For those of you who wondered whether your objections to the atrocities of the Islamic regime towards women and children could possibly have an impact, I present to you the following letter from Ms. Shadi Sadr, who served as Ashraf Kalhori's counsel in Tehran:
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I am writing to thank you for acting to save Ashraf Kalhori from execution by stoning.
I am glad to inform you that Ayatollah Shahroudi has acted to stop the execution of Ashraf, the 37 year old mother of four, who was sentenced to stoning for having had extramarital sex.
On her behalf, I sincerely thank every one of you for signing the petition and helping to save her life.
Earlier this week, I submitted the petition to the office of the Judiciary Chief, Ayatollah Hashemi Shahroudi requesting remittal of her sentence. The petition included the signatures of more than a hundred Iranian women rights activists and over four thousand signatures collected online.
It is a wonderful feeling to see people coming together to save the life of another human being. I should also say that it is a great pleasure for me, as her lawyer, to share my happiness with all of you who were with us and supported the effort to save her.
However, the fate of Ashraf is not clear yet, and I am asking you to please continue your efforts and keep your voices loud until we make sure that she is safe. Furthermore, we must demand a change in the law that makes stoning illegal as a "sentence" for any crime.
I would like to thank you again for acting on time. I will continue to keep you updated on issues of stoning.
Warm Regards,
Shadi Sadr
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Please accept my personal thanks to all of you who signed the petitions, wrote about the atrocities of the Islamic regime on your blogs, told your friends, and kept these women in your thoughts and hearts. Please continue the great work.
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Comments: 24
Much love from Moscow - Sveta
The only way to prevent these barbaric sentences is to educate both men and women in these countries. With education comes thought, thought leads to empathy, empathy leads to compassion.
GREAT NEWS!
I don't know if you can answer the following complicated questions I am about to note, but they bear upon a concern I have had for many decades. I've done some, but very little research, upon the deep issues that might be called 'Comparative Nation State Law'.
I've been laying a groundwork for my self to explore the likelihood that MAJOR International problems should come to reside in INTERNATIONAL COURTS like the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court both of which are strongly United Nations linked. I think that the Legislative Branches and Executive Branches of government are truly unable to deal with complex problems of human RIGHTS and ENDUING JUSTICE and tendencies toward VIOLENCE in our emerging WORLD. The COURTS and legal processes at least make attempts to be totally rational and free of politics and defunct social theories.
To get 'cases' into the INTERNATIONAL courts will at times (perhaps many, many times) have to find and address the need to certainly have a good understanding of major differences in the constitutional laws (if there are any) and the governing statutary laws of the contesting NATION STATES (or perhaps too, when citizens are taking actions against a nation state other than their own).
As an example, when and if you get the time, I think it would be a major contribution to all of us in the gather family to learn about your thoughts on such a topic. Perhaps you could write a brief and penetrating ARTICLE. The specific case here (stoning of a human being to death) would be most illustrative. Why does the (Sharia?) law persist and exist in the first place. From the Koran? Is the call for NO DEATH SENTENCE EVER, ANYPLACE? From a local nation state's executive branch, without a court's intervention? Or is such a rule purely and simply an historical remnant that has been accepted (for aeons) but never measured against the NEW standards that are coming to characterize our WORLD COMMUNITIES? Characterizing NEW wiser WORLD VALUES?
These kinds of 'explorations' and hopefully, 'explanations' will help all of us 'CITIZENS OF A PERHAPS COMING UNIFIED WORLD' to start useful deliberations that may help to obsolete VIOLENCE at both individuals levels and at nation state's levels.
Thanks for your efforts and caring and helping to grow in us a fuller meaning of tolerance, balanced perspectives, analytical foci, bases for action and justice -- and 'yes' -- LOVE and FORGIVENESS.
Dick
Foreign Affairs Committee
"Greg Mortenson represents the best of America. He's my hero. And after you read Three Cups of Tea, he'll be your hero, too." U.S. representative Mary Bono (R-Calif.)
Review:
"Three Cups of Tea is beautifully written. It is also a critically important book at this time in history. The governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan are both failing their students on a massive scale. The work Mortenson is doing, providing the poorest students with a balanced education, is making them much more difficult for the extremist madrassas to recruit." Ahmed Rashid, best-selling author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
please read this book. i highly recommend it
The demonstrations in front of Iranian embassies in Europe in the past few weeks, the letters to government officials in Iran and elsewhere, the bloggers who wrote about the Nazanins and the Malaks and the Ashrafs, the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco who voiced its objections to the unspeakable treatment of Iranian women, Mayor Gavin Newsom and all others who have supported my efforts, the people who bought the T-shirts and other merchandise from CafePress.com to support the legal fund for these women ... THOSE are the actions and the people -- individually and as a whole -- that have saved Ashraf's life and spared her children from growing up in an orphanage.
However, this is just the beginning!
There are many more women AND CHILDREN in Iran who face similar fates. These types of horrors are NOT part of their culture! These atrocities befell the women and children of Persia only 27 years ago, when the Islamic regime took over the government and turned Iran/Persia -- one of the most progressive, educated, and modern nations -- into a prison of 70 million.
The children of Cyrus the Great -- the man whose words and actions form the very foundation of OUR OWN freedoms and liberties in the U.S. and other free societies -- deserve nothing less than a life in freedom and in accordance with their rich heritage, culture and history.
Magi
We haven't met yet as far as I know, but I got your connection request today, and after reading this, I am honored to accept.
This is wonderful news! That's three women so far: Nazanin, Malak, and now Ashraf, whose lives have been saved. You should be very proud of yourself for your courage and your tireless efforts on behalf of these women and in raising awareness outside Iran about the Iranian regime's atrocities against women and children. You are a true heroine, and I feel privileged to know you.