WTF of the Week

Canadian Recording Artists Ask for Your Help

in Saving a Young Woman From Execution

In Iran an 18-year-old named Nazanin is sentenced to be put to death by hanging. Her crime? Defending herself and her 16-year-old niece from being raped by three men. During the attack she drew a knife and stabbed one of the attackers. In doing so she succeeded in driving the attackers off and saved the two of them from whatever fate awaited them at the hands of the three men.

She was subsequently arrested, tried and found guilty of a crime. At her trial she said in her defense; "I wanted to defend myself and my niece. I did not want to kill that boy. At the heat of the moment I did not know what to do because no one came to our help." Her appeals have failed and without severe pressure from outside sources she will die for this "crime".

The girls' only alternative would have been to submit to the rape and not report it. Why? because if they reported it and could not produce enough male witnesses to confirm that it had indeed been a rape, then the Sharia Court would treat it as a case of adultery and the girls would have been severely punished, especially if a child had been conceived through the rape. The punishment for women or girls who have premarital sex is 100 lashes. Since it WAS a rape, the real (mental) punishment would have been much more severe than that, and lasted for the rest of the victims' lives.

Canadian recording artist Nazanin, who shares a name and a homeland with this young woman, has been championing the cause for some time now. This story in the National Review Online contains an interview with the Artist Nazanin. But the hour for her namesake is at hand and nearly all options have been exhausted.

Today Nazanin, along with fellow Canadian Artists Biff Naked, Britt Black, The Vincent Black Shadow and their record company, Bodog Music, sent out urgent bulletins to all their MySpace friends asking for people to sign a petition in the hope that enough worldwide public pressure will force the Iranian courts to abandon or reduce the sentence. If you would like to lend your name to this petition you can do so by going to this page. It won't cost you a cent, just a few moments of your time and those few moments might save the life of a young woman who is sentenced to die for the crime of self-defense.

This Correction came in after the story was published from the Artist Nazanin: We have just been notified that this is the status:

"Nazanin's fate will be decided at the end of this week or next week by the Supreme Court. If they decide to go ahead with the sentence, she could be executed by hanging in less than 2 weeks."

For another source on this story I offer this piece from Iran Focus. In the story another girl is mentioned, a 16 year old. Her crime was to be "less than chaste". She has already been hanged....

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