elisi | This is important!

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help please?

This is important!

From

madam_rptr:

Please help spread the word about 18-year old Iranian girl Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi, who has been sentenced to death by hanging. Nazanin`s crime was killing a man who ambushed and tried to rape her. Please take a few moments to read about her case and what you can do to stop the execution and save Nazanin`s life:
Save Nazanin

ETA: Reading through my comments this morning, I think this case might have been hyped for the wrong reasons... that's not to say that the girl doesn't need help, but.. read

azdak's comment! (runs off again).

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I've heard about this; there were some links on a blog i occasionally read. Appalling!

Sadly of course, it's only one out of thousands. *sigh*

Yes it is depressing...

Women are still abused in so many countries. Female empowerment is a mere dream in teh Third World, in most of the human popuation that is.

And sadly not just in the third world! I've been following the saga of the Fundamentalist Later Day Saints (FLDS)here in the US for a few years just out of sheer bizarreness of the situation. They deal with rebellious teenager by marrying off very young teenagers (13 or so!) as the polygamous "wives" of much older men, and have done so for 50 years. I think it's the same impulse; independent women actually thinking and controlling their own destinies is a threat; must control them.

The FLDS "Prophet" Warren Jeffs is finally being prosecuted, and has fled. The FBI just put him on their 10 most wanted list! It's very hard to imagine this is the same country I live in, but these types of people seem to be everywhere.

Sorry-- didn't mean to highjack your comment!

Yeah stuff like that happens in wealthy western countries, but they are exceptions while it's the rule in poor countries. The less developed a country is the worse it's for women.

They are to be controlled or to be killed. When you think of all the "crimes of honour" that still occur every year in Jordan or Syria, it's appaling.

Agreed! Sad that people would be so threatened by women!

I've been following the saga of the Fundamentalist Later Day Saints (FLDS)here in the US for a few years just out of sheer bizarreness of the situation.
You should friend

stoney321 - she often posts about it! (And she 'got away', so she has inside knowledge.)

It makes me feel ashamed of sometimes being fed up with my life. *sigh* We forget how easy we have it, really.

Thanks for doing this. You have a much larger flist than I do and my LJ is locked...so. Thank you. I hope it helps.

It was the least I could do. I hope it helps too. And thank you for putting up the link in the first place!

I've posted about it :/

Thank you.

I have serious doubts about the authenticity of this case - the website seems more interested in delivering an anti-Iran rant than in genuinely trying to help Mahabad Fatehi, and I can't find any reference to anyone of that name on the Amnesty website. I have a nasty feeling that someone is trying to stir up feelings of hatred against Iran, as if there weren't enough of those floating aorund at this moment in time.

If you find out any more about that, please let us know. I know there was another bit of anti-Iranian propaganda making the news this weekend. It turned out not to be true that Iran was going to require Jews to wear yellow stars.

There are enough real reasons to dislike the Iraqi regime. No favors are being done by making up lies.

P.S. I love your icon!

There's a mention of the case on the Amnesty page that

elisi's linked to in the comments, but it's in the context of Amnesty putting pressure on Iran to abandon the death penalty for under 18 year olds (which of course I support ENTIRELY, and if it comes to that I'm opposed to the death penalty for over 18 year olds). I do think it's odd that such an obviously emotive clear cut case is only being pushed by websites with an obvious axe to grind and hasn't been given big publicity by Amnesty - the discussion on Wikipedia at least sheds some light on why the case is problematic (the other case Amnesty mentions in this context is one where the girl in question broke into someone's house to commit burglary and then allegedly killed the homeowner - quite rightly, Amnesty is opposed to the death penalty even for guilty underage murderers, but it clearly doesn't have the same emotional appeal as the Fatehi case).

Ooh, and PS the icon is by

earth_vexer and I love it too :-)

Word. I am anti-death penalty for lots of reasons, but mostly because I see no reason for us to become the thing we hate. This girl may have been convicted unjustly or not.

But when it comes to the issue of the death penalty and convictions on shaky evidence, in the US we live in a glass house.

Here's the other story I mentioned, which is definitely a fake:

http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/another-fraud-on-iran-no-legislation.html

In fact, the scariest racist statement I've seen recently appeared on a "patriotic" US website regarding deportation of illegal aliens:

Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society.

I can't send the link because after an outcry the text was changed, but this appeared on WorldNetDaily.com,

I'm opposed to the death penalty for so many reasons that I can't begin to articulate them all, but a big one is certainly that I believe governments should behave *better* than criminals (oh, the irony... perhaps I should say "try to behave better", or "pretend to behave better"). But the history of the death penalty in the US is definitely a powerful argument against it being an efficient or just punishment.

Dear God, how lacking in self-awareness do you have to be to cite the *Nazis* as a role model? Given that they're the ultimate Hollywood symbol of Eeeevil, it's not unlike proposing that the Orcs had some neat ideas about ethnic relations that we could improve on.

P.S. I meant the Iranian regime, of course.

I found an Amnesty link, so it should be genuine:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=ENGMDE130052006
(Will reply to all comments tomorrow)

Yes, that link suggests that the case hasn't been completely made up, but the Wikipedia discussion

missmurchison points to gives some hints as to why Amnesty didn't seem interested in making it headline news, but instead merely uses it as an example of Iran employing the death penalty for teenagers (apparently it is not entirely certain whether the man who was killed was actually a would-be rapist, or whether the girl claimed this to justify stabbing him - I mean, it's not that I think the death penalty for teenagers is justified if they happen to be guilty of the crime they're sentenced for, but the murky moral waters would explain why Amnesty didn't kick up a fuss about this particular case).

It's all just stupidly complicated. And also shows that although it's easy to know when something's wrong, it isn't always easy to know what would be the right answer. *sigh* Anyway, your discussion has been an interesting read!

although it's easy to know when something's wrong, it isn't always easy to know what would be the right answer

So true. Although I think executing this girl would be shameful, I cringe at the thought that the right wing may be using her case to encourage an attack on Iran.

Life is complicated.

It seems LJ is logging people out again.

--Miss M, who made the above remark and has spent some of her lunch break trying to find out something definitive about this case, to no avail.

Silly LJ! And I agree completely with your previous comment. *sigh*

Oh and I guess you were the one saying 'Word' to my 'The Girl in the Fireplace' post?

Guilty!

/SPAM

I could find nothing on snopes.com yet, but none of the Google results came from major news sources that I recognized.

In addition, there is serious dispute over the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazanin_Mahabad_Fatehi

Check the discussion page.

I'm going to check this again tomorrow when I have time, unless someone has verified or debunked this by then.

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