Human Rights Watch had things to say about Iran’s proposed penal code in August 2012.
The new provisions also expand upon broad or vaguely defined national security crimes that punish people for exercising their right to freedom of expression, association, or assembly. One troubling amendment concerns article 287, which defines the crime of efsad-e fel arz, or “sowing corruption on earth.”
Legislators have expanded the definition of efsad-e fel arz, a previously ill-defined hadd crime closely related to moharebeh (enmity against God) that had been used to sentence to death political dissidents who allegedly engaged in armed activities or affiliated with “terrorist organizations.” The new definition also includes clearly nonviolent activities such as “publish[ing] lies,” “operat[ing] or manag[ing] centers of corruption or prostitution,” or “damage[ing] the economy of the country” if these actions “seriously disturb the public order and security of the nation.”
Under the current penal code, authorities have executed at least 30 people since January 2010 on the charge of “enmity against God” or “sowing corruption on earth” for their alleged ties to armed or terrorist groups. At least 28 Kurdish prisoners are known to be awaiting execution on national security charges, including “enmity against God.” Human Rights Watch has documented that in a number of these cases, the evidence suggests that Iran’s judicial authorities convicted, sentenced, and executed people simply because they were political dissidents, and not because they had committed terrorist acts.
The criminalization of “enmity against God” is grotesque on so many levels. Maybe the most striking one is that it amounts to treating it as a crime to object to any aspect of reality. God is omnipotent, therefore, if you complain of anything (except kaffirs and enemies of God) you are an enemy of God, or at least vulnerable to the accusation. It’s a reactionary’s charter.
Religion, at least in the hands of humans, is poison.
The Inquisition’s back.
“The new definition also includes clearly nonviolent activities such as “publish[ing] lies,” “operat[ing] or manag[ing] centers of corruption or prostitution,””
um…why do we not expect people to control themselves? If I publish that the Loch Ness Monster has moved in next door, people just laugh – nobody could possibly take such a thing seriously. It appears that the only thing people won’t reject is the truth or something that looks like the truth. And if people are properly educated, they’ll be able to tell the difference, won’t they?
It seems the imams are punishing people for the imams’ own incompetence and dereliction of duty, frankly.
I don’t want this to come off as a Reverse Dear Muslima, but the U.S. has 3300 people waiting to be executed at this very moment, 60 percent of them POC. The story here is horrific, but my problem with HRW is that it has never shed its former incarnation as Helsinki Watch, a Reagan propaganda tool to sniff out every unpleasant think the Soviets or Eastern bloc countries did, and publicize it widely, while we were busy killing brown poor people elsewhere. Amnesty does a great job of balancing industrialized world violations versus anti-developed world violations, but HRW seems to ignore every atrocity that isn’t Muslim or Leftist. HRW is still, at its soul, an imperialist colonialist Christian watchdog group, whose raison d’etre is to make the enemies of Wall St. and the IMF and Big Oil and American Expansionism look bad.
And that it somehow affects national security is so far beyond the pale that it would be laughable anywhere the consequences were not so assured and horrific. I wouldn’t be surprised if they began to claim that individuals or groups have hacked God over a network.
Some of us in other countries are not so far behind, although we tend to be somewhat less fanciful (if no less fictitious) in charges and claims of damage against people whom governments just don’t like.
but the U.S. has 3300 people waiting to be executed at this very moment,
Yes, when the US is on the same moral plane as Iran, it ought to be obvious that they’ve lost the track and are bouncing through the weeds.
Most of those people won’t actually be executed though. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty vile, but you’re comparing number of people executed vs the number on death row. Those numbers are entirely different, especially in the US.
Executions (and death sentences) in America have been steadily declining. America executed 43 in 2012 and 39 in 2013. Moreover, 30 states, the federal government, and the military have not executed anyone for several years. Also, almost all executions take place in Florida and Texas, with the majority of states not having executed anyone in several years.