Blogger: View from Iran
Article: Stoning is Murder
Originaly Posted On: 2007-07-13 23:22:00

Stoning is murder… plain and simple. The question this reporter asks is Who did it?

Click here for the full account at Women’s Field. Here’s an excerpt:

I start walking towards the foothills. It’s about a kilometer away. The ground is strewn with rocks and stones, and heaps of dirt that could be filled pits. I look around. Don’t see anything. I return to the village and walk around the streets. This time there are young people who answer my questions in more detail. Finally, one of them agrees to take me there. He goes directly to the spot where the filled pit is. Points it out. It’s obvious they’ve been here before. We go nearer.

Stones and rocks with dried up curdled blood lay around the heap. Some are splashed with blood. Some are so black and red with blood, you know right away what they were used for. Stunned, I ask, “You mean they threw these stones? These are way too big”. He shrugs his shoulders.

It’s difficult to survey this site but I manage to shoot a few picture and bit of footage. It’s not so much that the stones might’ve been bigger than prescribed. It’s that the large size of the stones they used means the executioners were not much concerned with following the letter of the law for a proper stoning. They just wanted to go though with it.

I ask: who was trowing the stones? Did you see them?

- No. But I don’t think it was the police themselves. They were milling about away from the spot. If they were throwing it, you’d see.

- Then who was it?

- Don’t know.