Apostasy, the "crime" ---> it is a real fact.

[human]

By an Islamic Law; Hossein Soodmand was hanged in iran because he become Christian ​

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Hanged for being a Christian in Iran​

Eighteen years ago, Rashin Soodmand's father was hanged in Iran for converting to Christianity.

Now her brother is in a Mashad jail, and expects to be executed under new religious laws brought in this summer. Alasdair Palmer reports.

The story as it was published in the----->telegraph.co.uk​

A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled "Islamic Penal Code", which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against.


Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran's own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs.


And yet few politicians or clerics in Iran see any contradiction between a law mandating the death penalty for changing religion and Iran's constitution. There has been no public protest in Iran against it.


David Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary, stands out as one of the few politicians from any Western country who has put on record his opposition to making apostasy a crime punishable by death.

The protest from the EU has been distinctly muted; meanwhile, Germany, Iran's largest foreign trading partner, has just increased its business deals with Iran by more than half. Characteristically, the United Nations has said nothing.


It is a sign of how little interest there is in Iran's intention to launch a campaign of religious persecution that its parliamentary vote has still not been reported in the mainstream media.


For one woman living in London, however, the Iranian parliamentary vote cannot be brushed aside. Rashin Soodmand is a 29-year-old Iranian Christian. Her father, Hossein Soodmand, was the last man to be executed in Iran for apostasy, the "crime" of abandoning one's religion. He had converted from Islam to Christianity in 1960, when he was 13 years old. Thirty years later, he was hanged by the Iranian authorities for that decision.


Today, Rashin's brother, Ramtin, is also held in a prison cell in Mashad, Iran's holiest city. He was arrested on August 21. He has not been charged but he is a Christian. And Rashin fears that, just as her father was the last man to be executed for apostasy in Iran, her brother may become one of the first to be killed under Iran's new law.


Not surprisingly, Rashin is desperately worried. "I am terribly anxious about him," she explains. "Even though my brother is not an apostate, because he has never been a Muslim – my father raised us all as Christians – I don't think he is safe. They assume that if you are Iranian, you must be Muslim."

Her brother's situation has ominous echoes of her father's fate. Rashin was 14 when her father was arrested. "He was held in prison for one month," she remembers. "Then the religious police released him without explanation and without apology. We were overjoyed. We thought his ordeal was over."


But six months later, the police came back and took her father away again. This time, they offered him a choice: he could denounce his Christian faith, and the church in which he was a pastor – or he would be killed. "Of course, my father refused to give up his faith," Rashid recalls proudly. "He could not renounce his God. His belief in Christ was his life – it was his deepest conviction." So two weeks later, Hossein Soodmand was taken by guards to the prison gallows and hanged.


Life for Rashin, her siblings and her mother became extremely difficult. Some Muslims are extremely hostile to people of any other religion, never mind to those who they consider apostates: Ayatollah Khomeini declared that "non-Muslims are impure", insisting that for Muslims to wash the clothes of non-Muslims, or to eat food with non-Muslims, or even to use utensils touched by non-Muslims, would spoil their purity.


The family was supported with financial and other help from a Christian church based in Iran. That support became even more critical as Rashin's mother began to lose her sight. Rashin herself was eventually able to leave Iran. She now lives in London, married to a fellow Christian from Iran who successfully applied for asylum in Germany.


It took years for Rashin to understand how her father could have been legally executed simply for becoming a Christian. In 1990, there was no parliamentary law mandating the death for apostates. What, then, was the legal basis for Hossein Soodmand's execution?


"After the revolution of 1979, Iran's rulers wanted to turn Iran into an Islamic state, and to abolish the secular laws of the Shah," explains Alexa Papadouris of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a human rights organisation that specialises in freedom of religion.


"So the clerics instituted a mandate for judges presiding over criminal cases: if the existing penal code did not include legislation on whether a certain kind of behaviour is an offence, then the judges should refer to traditional Islamic jurisprudence." In other words: sharia law.


"That automatically created problems" says Mr Papadouris, "because Islamic jurisprudence is not codified law: it is a series of formulations developed across generations by scholars and clerics.


Depending on the Islamic school or historical era, these formulations can differ and even contradict each other."


On one subject, however, sharia law is unequivocal: men who change their religion from Islam must be punished with death. So when the judge heard the case of Rashid's father, he could refer to sharia and reach a straightforward decision: the death penalty. There was no procedure for appeal.


Nevertheless, in the 18 years since Hossein Soodmand's execution, there have been no judicially sanctioned killings of apostates in Iran, although there have been many reports of disappearances and even murders. "As the number of converts from Islam grows," notes Ms Papadouris, "apostasy has again become a serious concern for the Iranian government." In addition to 10,000 Christian converts living in Iran, there are several hundred thousand Baha'is who are deemed apostates.


There is another factor: President Ahmadinejad. "The President didn't initiate the law mandating the death penalty for apostates," says Papadouris, "but he has been lobbying for it. It is an effective form of playing populist politics. The Iranian economy is doing very badly, and the country is in a mess:

Ahmadinejad may be calculating that he can gain support, and deflect attention from Iran's problems, by persecuting apostates."


The new law is not yet in force in Iran: it requires another vote in parliament, and then the signature of the Ayatollah. But that could happen within a matter of weeks. "Or," says Papadouris, "it could conceivably be allowed to drop, were there a powerful enough international outcry".


Time may be running out for Rashin's brother. She believes that the new law will be applied in an arbitrary fashion, with individuals selected for death being chosen to frighten others into submission. That is why she fears for her brother. "We just don't know what will happen to him. We only know that if they want to kill him, they will."

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Hossein Soodmand and his son who may face the same fate soon...​

 

[Scott Free]

The religion of peace :roll:

Muhammad wasn't a blood thirsty wolf - oh no! How could someone say that? :roll:

Well, it isn't like Christians are any better.

I feel sorry for this poor lady though.

 

[human]

Sure no one is perfect ...

The religion of peace :roll:

Muhammad wasn't a blood thirsty wolf - oh no! How could someone say that? :roll:

Well, it isn't like Christians are any better.

I feel sorry for this poor lady though.

Sure no one is perfect at one time or another through our past human history, but as long as we are not mentally blind TODAY by thinking that history repeats itself as if "history" is an entity of fate and we are his elements and recognizes that PEOPLE and not history repeat their mistakes, then we are bunch of idiots who ALL think "the others" are the historical mistake.

My friend, this is happening NOW and also will become part of the FUTURE HISTORY and if the present history does not do anything about it then I don’t think humanity deserves its existence because we still on the same wheel of miseries …

And by that we are permitting the Holocaust to reoccur because it was part of the same human wheel of miseries…

How?

For some humans maybe it is their will to create the ambiance or keep the ambiance of the Holocaust ALIVE through deceit such as Apostasy is our own religious business up until they got their chance at it again, and unwillingly to some other humans through their ignorance and the feel of the pocket; especially, the pay to say Grand media business which should be considered as criminals as the deed doers.

Every time I see such thing, I say the UN lost its purpose and found its goal of becoming the historical apostate of humanity…

 

[scratch]

Sure no one is perfect at one time or another through our past human history, but as long as we are not mentally blind TODAY and think that history repeats itself as if "history" is an entity of fate and we are his elements and recognizes that PEOPLE and not history repeat their mistakes, then we are bunch of idiots who ALL think the others are the historical mistake.

My friend, This is happening NOW and also will become part of the FUTURE HISTORY and if the present history does not do anything about it then I don’t think humanity deserves its existence…

I don't care whether religion is involved in this or not. The result and perhaps further results are the epitome of barbarism.

scratch

 

[human]

Grand Barbarism indeed…

I don't care whether religion is involved in this or not. The result and perhaps further results are the epitome of barbarism.

scratch

No doubts what so ever it is a Grand Barbarism by any measures of any sort of scale if it is religious or humanitarian...

This my friend become the LAW of the LAND of Iran AS OF LAST WEEK sealed and approved by their so called and considered by most countries of the world elected democratically parliament.

I think we are failing the human rights spirit by permitting such Barbarism to occur from within a law created in the dark ages and yet still being applied in this century.

 

[scratch]

No doubts what so ever it is a Grand Barbarism by any measures of any sort of scale if it is religious or humanitarian...

This my friend become the LAW of the LAND of Iran as of last week sealed and approved by their so called and considered by most countries of the world elected democratically parliament.

I think we are failing the human rights spirit by permitting such Barbarism to occur from within a law created in the dark ages and yet still being applied in this century.

A lot of those barbaric laws are still in force around the world.
scratch

 

[Scott Free]

I don't care whether religion is involved in this or not. The result and perhaps further results are the epitome of barbarism.

scratch

I agree that the world is slipping back into a monstrous barbarism. We are losing our norms and fabric at a furious rate and as a result religion and superstition are becoming ever more popular; both of which are racing fuel for the barbarian IMO.

Religion and superstition are much easier to understand pseudo-sciences than the real thing and so, as a result, the ignorant tend toward them. Nothing is more wonderful for the idiot than a field where he can be an expert just because he proclaims it!

I don't think anyone could doubt that a new dark age is emerging - well, that is, anyone who has read a history book.

 

[human]

N0 alibi to such misery...

A lot of those barbaric laws are still in force around the world.
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I say the least we can do is exposing such laws no matter where they are; however, the existence of any such law around should not be considered an alibi to such misery.