Today, October 10th, is the World Day Against the Death Penalty. Morbidly ironic, Behnoud Shojaee’s execution on this day is a stark reminder of the brutality of Islamic Republic of Iran’s policies in executing its citizens on a whole host of criminal and belief-based charges.
The judicial system in Iran has proven time and again to be unfair, discriminatory, and perversely criminal itself in dealing with social maladies inflicted upon its own society through implementation of barbaric laws.
It almost sounds like Texas. The judicial system is "unfair, discriminatory, and perversely criminal itself in dealing with social maladies," could easily apply to any jurisdiction in the U.S., but down Dallas way, this description fits to a tee.
Perhaps I'm being too flip, though. The graphic provided on the Iranian.com site is most illuminating for putting things into perspective. When turning the death penalty stats into per capita numbers, we see a very different story than what we're used to.
Recently we discussed a report from Amnesty International which put China on top and the U.S. fifth. That was total numbers of executions. The Iranian stats show that Iran is tops with Saudia Arabia a close second. China is much lower than both of those in a per capita comparison, and the U.S. much lower still.
I don't feel this information changes much, since of the countries ahead of the United States, there is not a single one that I'd want to live in. The U.S. is still associated with a group of countries that it should be ashamed to be aligned with.
What's your opinion? How do you feel about that company we're keeping in the capital punishment lists?
Please feel free to leave a comment.
