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Brutality and Injustice Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum, defends the freedoms and liberties of Western society against "stealth jihad," a campaign by Islamists to slowly and methodically implement a Sharia-compliant theocracy in the West. Sharia is Islamic law, based on the Koran and the teachings and personal actions of Mohammad (known as The Sunnah, noted and reported in Hadiths). Below, very personal examples of life under Sharia in Islamist societies. The intolerance, the brutality, the inhumanity. The extreme lack of religious pluralism, women's rights, free speech and equality under the law. 1. Sudanese Woman Lashed (Video)...

The European Union criticized Iran on Wednesday for an "alarming" increase in the use of the death penalty this year, calling on Tehran to introduce a moratorium on executions. "According to the latest data, compiled from a number of sources, the rate of executions in Iran during the first 5 months of 2012 confirmed the country as one of the world's leading users of the death penalty," a spokesman for the EU's foreign policy chief said. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is "deeply concerned by the alarming increase", the spokesman said. Ashton is leading negotiations between six global powers...

When it comes to parting words, a huge number of executed inmates in Texas are resorting to the belief that all you need is ‘love’. In an analysis using data from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the website Good.is developed an infographic detailing the more commonly used words. The data was compiled from the last statements of every inmate put to death in the state from 2000 to the present, which are published on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s website.

TRIPOLI, Libya—Fresh evidence has emerged that fighters battling for control of Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte were responsible for numerous extrajudicial killings and other possible atrocities, raising new questions about the final moments in Libya's revolution and adding to the challenges of national reconciliation. Residents of Sirte and medical workers say that they have identified dozens of corpses of both Gadhafi loyalists and antiregime fighters, who appear to have died by shots to the back of the head while their hands were bound. They say these bodies are among hundreds of unidentified corpses littering the streets of Sirte and filling...

Whole headline.... The Supreme Court has granted a stay of execution for Cleve Foster, who was to die tonight in Texas for a 2002 murder. banner only

US Supreme Court halts Texas execution MICHAEL GRACZYK September 15, 2011 HUNTSVILLE, Texas — The U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution Thursday of a black man convicted of a double murder in Texas 16 years ago after his lawyers contended his sentence was unfair because of a question asked about race during his trial.

I said here last night that the California GOP audience cheering the announcement that Texas has executed 234 condemned murderers under Rick Perry was a vile, repulsive thing. Even when I was for capital punishment, I believed this. Justice may require execution, but we should never rejoice in taking the life of another human being. At best, capital punishment is a necessary evil. I quit believing in capital punishment when I became convinced that the state is not trustworthy to use this power responsibly. It happened about 10 years ago, when it emerged that a forensic scientist in Oklahoma whose...

Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry brings to the presidential race a law-and-order credential that none of his competitors can match — even if they wanted to. In his nearly 11 years as chief executive, Perry, now running for the GOP presidential nomination, has overseen more executions than any governor in modern history: 234 and counting. That’s more than the combined total in next two states — Oklahoma and Virginia — since the death penalty was restored 35 years ago. The number is partly explained by sheer longevity at the helm of a huge state that has mastered the complicated legal...

A new push is under way to ban the death penalty in California and close death row. Among those supporting the ban is the original author of California's death penalty law. Lawmakers held a first vote Thursday. The death penalty is popular among Californians, but those who want to get rid of it think the cost might change minds. California voters could decide next year the fate of more of than 700 notorious criminals currently locked up in San Quentin's death row. The California State Assembly Committee on Public Safety approved an initiative slated for November 2012 that would abolish...

A bill that seeks to abolish California's death penalty advanced Thursday after its first legislative hearing with support from the author of the state's death penalty and a former warden who presided over executions. Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, said she introduced the bill because California can no longer afford a capital punishment system that is both expensive and ineffective as it battles persistent multibillion-dollar budget deficits. If eventually signed into law, the bill would put the question before voters in 2012. The Assembly Public Safety Committee voted 5-2 along party lines in favor of SB490 after hearing testimony from Sacramento...

The bodies of two interrogators who worked for Muammar Qaddafi were found in fields outside the rebel stronghold Benghazi. The execution-style killings and kidnapping by masked, armed men have led to rumors — in the already-paranoid city — of a death squad hunting down forces loyal to Qaddafi. Prosecutors are investigating four such attacks, including another murder, and the possibility that Islamists imprisoned by Qaddafi are seeking revenge. For weeks, opposition authorities have been trying to round up suspected Qaddafi loyalists they say were trying to overthrow their transitional government. But rebels say their security forces are not involved in...

The Obama administration has launched a quiet campaign over the past two months to seize from local officials a key drug used in lethal injections -- part of a spreading investigation that has contributed to a de facto death penalty freeze in several states. The investigation stems from concerns about the overseas source of the drug, though some question whether those concerns make a handy excuse to slow the pace of executions. "States have death penalty laws, and the federal government is trying to make it harder for the states to execute those laws," Saunders said.

Obama backs end to death penalty? By Dave McKinney Sun-Times Media Last Modified: Mar 4, 2011 09:18PM President Barack Obama has appeared to tip his hand on Illinois’ bill to end the death penalty, which Gov. Pat Quinn is expected to act upon within the week. During a recent encounter with Quinn at the White House last week, the president praised the bill as well as Illinois’ legalization of civil unions, said state Sen. Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago), a lead legislative backer of the death penalty bill and Obama’s successor in the Illinois Senate. Raoul spoke with Quinn after Quinn returned...

Snips from Excerpt only website: An Afghan physiotherapist will be executed within three days for converting to Christianity. Said Musa, 45, has been held for eight months in a Kabul prison were he claims he has been tortured and sexually abused by inmates and guards. He claims he was visited by a judge who told him he would be hanged within days unless he converted back to Islam.

Mexican authorities have found the bodies of seven young men killed in three separate attacks across Tijuana -- a spate of violence that runs counter to what officials have described as an improving security situation. The bodies, two of them decapitated and strung from a highway overpass, were discovered within an eight-hour period between Sunday evening and early Monday morning, according to the Baja California state prosecutor’s office. Law-enforcement officials in Tijuana and Baja California and Mexico’s federal military have made some visible progress working together against drug-related violence afflicting several regions of the country. Brazen shootouts and gruesome killings...

Sign in street announcing Public Execution The enlarged sign reads: (loose translation) ..... Carrying out of death sentence..........

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Lacking enough of the anesthetic essential to the cocktail of lethal drugs administered during executions, several US states are being forced to postpone the procedure until early next year. At the heart of the drug supply problem is Hospira, the only pharmaceutical company that produces the anesthetic sodium thiopental. "We are working to get it back on the market and we anticipate we will by 2011," Hospira spokesman told AFP. The US Food and Drug Administration does not approve the drug's use in lethal injections and Hospira does not sell it for that purpose, though prison officials...

MEXICO CITY — An anonymous, twentysomething blogger is giving Mexicans what they can't get elsewhere — an inside view of their country's raging drug war. Operating from behind a thick curtain of computer security, Blog del Narco in less than six months has become Mexico's go-to Internet site at a time when mainstream media are feeling pressure and threats to stay away from the story. Many postings, including warnings and a beheading, appear to come directly from drug traffickers. Others depict crime scenes accessible only to military or police. The undifferentiated content suggests that all sides are using the blog...

Long ago, executions of convicts were carried out in public view. Then they were carried out of public sight, in chambers and prisons, with a red lamp glowing to indicate that an execution is taking place. I have started this thread because I want to ask this question: Should prisoner executions be televised live?Yes or No?

Anti-death penalty movement wooing conservatives LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Roy Brown seems like a rarity — a conservative who's against the death penalty. But to Brown, a state senator and the 2008 Republican nominee for governor of Montana, the philosophy aligns perfectly with conservative ideology. He's one of the more high-profile figures reaching out to other social and fiscal conservatives, hoping to create a bipartisan movement against capital punishment. "I believe that life is precious from the womb to a natural death," Brown said. The Roman Catholic church has long been an organized and vocal critic of the death penalty, but...