Iran has supplied the world with another outrage from the application of its medieval Sharia law system. An Iranian court sentenced seven young adults to be flogged plus prison time for the offense of shooting a video of themselves dancing to the American pop hit “Happy.” Another court issued a death sentence for a blogger accused of simply insulting Prophet Muhammad.
The seven were paraded in public and forced to apologize for the offense of merely filming themselves having fun. Each will now received 91 lashes and one was given a year in prison. The others were given six months, though the shorter sentences may have been suspended.
You can see the video here.
The seven defendants were participating in a global campaign launched by pop star Pharrell Williams with six appearing on the video and a seventh filming the scene. They all confessed. Of course, most civilized people would not see anything to confess but under Sharia law such forms of expression are crimes of immorality.
They still fared better than Soheil Arabi, a blogger found guilty of insulting the Prophet Muhammad in his postings on Facebook. He was arrested by Revolutionary Guards with his wife last November. He was kept in solitary confinement for two months inside the notorious Evin Prison and later found guilty of “sabb al-nabi” (insulting the Prophet).
Karen , since you think wikipedia is a fine source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_system_of_Iran
“According to some Iranian officials, the judiciary of Iran does not follow Sharia law”
Karen S,
The wikipedia ‘sharia law by country’ page is interesting in that it debunks the claim made here by Mike Appleton and others that Saddam’s government was secular, at least in the Western liberal concept of secular government.
The notion that Iraq under Saddam was secular is a propaganda sleight-of-hand based on the false premise that Saddam followed a Western liberal concept of secular rule of law rather than the actual tyrannical concept of Saddam’s regime.
Saddam’s regime was secular only insofar that Saddam was seated as the highest source, authority, and judge of law for Iraq. In fact, Sharia was elemental to Iraqi law under Saddam.
Iraq is a traditional seat of Islam, and Islamic jurisprudence was already in Iraq under Saddam. But under Saddam, all rule of law in Iraq – religious and otherwise – was corrupted because it flowed from and primarily served Saddam.