Iran has denounced the latest report detailing its denial of the most fundamental human rights under its blood-soaked Sharia legal system. The report details the widespread executions of homosexuals and religious dissidents in the country in the name of Islam as well as the denial of basic free speech and association rights. The country executes people by stoning, hanging, and even crucifixion. Mohammad Javad Larijani, chief of human rights in Iran’s government, responded by calling such human rights as a Western invention and lifestyle choice. What is truly shocking is not that the troglodytes in Iran cling to their medieval system but that various countries stepped forward to praise or defend it, including Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Sudan, Syria, Vietnam, Venezuela, Yemen and Zimbabwe. Once again, the endorsement of Venezuela of the most abusive regime in the world shows the plunge of that country’s values in the Chavez and post-Chavez administrations. Notably, this report came shortly after the hanging of Reyhaneh Jabbari and shortly before the imprisonment of Ghoncheh Ghavami
The confrontation occurred during a three hour review in Geneva of the U.N. Human Rights Council which was reviewing each country’s human rights record. Obviously Iran was one of the most damning.
However, like some Muslim countries in the past, Larijani portrayed human rights as a Western conceit:
“This idea of, ‘the West and the rest, only the West has good things,’ this is wrong. . . . Please accept the idea that others have a good way of life. Western lifestyle isn’t only way of doing things.” He further denounced such objections as merely an attempt to “impose your lifestyle under the banner of human rights.”
The report detailed how 852 people were executed in the Islamic Republic over the last year, mostly for drug offenses, homosexuality and alleged crimes against sharia law. They apparently did not fit the Iranian “lifestyle.”
Source: Fox
Moral relativism has brought us to a point of toxicity. I don’t believe we should be messing in their culture and their belief system.IT’S NONE OF OUR BUSINESS until is shows up on our shores. Yet call it what it is, BAD. At the same token, let’s not import their morality to us and this sharia law should not be acceptable here in the very least. It’s horrible.
Come on, Prof, easy pickings attacking Venezuela and Chavez. Ask the people of Venezuela what they think of the man. That is all that matters.
We, the US, have been intent on taking down Chavez for ages, as we were Castro, as we are fomenting trouble currently right there. Whatever problems Venezuela has, we had a strong hand in it. So let us drop the moral outrage.
What, we do not have men who spend 42 years in solitary confinement on these shores? No children housed with adults in max security prisons? Kids being locked up in Rikers for months, if not years without a real day in court?
People being executed with untested drugs and left to writhe in pain for hours?. Yep, right here, and yet we are mute to those.
There is enough work to be done right here, where pointing at the beam in our neighbor’s eye feels hypocritical when we can hardly see through the beam in our own.
We are no better than Iran. It is all a matter of structure. Them with ours are us. Us with theirs are them.
By the way: from wiki
Iran[edit]
Theoretically, crucifixion is still one of the Hadd punishments in Iran.[98][99] although it is not actually applied and there is no example of its use.[citation needed] If a crucified person were to survive three days of crucifixion, that person would be allowed to live.[100] Execution by hanging is described as follows: “In execution by hanging, the prisoner will be hung on a hanging truss which should look like a cross, while his (her) back is toward the cross, and (s)he faces the direction of Mecca [in Saudi Arabia], and his (her) legs are vertical and distant from the ground.”[101]
The writer of this propaganda piece is either uninformed or is intentionally
dispensing misinformation. Even cursory research shows that the FACTS prove it.
Far from ruining the country, here are some of the good things the Chavez government has accomplished:
* A land reform program designed to assist small farmers and the landless poor has been instituted-this past March a large landed estate owned by a British beef company was occupied by agrarian workers for farming purposes
* Education is now free (right through to university level), causing a dramatic increase in grade school enrollment
* The government has set up a marine conservation program and is taking steps to protect the land and fishing rights of indigenous peoples
* Special banks now assist small enterprises, worker cooperatives, and farmers
* Attempts to further privatize the state-run oil industry-80 percent of which is still publicly owned-have been halted and limits have been placed on foreign capital penetration
* Chavez kicked out U.S. military advisors and prohibited overflights by U.S. military aircraft engaged in counterinsurgency in Colombia
* “Bolivarian Circles” have been organized throughout the nation, neighborhood committees designed to activate citizens at the community level to assist in literacy, education, vaccination campaigns, and other public services
* The government hires unemployed men, on a temporary basis, to repair streets and neglected drainage and water systems in poor neighborhoods
Then there is the health program. I visited a dental clinic in Chavez’s home state of Barinas. The staff consisted of four dentists, two of whom were young Venezuelan women. The other two were Cuban men who were there on a one-year program. The Venezuelan dentists noted that in earlier times dentists did not have enough work. There were millions of people who needed treatment, but care was severely rationed by one’s ability to pay. Dental care was distributed like any other commodity, not to everyone who needed it, but only to those who could afford it.
When the free clinic in Barinas first opened it was flooded with people seeking dental care. No one was turned away. Even opponents of the Chavez government availed themselves of the free service, temporarily putting aside their political aversions.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Parenti/GoodThings_Venezuela.html
When I refer to the geographical segments of the Earth which are basically East of Corfu, as The Pirate Territories, I do so with truth and only a bit of humor. I note here on the blog as well, the power of Congress to authorize thee use of military force or other actions to protect Americans from pirates and terrorists. Many critics in the media jump on President Obama for not seeking a declaration of war against this so called country or that. Lately the so called Islamic State has reared its ugly head and it does not have defined borders. I previously cited several times the provision of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution which authorizes Congress to deal with Pirates and those that breach the Law of Nations.
What we Americans need to do is take the globe and put some designations on those geographic areas which are in the scale: pirate territories, dysfunctional nation states without control of their terrorists or pirates, nation states which embrace terrorist activities, nation states which successfully control their populations and territory and embrace the law of nations and human rights accords.
America as a nation needs to proclaim some policies which will punish the pirate territories and nation states which embrace terrorism and human rights violations. We need to deny Americans the right to travel to these places, to do business with them, to allow citizens of those territories from coming to our shores. Dumbschmuck Americans who go to North Korea need mental exams. The same can be true of the East of Corfu territories.
mespo…please name some other countries who do not have a democracy that are doing so well. It’s true, that our republic and capitalistic society has many problems, most of them a decline in virtues and morals. However, our country and those to pattern us seem to be the most giving to those who need it the most.
Iran can and will live their Islamic life, but to close down and shut out others who choose another way of life should not be persecuted or terminated. And Iran and their counterparts have no right to infringe on our country or any of the western countries who live in a democracy. Give me liberty or give me death!
Iran is a theocratic dictatorship. It does the same things other dictators have done, but masks it in an evil theology. It views human rights the same way they were viewed by Marx, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and other dictators.
And in the scheme of things, the Iranians are “moderate” muslims compared with ISIS. Islam is a satanic political cult masquerading as a religion. Its adherents seek our conversion, subjugation, or death.
President Obama says this about Iran and other countries that don’t believe in human rights:
“The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam.”
“The sweetest sound I know is the Muslim call to prayer.”
“These rituals remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings.”
“America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”
“Throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”
Iran is a member of the UN Human Rights Council, by the way.
Iran is dying, demographically.
Fertility is below replacement levels.
Women are voting with their uteri against medieval barbarism.
And we should vote with our dollars.
Mespo – I agree. If they really thought they had such a wonderful paradigm, they wouldn’t have to trap their own people. Let people vote with their feet.
Well, of COURSE fellow human rights violaters would defend this statement. They used to have a saying in Venezuela that people would fall out of trees and into Cadillacs. Chavez changed all that.
“Please accept the idea that others have a good way of life.” I wonder if Larijani thinks that gays and rape victims would agree that their way of life was good, as they were being stoned to death.
Wow. Just like the United States. Who knew?
The people of Iran live two different life styles. The rich shop in high-scale stores and ignore government. The rest live under government rules.
These are repulsive actions. I am not a cultural relativist on harm to others.
This does not mean that we ought to invade Iran to “westernize” them. The US violates fundamental human rights in the “homeland” and in other nations.
We ought to take care of our own violations and we could immediately stop aligning ourselves with other regimes such as Saudi Arabia who do everything Iran does and more to their people. Obviously, USGinc.’s foreign policy is not about human rights.
The Iranians are right that there are other ways to have a good life besides engaging in, and celebrating: sodomy, drunkenness, drug addiction, pornography, abortions, and promiscuous sex. Up until the 1960’s the majority of Americans would have agreed with them.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
It is important to recognize that what we have chosen for a moral compass and for a lifestyle is not necessarily what others have or will choose.
To always look at the world through the prism of our own biases and not recognize that others do NOT have that same prism is to be continually blind to the motives of other people and to be continually surprised when things just don’t work out as we intend.
Unless you can put yourself into the mindset of “the other”, you will never be able to communicate or make any changes.
To arrogantly think that our way is the only way is only going to alienate any other chances of connection.
Anthropology and Sociology 101
Whatever. It’s up to them to figure it out for themselves. We’ve got our extraconstitutional concerns here to worry about.
“This idea of, ‘the West and the rest, only the West has good things,’ this is wrong. . . . Please accept the idea that others have a good way of life. Western lifestyle isn’t only way of doing things.”
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To which I say, “then open up the internet and the borders and then let your own people freely choose.”
It seems that it all hinges on how bad bad becomes, not whether or not it is right or wrong. Iran will continue in its barbaric ways because it murders a person from time to time under its perverse beliefs. Mohammed, the world’s most famous pervert, says it is OK. This falls under the rights and freedoms of religion. We are all complicit and connected. We stand aghast but only intervene when the bodies have piled up so high that we cannot escape the reality of the perversity.
The greater the perversity and carnage the closer the polarized sides of our government come together. The hypocrisy of the situation may be greater than the perversity. They may be troglodytes, but they are our troglodytes.
I agree with the Iranians on this one. There is no reason why our lifestyle and moral choices should be theirs. However, that does not mean we have to support them.
Competition is the nature of the world. Our competitors are in the arena competing vigorously. We need to find our way back on course in the arena as the leader – liberal champion – of the free world.
President Kennedy:
President Clinton:
President Bush: