Christian woman to be stoned to death

UPI ^ | Feb 1, 2002 | UWE SIEMON-NETTO

[BP2]

Christian woman to be stoned to death

By UWE SIEMON-NETTO, UPI Religion Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- Human Rights Watch appealed to Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir on Friday to intervene on behalf of a young pregnant Christian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.

The New York-based organization asked Bashir "to prevent this cruel and inhuman punishment from being exercised against her." The accused is Abok Alfa Akok, an 18-year-old Dinka tribeswoman from southern Darfur in western Sudan.

According to HRW spokeswoman Jemera Rone, information available about this case is spotty. However, in its letter to Bashir, HRW stressed, "The man with whom (the woman) allegedly had sex was not tried, because the court lacked sufficient evidence to prosecute him."

The trial was conducted in a criminal court -- not a religious tribunal -- in the city of Nyala. As HRW pointed out to Sudan's soldier-president, Abok Alfa Akok "did not have legal representation during the trial."

"The trial was conducted in Arabic, which is not her language, and there was no translation of the proceedings in order to ensure that she understood fully the case against her."

Faith O'Donnell, coordinator of the Church Alliance for a New Sudan, reminded the Khartoum government that it had promised to change its ways after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

"We expect them to rethink their position in this present case," she told United Press International on Friday. She added, "We understand that the sexual act this young woman is charged with was coerced." The case is now on appeal.

According to HRW, "The Sudanese government has in the past claimed that its Shari'a (religious) laws would not be applied to Christians, but this case shows otherwise. The sentence was based on Article 146 of Sudan's 1991 Penal Code, which is based upon the government's interpretation of the Shari'a."

This article, HRW went on, stipulates that adultery should be punished with:

"1. Execution by stoning when the offender is married; one hundred lashes (when) the offender is not married."

While reiterating its opposition to capital punishment, Human Rights Watch stated in its letter to Bashir, "Stoning to death is additionally painful and brutal."

Under the Shari'a, the stones thrown during the execution should not be so large that the offender dies after a few strikes. Neither should they be as small as pebbles and fail to cause serious injury.

Executions by stoning are not mentioned in the Koran, Islamic legal scholar Tarik Abdul-Rahman wrote, but they are part of the Hadith (collections of sayings and acts of Mohammed). As Abul-Rahman has pointed out, this punishment goes back to the Pentateuch, or first five books of Hebrew Scripture.

In radical Muslim countries, stoning has experienced a major comeback in recent years. "Since the inception of the mullahs' rule, hundreds of women of various ages have been and continued to be stoned to death throughout Iran," the National Council of Resistance of Iran claimed.

One recent such execution was described in vivid detail by local newspapers: Maryam Ayoubi, a 38-year-old mother of three, was convicted of adultery and being her lover's accomplice in her husband's death.

The execution occurred on July 11, 2001. According to Iranian press reports, she was first flogged 50 times, then given a ritual bath, wrapped in a white shroud and carried to the execution site on a stretcher.

There she was buried up to her armpits and subsequently bombarded with rocks. Her lover was hanged.

Human rights activists charge that male adulterers often fare much better than women in strict Islamic countries. In the northern Nigerian state of Sokoto, a woman sentenced to be stoned to death is awaiting the outcome of her appeal in her blind father's small hut.

The only evidence against Safiyatu Huseini had been her pregnancy. The father of her child was an older man, already twice married. She claims he had raped her. But the same court that sentenced her acquitted him after two months on death row.

In some countries, the stoning of women is a welcome popular entertainment. When a lesbian couple was sentenced to die last year in Somalia's autonomous region of Puntland, several hundred people "cheered as the judge handed down death sentences on the two women," according to a BBC report.

Islamic legal scholar Abdul-Rahman confirmed that the Prophet Mohammed personally prescribed death by stoning for married men and women indulging in illicit sex.

Abdul-Rahman added, however, that the death sentence could only be passed if some strict criteria had been fulfilled: "The act must have been publically witnessed by four pious people ... The person must be sane and not under the influence of alcohol."

Moreover, the scholar stressed, "Nobody is allowed to spy or invade your private space. The prophet has said that if anyone peeps into your house, you are allowed to poke out his eye."

[GeronL]

we are so unenlightened and all with human rights and such, we have SO much to learn from other countries... ahem

[Pistias]

the burden of proof for the supernatural lies with he making the claim.

God can't be proven as though he were Coulomb's Law. The givens of faith are that God must be believed, for He will not give an adulterous generation any sign but the sign of Jonah. It seems to me an indissoluble either/or where each side is acceptable only on its own terms and essentially madness on the other's.

[Doctor Doom]

True. I find it hard to believe that a person who had spent one consecutive hour reading the teachings of Christ could come to the conclusion that genocide is acceptable

True. But a little time spent reading Martin Luther could lend itself to violent anti-semitism.

Hitler no more understood Jesus and real Christianity than he understood quantum physics. I don't blame Christianity or religion for what he wrought. Nor do I blame atheism for what Stalin did.

Collectivism - the notion that the group has rights superior to the individual (be that group the race, the religion, the cause, or society) - is what is to blame for the genocides of the past.

[GeronL]

Ho Chi Min was a not-so-great atheist

[BraveMan]

"The man with whom (the woman) allegedly had sex was not tried, because the court lacked sufficient evidence to prosecute him."

Whoa . . . TIME!

Lemme get this straight . . . They're going to STONE this woman on the MAN'S testimony, yet the court lacks sufficient evidence to prosecute HIM?

Is there anybody on this forum who still thinks Christianity is a crutch for those who seek the easy path?

[Doctor Doom]

True enough.

[A.J.Armitage]

"Greatest Athiests of the 20th century: Hitler," um, Hitler was a Christian. Look it up.

Hitler was a neopagan. Why would Adolf Hitler worship a Jew?

[Dimensio]

It's even "worse" than that. He spent those three days in Heaven (with the thief who repented).

I thought that the common understanding was that Christ spent the three days in Hell (though not in "torment", but for some other reason that I can't recall) and that many interpret his statement to the thief as "I tell you this today, you shall be with me in Paradise" (or even if the thief went to paradise, he would be with God, who is there even when on Earth as a man -- being omnipresent).

No scholar though, so I could be very wrong.

[GeronL]

Adolf Hitler was anti-christian. Its well known he wished to destroy christian civilization with his own anarchy..

[Pistias]

Some of the modes of worship are of human design, true...but they are footnotes to the text, not the text itself, if you catch my meaning.

[GeronL]

the burden of proof for the supernatural lies with he making the claim

Like the theory of evolution?

[Doctor Doom]

Its well known he wished to destroy christian civilization with his own anarchy..

The last thing Hitler wanted was anarchy. He was all about "order."

[A.J.Armitage]

Some think He went there to pick up the Old Testament types. They were already in Heaven, though.

[Exigence]

You do realize that the President is trying to call Muslims to a higher standard when he says that, right? You do realize that it is a ploy to keep the war focus on terrorism and not religion, right? Tell me you understand that he is trying to keep religious peace in this nation as well?

Well said.

[GeronL]

Hitlers war against christians

He was NOT a christian

[Doctor Doom]

The so-called Law of Gravity is also a theory. Theories are what fit all available evidence while not being contradicted by any available evidence. Don't confuse the scientific term with the colloquial.

[mustapha mond]

The odds do not favor the existence of aliens. The odds however calculated lay in an area of science that rests on faith. Alien existance cannot be tested or falsified. You have faith.-mm

[Pistias]

Please, let's not get that can of worms open...if God wanted to use evolution for His means, He could have. The argument is not with evolution per se, but with it's contradiction with literal interpretation of Genesis. Whether evolution is a fact or no can only act as "evidence" against God if the world was created in 168 hours by our reckoning.

[timm22]

"...but high on the list of the goals of the great 20th century murderers was the abolition of religion."

And it's a shame they didn't succeed.

Really? Keep in mind that those murderers weren't using calm persuasion in their attempts to stamp out religion. They were killing believers in unspeakable ways. Do you still think it's a shame that more men, women, and children were not shot/gassed/worked to death under totalitarian regimes?