Iranian Woman Condemned to Death by Stoning Allegedly Confesses on TV

Yeah, right.  Well, I doubt anyone anywhere else in the world except inside Iran will believe that was actually the condemned woman confessing to assisting with a murder, etc. on live television.  I believe the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, is already dead and the security forces who actually run the country put a ringer in her place.  To conceal their crime, the authorities (1) pixilated the t.v. image of the woman's face and (2) did a voice over so the audience did not actually hear her voice.  Thus, relatives, friends and her attorneys who have worked very closely with this victim of the Iranian "justice" system cannot positively identify that it was - or was not - her, except perhaps by body gestures.  Those, and voice, cannot be faked for long, no matter how good an actress someone may be.

Here is the article from the telegraph.co.uk
Iran stoning woman 'to be executed after confessing to murder' on state TV
An Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning could be hanged imminently after she apparently confessed to adultery in an interview aired on state television, her lawyer has said.

Published: 1:14PM BST 12 Aug 2010

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani appeared to confess to being an accomplice to her husband’s murder and criticised her lawyer for publicising her case, saying it had brought shame on her family.

But her lawyer said she had been tortured before the interview was recorded in a prison in Tabriz.
“She was severely beaten up and tortured until she accepted to appear in front of camera,” Houtan Kian told The Guardian.

The lawyer, whose location was not clear, said he feared Iranian authorities would act quickly to carry out the death sentence. Her punishment was reportedly commuted to hanging after an international outcry against her sentencing to death by stoning last month.

The International Committee Against Stoning, a human rights campaign group, called the TV interview “toxic propaganda”. Miss Ashtiani had previously denied the adultery accusations.

With her face blurred and her words voiced over to translate them into Farsi from local dialect, it was not immediately possible to independently verify the identity of the woman in the film, which was broadcast in Iran at 8.30pm on Wednesday.

In the interview, the woman describes how she had struck up a relationship with her husband’s cousin.

“He told me: ‘Let’s kill your husband’. I totally could not believe that my husband would be killed. I thought he was joking,” Miss Ashtiani appears to say. “Later, I found out that killing was his profession.

“He came (to our house) and brought all the stuff. He brought electrical devices, plus wire and gloves. Later, he killed my husband by connecting him to the electricity,” she says.

The head of the judiciary of Iran's East Azerbaijan province told the television programme that Miss Ashtiani had injected an anaesthetic into her husband.

“After the husband went unconscious, the real murderer killed the victim by connecting electricity to his neck,” he said.

It was not clear whether the cousin had been arrested.

Miss Ashtiani, a mother of two, has already received 99 lashes for having an illicit relationship with two men. The stoning sentence has been suspended pending a judicial review but could still be carried out, an Iranian judiciary official has said.

Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Iran’s Islamic law, enforced since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Mohammad Mostafaei, a lawyer for Miss Ashtiani who fled to Europe after the verdict, told Reuters in an interview earlier this week that Miss Ashtiani, who was convicted of “adultery while being married”, would likely be spared stoning thanks to international pressure.

Iranian authorities have issued a warrant for Mr Mostafaei’s arrest and held his wife in jail for two weeks in an attempt to get him to return to Iran, he said.

The show’s host said Western media had given the case so much publicity in the hope of pressuring Iran to release three Americans who have been in prison for more than a year after being arrested near the Iraqi border where, their families say, they were hiking.

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The Iranian regime keeps managing to deliver the same message over and over: those in charge are incredibly inept dildo-heads. But they control the Iranian media, so they control the message inside their country, and there will always be mindless followers who drink the coolaide and go along.  It really must irk those in control, though, knowing that the rest of the world is laughing at them and holds them in utter contempt and derision.  If it did not bother them, they would not waste their time staging such an obviously fake confession or engage in such juvenile theatrics that fools prhaps 10% of the population inside Iran.  Such behavior smacks of insecurity and desperation. 

Syria, please do us a favor - drop a small H-bomb on the Iranian fearless leaders during prayer session some Friday, thanks. 

Religious Terrorists Target School Girls

This is what happens when religious fundamentalists think they're right and everyone else is wrong. It is happening in this country - the people of the religious right are just as warped in their beliefs as the Taliban are in theirs.  And, as we know, these people can even justify committing murder in the name of their 'God' while claiming to be devout Christians.   When you think that 'God' is on YOUR side, you can justify anything, any atrocity, in the name of your 'God.'  That is really, really sick.
Article at Yahoo News
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 44 mins ago
KABUL – Dozens of Afghan schoolgirls have fallen ill in recent days after reporting a strange odor in their classrooms in northern Afghanistan, prompting an investigation into whether they were targeted by militants who oppose education for girls or victims of mass hysteria.

Either way, the reports from three schools within 2 miles (3 kilometers) of one another in Kunduz province have raised alarm in a city threatened by the Taliban and their militant allies.

The latest cases occurred Sunday, when 13 girls became sick, Kunduz provincial spokesman Mahbobullah Sayedi said. Another 47 complained of dizziness and nausea the day before, and 23 fell ill last Wednesday.

All complained of a strange smell in class before they fell ill.

"I came out from the main hall, and I saw lots of other girls scattered everywhere," Anesa, a 9-year-old who was hospitalized briefly Sunday, told The Associated Press. "Then suddenly, I felt that I was losing my balance and falling."

None of the illnesses was serious and the girls were only hospitalized for a short time. The Health Ministry said blood samples were inconclusive and were being sent to Kabul for further testing to determine the cause of the illnesses.

"This is a matter of concern not only for us but for the families," Sayedi said, blaming the sicknesses on "enemies" who oppose education for girls.

In the capital of Kabul, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, Waheed Omar, said any attempt to keep girls out of school is a "terrorist act."

Kunduz had been relatively quiet until a few years ago when Taliban activity began to increase, threatening NATO supply routes south from Central Asia. Late Saturday, NATO and Afghan troops killed one militant and detained several others in Kunduz province.

Girls were not allowed to attend school when the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan. The group was ousted from power in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. The Taliban and other conservative extremist groups have been known to target schoolgirls.

In one of the most chilling attacks, men on motorbikes sprayed acid from squirt guns and water bottles onto 15 schoolgirls and teachers in 2008 as they walked to a girls school in Kandahar, the southern city that is the spiritual birthplace of the militant movement.

Previous cases of sudden illness in schools have left families too frightened to send their daughters to school.

Last year, dozens of girls were hospitalized in Kapisa province, just northeast of Kabul, after many collapsed with headaches and nausea following reports of a strange odor in their schoolyard. The Taliban was blamed, but research into similar mass sickenings elsewhere has suggested that some might be the result of group hysteria. [But the goal is achieved - that's the point - by using chemicals to sicken some of the girls the rest are terrorized into hysteria.  The parents then keep the girls out of school due to fear.  And the barbarians win.]

The Never-Ending Question...

(Image: Famous medieval chessplayer Paolo Boi and "Satan" as a seducing woman) Since the first days of Goddesschess, I've been fascinated by the eternal debate, variously phrased (usually in negative terms toward females): "Why can't women play chess as well as men?" Over time, we gathered together various articles and writings from the internet and called it "The Ever-Changing, Never-Ending Question" under Chess and Gender. Famous male chessplayers Fischer and Kasparov, among others, disparaged the chessplaying skills of females. (Both later modified their views on female chessplayers, allowing that at least some females could play as well as a man. They totally ignored the intriguing question of why all men -- as superior players -- didn't play equally well.) Chessbase has now weighed in on the subject in an article by newly-weds WGM Natalia Pogonina and Peter Zhdanov: Women and men in chess – smashing the stereotypes. It's light-hearted, but not light-weight. In particular, the couple have zeroed in on the very thing that could change the entire tenor of this never-ending discussion: how the question is framed. Personally, I think they're on to something significant by recognizing that more women than men do not play chess because women are, in general, more mature and intelligent than men. The question could thus be framed as "Why don't more men waste less time playing chess and contribute more to the betterment of society?" Yeah. I like how that sounds. The more serious question underlying this light-hearted discussion is why so many males have such a fear of recognizing females as equals; so much fear, in fact, that it has been institutionalized in patriarchal religious "laws" that give tremendous power to females as "temptresses" and "sinners" who lead poor, weak-minded, weak-spirited males astray along the path to Perdition. Geez, guys!

NO WOMEN ALLOWED

Gag. Here's a story with the usual crapola about no women allowed for the past 1,000 years because it is alleged by Orthodox Christian male monks that the presence of females, including female animals (except for cats, who are good "ratters") "slows" the male along the path to spiritual enlightenment. Geez, guys, after 1,000 years you still haven't learned how to keep it in your pants? Your mothers are saying shame SHAME on you and making the shame-on-you sign of the cross at you with their fingers. Story at the independent.co.uk After 1,000 years, women can see treasures of Mount Athos By Thomas Inprocter in Paris Wednesday, 6 May 2009 For the first time in almost 1,000 years, many of the legendary Byzantine treasures of Mount Athos in Greece are on view to women. Almost 200 works of art from the male-only Orthodox enclave in northern Greece are on show at the Petit Palais in Paris until July. Most of the works have never previously left the peninsula, from which women – and even most female animals – have been banned since 1045. The 20 monasteries of Mount Athos house one of the largest collections of Christian art in the world. Direct access to these treasures is notoriously difficult to obtain for men, and impossible for women. But Paris has been granted the privilege of hosting this "world premiere", largely as a result of France's presidency of the EU last year. The Greek Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dora Bakoyannis, described the exhibition as a "cultural event of the first order". "The treasures exhibited here are a part of European culture," Ms Bakoyannis said. "A large number of these relics are going 'beyond the walls' of Mount Athos for public viewing for the first time by men and women." Previously, only two very small exhibitions have been held of Mount Athos artefacts, both in Greece. The director of the Petit Palais, Gilles Chazal, said: "The monks of Mount Athos have been very enthusiastic in their support of this project." He added that the exhibition would be "hugely significant". The original decree banning women, and female animals (except cats, which help control the rat population), from the enclave was issued by the Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomachos in 1045. Under Greek law, a breach of the ban by a woman can still lead to a jail sentence. The ban on female animals is enforced as strictly as possible. The monks maintain that the presence of women slows their path towards spiritual enlightenment. Particularly spectacular are the displays of imperial gifts which include "one of the most remarkable objects of metalwork of the Byzantine world": a chalice belonging to Manuel Cantacuzène (1349-1380), the son of Emperor Jean VI Cantacuzène, made from a single piece of jasper and most likely of Venetian origin. The exhibition will remain at the Petit Palais until 5 July.

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I think this comment from the newspaper website says it all: italori wrote: Thursday, 7 May 2009 at 09:41 am (UTC) -"The monks of Mount Athos have been very enthusiastic in their support of this project." - I am sure 100% that their "enthusiasm" depends on the money they are going to profit from this exhibition!!!-"the presence of women slows their path towards spiritual enlightenment"- ? Do I go to prison even if I take a BURKA with me? Just an example of how 51% of today's world population continues to be treated by the minority. It doesn't make any difference what religion it is - the patriarchal poison spewing froth remains the same. Such fear and loathing by males of the feminine. How sad.