [conversion] is his right, then he will do whatever he likes."
El-Gohary said he feels a responsibility to witness about God and Jesus. "I have to do what I am doing for the sake of God and the sake of the converts, to the glory of God," he said.
He decided to legally change his religious affiliation out of concern over the effects that his "unofficial Christianity" has on his family, saying he was particularly concerned about his daughter, Dina Maher Ahmad Mo'otahssem. Though raised as a Christian, when she reaches age 16 she will be issued an identification card stating her religion as Muslim unless her father's appeal is successful.
At school, she has been refused the right to attend Christian religious classes offered to Egypt's Christian minorities and has been forced to attend Muslim classes. Religion is a mandatory part of the Egyptian curriculum.
Encouraging Horizon
Despite setbacks, delays and the vitriol on display in the courtroom, El-Gohary and his lawyers reserve optimism not only about the future of the case but the future of the country as well.
"There is evidence and signs on the horizon that are very encouraging, that there will be a time in the future that equal rights will be achieved," said Fayez. "People have started to ask for their rights and demand to have the freedom of religion. This is a good sign."
Mohammed Hegazy, the first Muslim-born Christian convert to attempt to have his new religion officially registered, is also in hiding after receiving death threats.
Despite a constitution that grants religious freedom, legal conversion from Islam to another faith remains unprecedented. Hegazy, who filed his case on Aug. 2, 2007, was denied the right to officially convert in a Jan. 29, 2008 court ruling that declared it was against Islamic law for a Muslim to leave Islam.
The judge based his decision on Article II of the Egyptian constitution, which enshrines Islamic law, or sharia, as the source of Egyptian law. The judge said that, according to sharia, Islam is the final and most complete religion and therefore Muslims already practice full freedom of religion and cannot return to an older belief (Christianity or Judaism).
Compass Direct News - © 2009, Assyrian International News Agency Source: http://www.aina.org/news/20090226172430.htm
Hannah Shah had been raped by her father and faced a forced marriage. She fled, became a Christian and now fears for her lifeBy Dominic Lawson We are all too familiar with the persecution of Christians in countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Yet sitting in front of me is a British woman whose life has been threatened in this country solely because she is a Christian. Indeed, so real is the threat that the book she has written about her experiences has had to appear under an assumed name. The book is called The Imam’s Daughter because “Hannah Shah” is just that: the daughter of an imam in one of the tight-knit Deobandi Muslim Pakistani communities in the north of England. Her father emigrated to this country from rural Pakistan some time in the 1960s and is, apparently, a highly respected local figure. Read more ... Source: Sunday TimesH/T: Jihad WatchHannah Shah's Father
Latest recipient of The Face of Evil Award
As many as eight woman are at imminent risk of being stoned to death for adultery in Iran, according to reports received by Amnesty International. The organisation is today (9 March) calling on the Iranian authorities to commute the sentences and to impose an immediate moratorium on stonings. Amnesty is urging people to support its campaign at www.amnesty.org.uk/deathpenalty Ultimately Iran should abolish death by stoning completely and should stop executing people for the crime of adultery, said Amnesty. Serious failings in the Iranian justice system, which disproportionately affect women, commonly result in unfair trials in capital and other cases. Read more ...Source: Amnesty International
In the latest hearing of a Muslim-born Egyptian’s effort to officially convert to Christianity, opposing lawyers advocated he be convicted of “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, and sentenced to death. More than 20 Islamic lawyers attended the hearing on Sunday (Feb. 22) in Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary’s case to obtain identification papers with Christianity designated as his religious affiliation. Two lawyers led the charge, Ahmed Dia El-Din and Abdel Al-Migid El-Anani. “[El-Din] started to talk about the Quran being in a higher position than the Bible,” one of El-Gohary’s lawyers, Said Fayez, told Compass. “[El-Din said] people can move to a higher religion but not down, so people cannot move away from Islam because it is highest in rank.” Read more ...Source: Compass Direct News H/T: Jihad Watch
 Atiq MalikPoliticians in Brent are calling for the resignation of a councillor after he advocated the introduction of Sharia law for British Muslims on a website, including the death penalty for women who commit adultery. The remarks were a response to The Archbishop of Canterbury's comments made earlier this month in which he said the adoption of Sharia law in the UK seemed unavoidable. Councillor Atiq Malik, (Democratic Conservative Group), wrote two blogs, one on the UK Polling Report website and one on the Conservative Home website. Both read: "If Muslims living in the UK are happy that disputes be decided by Sharia courts then what? "The reason why male gets more share than women is that male members of the family have the responsibility to provide living expenses to female members of the family. "If an unmarried woman has an affair she is lashed 100 times. If a married woman has an affair she is stoned to death. What is wrong in it?" Read more ...Source: Harrow ObserverAtiq Malik
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
 Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent | February 25, 2009
THE sole surviving terrorist involved in last year's deadly Mumbai attacks was charged today with waging war against India - the most serious offence under the country's legal code - and could face the death penalty if found guilty.
Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman - known as Kasab - also faces 11 additional charges ranging from murder and terrorism, to immigration and cyber crimes, illegal weapons smuggling and even unlawfully entering a railway station without a ticket in a charge sheet that is believed to run to more than 5000 pages.
“Kasab has been booked under various acts including the Arms Act, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Explosives Act, Customs Act, waging war against the country and various other sections of the Railway Act,” joint police commissioner Rakesh Maria said.
“Entering the railway premises without a proper ticket is also one among the various offences registered against him.”
Indian police lodged the massive document with Mumbai’s Metropolitan Magistrates Court yesterday, three months after ten gunmen believed to be linked to Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba, attacked a string of targets in the financial capital including several luxury hotels, a crowded railway station, a cafe and a Jewish centre.
More than 170 people lost their lives and some 308 were injured during the November 26, 2008, attacks which brought the Indian financial capital to a standstill for more than 72 hours.
Nine of the ten attackers were also killed, leaving Kasab, 21, alone to face the Indian justice system.
Indian media reported yesterday that the charge sheet would name 19 others believed to have been involved in the attacks, including the suspected mastermind Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi - a founding member of the LeT.
A separate Pakistan government investigation this month admitted for the first time that the 26/11 attacks were partly planned and coordinated on its soil and identified an additional eight Pakistani nationals suspected of involvement.
While the Pakistan government maintains six of the eight have already been arrested, it has consistently refused India’s requests to extradite them to face trial in Mumbai saying instead that they will be tried in a closed Pakistani court.
Relations between India and Pakistan have significantly deteriorated since the November attacks, with India accusing Pakistani “state actors”, notably its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, of involvement.
The massive chargesheet is understood to detail evidence collected by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation into the attacks - including lengthy transcripts of conversations between the ten gunmen and their handlers, as well as security camera footage of the terrorists attacking Mumbai’s central railway station, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, where scores of people died.
Indian law requires that a charge sheet be filed in court against a suspect within 90 days of detention. Kasab was arrested on November 28. Special public prosecutor Ujwal Nikam said yesterday the chargesheet would be forwarded from the Magistrates Court to the Special Court in coming days.
He said two other suspected LeT members, currently being held in custody in Mumbai on accusations of scouting for the group, would also be charged. Source: The Australian
 On October 30, 2008, the United Nations condemned the stoning to death of Aisha Duhulowa, a 13-year-old girl who had been gang-raped and then sentenced to death by a Sharia court for fornication (Zina). She was screaming and begging for mercy, but when some family members attempted to intervene, shots were fired by the Islamic militia and a baby was killed. Local Sharia courts in Bangladesh regularly punish raped minor girls and women by flogging and beating them with shoes. Similar cases of punishing raped women are Mina v. the State, Bibi v. the State and Bahadur v. the State. Sharia courts in Pakistan have punished thousands of raped women by long term imprisonment. You might think that such horrific barbarity cannot be the real Sharia law; that it is a misapplication of the law by ignorant clergy. Sadly, neither is true. There is a traceable dynamic in Sharia Law that is bound to lead to this barbarity. And unless we abandon these laws we will never be able to emerge from this barbarity. It was a blunder that Muslim jurists included rape in the Hudood section of Sharia Law that deals with murder, bodily harm, apostasy, drinking, defamation, theft, adultery and highway robbery. But anyone who tried to change these laws ended up banging their heads against the wall. Mawdudi, the founding father of modern Political Islam, claims that even if all the world’s Muslims together wanted to make the slightest change in these laws, they would not be allowed to do so. Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
 Life for Rashin Soodmand, her siblings and her mother
became extremely difficult after her father was executed
in Iran for the 'crime' of abandoning his religion Eighteen years ago, Rashin Soodmand's father was hanged in Iran for converting to Christianity. Now her brother is in a Mashad jail, and expects to be executed under new religious laws brought in this summer.By Alasdair Palmer A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled "Islamic Penal Code", which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against. Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran's own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs. And yet few politicians or clerics in Iran see any contradiction between a law mandating the death penalty for changing religion and Iran's constitution. There has been no public protest in Iran against it. David Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary, stands out as one of the few politicians from any Western country who has put on record his opposition to making apostasy a crime punishable by death. The protest from the EU has been distinctly muted; meanwhile, Germany, Iran's largest foreign trading partner, has just increased its business deals with Iran by more than half. Characteristically, the United Nations has said nothing. Read more ... Source: Telegraph
 The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) will present its first all day international conference on Political Islam, Sharia Law, and Civil Society on Friday 10 October 2008. Since apostasy is punishable by death under Islamic law, the conference coincides with the International Day against the Death Penalty. Speakers at the conference, including Richard Dawkins, AC Grayling, and Maryam Namazie, Spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, will focus on Apostasy; Sharia Law; and Creationism, Faith Schools and Religious Education. Dawkins will also present his criticism of Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation, for which Dawkins' site has been banned in Turkey. Other distinguished speakers at the conference are Mina Ahadi, Roy Brown, Giles Enders, Johann Hari, Ehsan Jami, Houzan Mahmoud, Caspar Melville, Taslima Nasreen, Fariborz Pooya, Terry Sanderson, Joan Smith, Bahram Soroush, Hanne Stinson, Hamid Taqvaee, Ibn Warraq, Keith Porteous Wood and Zia Zaffar. The event includes a comedy act by Nick Doody, the work of a well-known artist, Fitna Remade by Reza Moradi and Breaking the Taboo by Patty Debonitas. For more information, a press pass, booking form or to interview speakers, please contact: Maryam Namazie Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain BM Box 1919, London WC1N 3XX, UK Tel: 07719166731 E-mail: exmuslimcouncil@gmail.comwww.ex-muslim.org.ukDetails on the conference: 10 October 2008 10am-6pm (Registration begins at 9am) Conway Hall London 25 Red Lion Square WC1R 4RL (Closest station: Holborn) GBP 40 statutory organisations/businesses; GBP 20 voluntary sector; GBP 10 individuals, including lunch and refreshments.
Tehran, 23 Sept. (AKI) - Nemat Safavi, arrested almost three years ago at the age of 16, has been condemned to death by a court in Ardebil, in the northwest Iranian Azerbaijan region.
Nemat has not killed anyone, stolen anything or even carried out any political activism.
Nemat has been accused of having homosexual relations.While that was not stated during the court case, he was accused of "sexual relations that were not admitted".
A year ago, on a visit to Colombia University in New York, Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "there were no homosexuals" in Iran in response to a question from a student. Source: AKI
 Tehran, 19 Dec. (AKI) - A top Muslim cleric in Iran, Hojatolislam Gholam Reza Hassani said on Wednesday that women in Iran who do not wear the hijab or Muslim headscarf, should die.
"Women who do not respect the hijab and their husbands deserve to die," said Hassani, who leads Friday prayers in the city of Urumieh, in Iranian Azerbaijan.
"I do not understand how these women who do not respect the hijab, 28 years after the birth of the Islamic Republic, are still alive," he said.
"These women and their husbands and their fathers must die," said Hassani, who is the representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in eastern Azerbaijan.
Hassani's statements came after two Kurdish feminists in Iran were accused of being members of an armed rebel group and of carrying out subversive activities threatening the security of the state.
It is believed that his statements and the arrests could spark a fresh crackdown on women who do not repect the Islamic dress code in Iran.
Thousands of women in Iran have already been warned this year for their "un-Islamic dress" such as wearing tight, short coats and skimpy headscarves. Source: AKIH/T: Shariah Finance Watch
 The Iranian Parliament voted in favor of a bill Tuesday that would punish apostasy with the death penalty, a human rights group reported. Lawmakers approved the bill with 196 votes in favor, seven against, and two abstentions, according to U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide. The draft bill seeks to add several crimes to the list of acts that would result in execution, including “establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution, and apostasy.” CSW advocacy director Alexa Papadouris commented, “It is deeply worrying to hear that just days after Matin-Azad and Basirat have been charged with apostasy at a court in Shiraz, the Iranian Parliament is debating a bill that could codify the death penalty for someone choosing their own religion.” Mahmoud Mohammad Matin-Azad, 53, and Arash Ahmad-Ali Basirat, 40, are Christian-converts from Islam who were charged with apostasy last week at the Public and Revolutionary Court in Shiraz, Iran. They are currently awaiting the court’s verdict and have been detained since May 15. Read more ...Source: Christian Post
From correspondents in Tehran | August 27, 2008
IRAN has hanged a man aged 19 who was arrested for a murder he committed when he was 15. It is the second such case this month.
Behnam Zarei was arrested at the age of 15 on charges of murder, the daily Etemad-e Melli reported.
He was hanged in Shiraz prison on Tuesday, without the knowledge of his lawyer and family, the newspaper said.
Major human rights groups appealed to Iran in July to stop imposing the death penalty for crimes by juveniles and to commute sentences of nearly 140 youths known to be on death row.
Earlier this month a 20-year-old man was hanged in central Iran for a murder he also committed when he was 15.
Iran has executed at least 30 juvenile criminals since 1990, including seven in 2007, according to the groups. Saudi Arabia and Yemen have also executed juveniles.
Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Iran's sharia law, practised since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Amnesty International in April said Iran executed at least 317 people last year, trailing only China which carried out 470 death sentences. Source: The Australian
A young girl in Saudi Arabia was brutally executed by her Muslim father this week after he learned his daughter had converted to Christianity.
Middle East business news website Zawya.com reported that the man, who is a prominent member of a "virtue committee," first cut out his daughter's tongue and held a one-sided religious debate with her. He then burned his daughter alive.
Observant Muslims hold that their Prophet Mohammed taught that Muslims who convert to any other religion must be killed, often in extremely brutal fashion. Source: Israel Today
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