The Khaleej Times reports that the Iranian parliament is about to debate a draft bill which would make certain blogging activities punishable by death.
MPs on Wednesday voted to discuss as a priority the draft bill which seeks to “toughen punishment for harming mental security in society,” the ISNA news agency said.
The text lists a wide range of crimes such rape and armed robbery for which the death penalty is already applicable. The crime of apostasy (the act of leaving a religion, in this case Islam) is also already punishable by death.
However, the draft bill also includes “establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy”, which is a new addition to crimes punishable by death.
Those convicted of these crimes “should be punished as “mohareb’ (enemy of God) and “corrupt on the earth’,” the text says.
Under Iranian law the standard punishments for these two crimes are “hanging, amputation of the right hand and then the left foot as well as exile.”
The bill — which is yet to be debated by lawmakers — also stipulates that the punishment handed out in these cases “cannot be commuted, suspended or changed”.
I certainly don’t approve of promoting corruption or prostitution, but a great deal turns on how the Iranian judiciary interpret “corruption”. And our old friend “apostasy” – already featuring in a draft penal code under consideration by the Iranian parliament – would attract a mandatory death sentence.
Now what the law says and how judges make use of the law are not always straightforwardly related in Iran, and laws worded in this way would almost certainly be used against Iranian Bahá’ís, since any attempt to inform people about the Bahá’í Faith can be interpreted as promoting “apostasy”.
Hat tip: Mideast Youth for blogging this story.
Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Iran, blogs, apostasy, death penalty, human rights
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The ramifications of this are just awful!
A deafening silence on this frightening development as far as the Western media and faith bodies are concerned – are people perhaps too scared to say anything for fear of being accused of “Islamophobia”?
Iain, you are right about the deafening silence from the media and the faith bodies. It may be a fear of being accused of Islamophobia or it may be that people just don’t see the impact that this law may have on communities here in the UK.
Barney, you are right they may not see it as having an impact here, but that’s not a reaosn for people to keep silent. Apartheid didn’t have an impact here, but that didn’t stop people seeing it as a matter of right and wrong, and somehting they should be concerned about. Or are we just less inclined to care about issues of principle these days?
So perhaps people don’t see freedom of religion or belief as being as important as freedom from racial prejudice, especially if it’s in that rather strange/exotic/mad country of Iran. Are some principles seen as more important than others?
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