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The masked woman nervously approaches her target, shuffles into position and then unleashes a flurry of lashes -- proving herself as the newest member of the first female flogging squad in Indonesia's Aceh province. The new recruit initially needed some coaxing to punish the offender -- an unmarried woman caught in a hotel room with a man. Such behaviour constitutes a morality crime in Aceh, the only region in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation that imposes Islamic law -- known as Sharia.

A red carpet peck on the cheek by Leila Hatami, the Iranian actress at the Cannes Film Festival has been reported to the country’s courts by activists who are seeking a public flogging as punishment for violating Islamic laws. Hizbullah Students, a group of university students with links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard yesterday filed a complaint with Iran’s judiciary for the prosecution of the film star who starred in the Oscar-winning, A Separation. Miss Hatami was condemned by Islamic Republic officials for kissing Gilles Jacob, the President of Cannes Festival, while attending the event as a member of the jury....

The Beverly Hills Hotel, where Elizabeth Taylor honeymooned after six of her eight marriages, has attracted star-studded clientele to its sumptuous suites, palm-tree-lined pool and hip bar scene since it opened in 1912. But on Monday, the famous Sunset Boulevard address attracted crowds of protesters, stars among them, amid calls for a boycott. The Beverly Hills Hotel and nine other luxury hotels worldwide are part of the Dorchester Collection, which is owned by the government of Brunei, the oil-rich Southeast Asian nation where women can be jailed for out-of-wedlock pregnancies and anal sex will soon be punishable by death. The...

Peter Moskos, an Associate Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at City University of New York, and the author of In Defense of Flogging, is coming to the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. But don’t feel sorry for Australian criminals just yet. Indeed, Moskos is more about closing prisons than punishing offenders. Actually, In Defense of Flogging should be retitled In Defense of Demonising Prisons because Moskos’ book is devoted to paying out expensive prisons. As for justice, he argues that criminals should be given the choice between a good flogging and jail time. It’s not a compelling argument....

This horrific video shows a police officer flogging a cowering woman in the street as a crowd watches without protesting or intervening. The crime that prompted this horrendous assault? She had ridden in a car with a man who she wasn't related to, an offense that is prohibited by Sudan’s public order law. The video is believed to have been taken in Khartoum, the capital, and shows the terrified and bewildered woman crying out in pain as lash after vicious lash rains down. …

A 15-year-old girl in the Maldives whose stepfather is accused of repeatedly raping her and killing the resulting baby risks being flogged for “fornication” with another man under the nation’s strict Islamic law. In the course of inquiries into the rape case, police investigators say they unearthed evidence of the girl having had consensual sex with another man, which is an offence in the Indian Ocean holiday destination, a police source said. Women, including minors, having consensual sex outside marriage can be charged in the Maldives, where convicts can be publicly flogged. Minors receive the punishment when they reach 18,...

Police in the Republic of the Maldives, better known simply as Maldives, have charged a stepfather for repeatedly raping his 15-year-old daughter. Unfortunately, her troubles did not stop there. In their investigation of the abuse case, authorities found what they claim is evidence the young victim had sex with another person. Under Maldives’ Islamic law, the authorities now intend to publicly flog the young rape victim.

The public flogging of a Sudanese woman was caught on tape as onlookers laughed. The governor of Khartoum, Abdul Rahman Al Khedr, told the independent Blue Nile TV channel that the woman was “rightfully punished according to the sharia law, but the violation was in the manner her punishment was carried out.” Authorities launched an inquiry into the video and say in this particular instance the punishable offense was ‘adultery’ or ‘pimping’. Given Islamic law, or Sharia Law, is fully enforced in the northern region, floggings are common. Just one year ago, a woman was flogged in public for simply...

I know: since when did we expect liberals to be consistent? Still, it strikes me as rather odd that President Obama’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan would try to bar military recruiters and ROTC from the Harvard campus over the the fact that homosexual conduct is considered incompatible with military service, yet would welcome a center for Islamic studies (and $20 million) from Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz. The astute observer of history and current events will note that Islam and Sharia Law is not only extremely harsh toward homosexuality (as it is harsh toward pretty...

WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO - Here is very disturbing video of the Taliban flogging a young man in Pakistan for not growing a beard. The Taliban often beat people for not following their strict-interpretation of the Koran. They are strong in many ares of western Pakistan, especially along the border with Afghanistan. This shows the mentality and the cruelty of the enemy who seeks to destroy our way of life. . . . (VIDEO)

Although we Americans have the right to attend whatever Church, Synagogue, or Mosque we choose to, it isn’t so peachy in lots of other places. The photo that accompanies this piece is of an Iranian woman who was flogged for having the temerity to worship as a Christian, for example. The American Spectator’s December 11th analysis of the State Department’s 2009 Report On International Religious Freedom illustrates how really bad it is not only in Iran, but in at least 30 different countries. Author Doug Bandow divides the offenders into two basic camps: “The first are Muslim nations that seek...

Since 9/11, I've watched scores of grainy video films showing Islamist extremists doing what they do best--meting out barbaric punishment to adulterers, thieves and Jewish journalists, and murdering innocent people in Mumbai, Lahore and other places. Yet nothing I'd seen so far had prepared me for the stomach-churning experience I had on Saturday when I watched a two-minute clip of a bearded member of the Taliban--in Swat, Pakistan--flogging a 17-year-old girl who'd been accused of adultery. Here is the clip. Watch it before reading further. I suspect some of you--perhaps those with teenage daughters of your own--will be unable to...

KARACHI: Federal Minister Senator Azam Khan Swati of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) said on Saturday that the flogging of the 17-year-old girl in Swat was a Jewish conspiracy aimed at destroying peace in Swat and distort the image of those Islamists who sport beards and wear turbans. Speaking at a reception hosted by the JUI-F Karachi Chapter in his honour, Swati said that the JUI-F may part ways with the PPP-led coalition government if drone attacks continue to violate the sovereignty of Pakistan. “We shall not tolerate the violation of our country’s sovereignty through drone attacks,” he said, adding that...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The video shows a young girl held face down as a Taliban commander whips her repeatedly with a leather strap. “Leave me for the moment — you can beat me again later,” she screams, pleading for a reprieve and writhing in pain... The girl in the video is a 17-year-old resident of Kabal in the restive Swat region in northwestern Pakistan. The images, which have been aired repeatedly by private television news networks in Pakistan, have caused outrage here and set off bitter condemnation by rights activists and politicians. It has also raised questions once again about...

Devout Muslim found guilty of forcing boys to flog themselves in religious ceremony Last updated at 15:41pm on 27.08.08   A devout Muslim was found guilty of child cruelty today in a British legal first after forcing two boys to beat themselves during a religious ceremony.The jury at Manchester Crown Court found 44-year-old Syed Mustafa Zaidi guilty of two counts of child cruelty.The boys, aged 13 and 15, were forced to beat themselves with a zanjeer zani, an implement containing five curved blades, during a ceremony to commemorate the death of a Shia Muslim spiritual leader.Zaidi, of Station Road,...

Tehran, 27 May (AKI) - A top Iranian cleric from the northeast, Ayatollah Ahmad Elmalhoda, has reportedly called feminists "whores and foreign spies". "These whores, clutching a piece of paper in their hands to gather signatures, are working for foreign powers and want to destabilise the Islamic Republic," said Elmalhoda. He is the highly influential prayer leader in the northeastern holy Shia city of Mashad. Elmalhoda has called on the government to "intervene decisively against these whores, because it is improper to leave them to act with impunity." A few weeks ago, Elmalhoda said women who do not wear the...

His face covered by a balaclava, an official brandishing a cane repeatedly lashes the back of a man found guilty of breaking Iran's morality laws. Two police officers hold the legs of 25-year-old Saeed Ghanbari and another his arms to ensure there is no escape from the punishment of 80 lashes handed down by a religious court. Traffic was brought to a halt in Qazvin, 90 miles west of the capital Tehran, as more than 1,000 men gathered behind barricades to watch the public flogging.

Iran authorities lash man for having bible in car - report Mon. 13 Aug 2007 Iran Focus Tehran, Iran, Aug. 13 – Iranian authorities in Tehran lashed a man on his back earlier this year for having a bible in his car, an Iranian Christian group said in a report on its website on Friday. The man was only identified by the initials A. Sh. On 5 May, the man, driving his vehicle, was involved in a road accident with a car belonging to security guards for a government official in Tehran. A bible and a video of Jesus Christ...

Guatemala City, Aug 22 (EFE).- Fourteen Guatemalan Indians were publicly flogged, forced to kneel on bottle caps and shorn of their hair after being convicted by a traditional assembly of various offenses, local media reported Tuesday. The so-called "Maya punishment," provided for in traditional codes acknowledged by the modern nation-state, was applied Monday in the northwestern town of Nahuala, community leader Pascual Ixmata told the press. The 14 accused - four of them women - were whipped and forced to kneel on bottle caps, and their hair was cut off. The male miscreants, who were charged with sniffing glue, also...

Banda Aceh (AsiaNews/Agenzie) – The first public flogging in Indonesia is set to take place tomorrow, Friday 24 June, 160km from Aceh’s provincial capital Banda Aceh. Official provincial government sources said twenty-six people will be flogged; they have been found guilty of violating the Islamic Shari’a law. The 26 people, who were convicted of fraud, will be lashed with a reed before the main mosque of the area. “The lashes should not produce bleeding wounds,” said Mustafa Abdullah Geulanggang, head of Bireuen district. “Should blood start to flow, the flogging must stop.”Fr Ferdinand Severi, parish priest of the Sacred...