When Religion and Civil Law Merge

This article from the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/world/middleeast/11iran.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin)provides a view of what happens when extreme religious views and doctrine take over the civil laws. This is precisely the type of regime that the Christian Reconstructionists would have take place in the USA, including biblical prescribed punishments (such as execution for gays). Note in the article highlights how the USA under the Chimperator sided with Iran on the death penalty. Here are some story highlights:

TEHRAN — Using a strict enforcement of Islamic law, judicial authorities in a restive region of southern Iran amputated the right hands and left feet of five convicted robbers this week, part of what the government called a message meant to deter other troublemakers.

An Iranian rights group led by Shirin Ebadi, the lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner, publicly protested the double amputations, which it called an expansion of cruel punishments in Iran. The group also protested a spate of public executions reported over the past two weeks.

Iran has been an active user of the death penalty, usually by hanging, and is one of several countries that opposed its abolition last month in a United Nations General Assembly resolution vote, joining in an unusual alliance with the United States. They argued that abolition of the death penalty would be an infringement on sovereignty.

The amputation punishment has been used in Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979 and imposition of Islamic law, but Iranian judicial authorities have rarely publicized instances where it is enforced and have rarely used double amputations. And in the newly publicized instances, the amputators cut off the right hand and left foot, making it difficult, if not impossible, for the condemned people to walk even with a cane or crutches.

Among those reported executed on Jan. 1 was a 27-year-old woman and mother of two who had killed her husband when she was 23. The woman, Raheleh Zamani, was hanged at Tehran’s Evin prison despite a promise by authorities to postpone her execution by a month. A group of feminists were trying to get the consent of the victim’s family to save her life. She had been married at the age of 15 and abused by her husband, Ms. Ebadi said.