Stoning
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Stoning, or lapidation, refers to a form of capital punishment whereby an organized group throws stones at the convicted individual until the person dies.
Stoning has been used throughout history in a number of places, both in the form of community justice and also as a judicial form of capital punishment. The practice is referred to in Greek history, as well as Christian, Jewish, and Islamic texts.
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[edit] Groups against the practice of stoning
Stoning has been condemned by every human rights organization. Some groups, such as Amnesty International [1] and Human Rights Watch, oppose all capital punishment, including stoning. Other groups, such as NCRI (the National Council of Resistance in Iran)[2], and RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan), oppose stoning per se as an especially "cruel" practice.
Specific sentences of stoning, such as the Amina Lawal case, have often generated international protest. Groups like Human Rights Watch [3], while in sympathy with these protests, have raised a concern that the Western focus on stoning as an especially "exotic" or "barbaric" act distracts from what they view as the larger problems of capital punishment. They argue that the "more fundamental human rights issue in Nigeria is the dysfunctional justice system."
[edit] Secular use
No non-religious court of law recognizes stoning as a form of legal punishment.[citation needed] There have also been numerous cases where stoning refers to layers of rocks being placed on a victim to squeeze them to death, a practice more properly known as crushing.
[edit] Religious use
[edit] Bible, Judaism and Christianity
The Old Testament of Christianity, which is the Tanakh of the Jews and as such a common book of religious reference, prescribes death by stoning for a long series of offences, including:
- Adultery (including an engaged woman having sex with a man other than her fiance and an urban rape victims who fail to scream loud enough) Deuteronomy 22:23-24 )
- Having sex with animals ("bestiality")
- Engaging in Idolatry or seducing others to do so
- Homosexual relations
- Breaking the Sabbath
- Cursing God
- "If an ox gore a man or woman that they die, then the ox shalt be stoned and his flesh shannot be eaten."[citation needed]
- In addition, Deuteronomy (21,21) specifies that the parents of "a rebellious son" (בן סורר ומורה) may bring him to the market square and ask the townspeople to stone him to death.
- For touching Mount Sinai Exodus 19:13
- For a woman who is not a virgin on her wedding night Deuteronomy 22:13-21
There are, however, only scarce mentions of such a punishment being actually inflicted. A detailed recorded case of stoning occurs in the Book of Joshua (7, 24) when an officer named Achan (עכן) was caught looting in Jericho, a conquered Canaanite city. Under the mores reflected in that book, massacring the Canaanites was an acceptable and indeed praiseworthy act, but disobedience to God's command by taking loot to oneself was an act heinous enough that not only Achan himself but also his entire family were stoned to death by the gathered Hebrews, as a punishment.
In the first century AD, such laws were formally still in force for the Jewish society of which Jesus was a member - but as recounted in a famous New Testament story, Jesus intervened to save an adulteress from stoning, drawing possible conclusions that the sin of adultery was no longer worthy of capital punishment, or that capital punishment itself is possibly no longer necessary.[4].
As manifest also in Jewish sources contemporary with early Christianity, particularly the Talmud[citation needed], doubts were growing in Jewish society about the morality of capital punishment in general and stoning in particular. In the following centuries the leading Jewish sages[citation needed] imposed so many restrictions on the actual implementation of capital punishment - especially, many difficult to fulfill conditions for a testimony to be admissible - as to make the imposition of capital punishment virtually impossible in practice. In any case, Jews in the latter part of their history were not often in a position to impose capital punishments.
For its part, organized Christianity did at many times and places resort to capital punishment, but (possibly due to the above-mentioned example of Jesus) preferred other means of execution, such as burning at the stake, rather than stoning.
At present, there are no Christian traditions that are vested with civil power, and even had it wished to impose such punishments as stoning, organized Christianity lacks courts with suitable jurisdiction.
However, even when not actually implemented, stoning as a Divinely ordained punishment for numerous offenses - particularly sexual offenses - remains inscribed in books which Judaism and Christianity both revere as Holy Scriptures. And while Islam did not take up these books as a whole, there is considerable evidence[citation needed] that they influenced and inspired the early development of Islam, through Jews and Christians active in Arabia at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. As Islam claims being a branch of Abrahamic religion via Ishmael.
[edit] In Islam
"Within sharia law, there is a specific set of offences known as the Hadd offences. These are crimes punished by specific penalties, such as stoning, lashes or the severing of a hand. The penalties for Hadd offences are not universally adopted as law in Islamic countries." [5]
As with many religions today, not all holy books reference a particular topic. Islamic scholars argue both sides of stoning within Islam, but regardless, many cases of stoning continue to this day. However, like Judaism, for capital punishment to take place, 2 reputable witnesses must witness the Hadd offense.
[edit] Usage today
There are currently some 49 states with Muslim majorities, and very few of them (the unofficial sharia court which runs in parallel with judicial court) exercise this form of punishment; when they do, they often face criticism.
[edit] Afghanistan
As most areas of Afghanistan, aside from the capital, Kabul, are controlled locally by warlords or tribal leaders, the Afghan legal system depends highly on an individual communities' local culture and the political and/or religious ideology of its leaders. Stoning also occurs in lawless areas, where vigilantes decide to commit the act for religious and/or political purposes. [6]
[edit] Iran
Stoning has occurred in Iran, for crimes including but not limited to adultery. "The penalty for adultery under Article 83 of the penal code, called the Law of Hodoud is flogging (100 lashes of the whip) for unmarried male and female offenders. Married offenders may be punished by stoning regardless of their gender, but the method laid down for a man involves his burial up to his waist, and for a woman up to her neck (article 102).[7]and is also much less harsh and more ceremonial than a man's whipping.
[edit] Nigeria
Stoning is available as a punishment under Sharia in Nigeria. The most famous case is that of Amina Lawal, who was sentenced to death for having sex-out-of-wedlock, as she is not married and found herself pregnant. [8]
The death sentences through stoning of the years 2001 and 2002 in northern Nigeria sparked international discussion on Sharia’s imposition of stoning. Between 2000 and 2001 twelve northern Nigerian states officially declared Sharia to be their criminal code, even though many of its regulations conflict with the Nigerian constitution. The introduction of Sharia law directly and indirectly led to many violent riots. [9]
[edit] Pakistan
Islamic law in Pakistan still allows stoning as a form of punishment, however, no such executions have taken place in the country. [10]
Sentences to stoning or stonings without a sentence were reported within the last years from Afghanistan, Nigeria, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, Saudi-Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. [9]
[edit] In Judaism
In the Torah, stoning is specifically prescribed as the method of execution for crimes such as blasphemy, apostasy and some of cases adultery.
However, the Talmud limits the use of the death penalty to Jewish criminals who: (a) while about to do the crime were warned not to commit the crime while in the presence of two witnesses (and only individuals who meet a strict list of standards are considered acceptable witnesses); and (b) having been warned, committed the crime in front of the same two witnesses.
You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. You shall stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery.
—Deuteronomy(13:9-10)
The Talmudic restriction on how stoning is to be carried out differs from the type of stoning commonly assumed, such as the type implied by the Gospel of John chapter 8 in the New Testament. According to the Jewish Oral Law, after the Jewish criminal has been determined as guilty before the Great Sanhedrin, the two valid witnesses and the sentenced criminal go to the edge of a high place. From there the two witnesses are to push the criminal off. After the criminal has fallen, the two witnesses are to drop a large boulder onto the criminal - requiring both of the witnesses to lift the boulder together. If the criminal did not die from the fall or from the crushing of the large boulder, then any people in the surrounding area are to quickly cause him to die by stoning with whatever rocks they can find.
[edit] Well known examples
- Palamedes (Greek mythology), stoned to death as a traitor.
- Saint Stephen, sentenced for blasphemy (Acts 6:8-14Acts 7:58-60).
- Princess Misha'al bint Fahd al Saud
- Amina Lawal, sentenced to death by stoning in Nigeria, but freed on appeal
- Du’a Khalil Aswad stoned to death in Kurdistan (2007)
- The Gospel of John chapter 8 describes Jesus and the woman taken in adultery.
- Jaffar Kiani stoned to death for committing adultery in Iran (2007)
[edit] Stoning in literature
- Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" depicts a lottery in which one member of a small, isolated American community is stoned to death ritually each year as a sacrifice. It explores themes of scapegoating, man's inherent evil and the destructive nature of observing ancient, outdated rituals.
- Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land reaches its climax with a stoning execution.
[edit] Stoning in film and television
- Seven Sleepers (English translation), 2005 - A series running on Iranian TV, in which medieval (300-400 AD) Jews stone Christians [11].
- A Stoning in Fulham County, 1988 - A made-for-TV movie surrounding the vigilante stoning in an American Amish community [12].
- Sleeper Cell, 2005 - A Showtime original series. Members of the cell execute (by stoning) one of their members for talking openly with his uncle about planned terrorist attacks. [13].
- Monty Python's Life of Brian presents a Jesus of Nazareth-era stoning in a humorous context, ending with a massive boulder being dropped on the Jewish official, not the victim.
- In the Doctor Who story "The Mysterious Planet", the Sixth Doctor is stoned.
- On the HBO prison show Oz, inmate William Giles was sentenced to death. Giles requested that he be stoned to death. This request caused capital punishment to be briefly overturned, only to be brought back with stricter rules.
- Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" made into a short (20 minute) film by Larry Yust [1] in 1969 as part of an educational release for Encyclopaedia Britannica's "Short Story Showcase".
- In the cartoon American Dad! the family was sentenced to be stoned after many sins done by various members of the family.
[edit] See also
- Amina Lawal
- Capital punishment in Iran - Stoning
- Ishikozume
- Malak Ghorbany
- Pressing — another form of execution using stones
- Rajm (Islamic stoning)
- St. Stephen — Christian martyr who died by stoning
- Stocks — a generally non-lethal punishment that sometimes involved pelting with stones
- Stoning of the Devil
- Shab Qadar Incident
[edit] References
- ^ "Amina Lawal: Sentenced to death for adultery", Amnesty International, 2003.
- ^ "Iran: Another woman sentenced to death by stoning", Aug 12, 2006.
- ^ "Nigeria: Debunking Misconceptions on Stoning Case", Human Rights Watch, 2003.
- ^ Father CantalamessaFather Cantalamessa on Families, March 25, 2007
- ^ Susie SteinerSharia Law, March 25, 2007
- ^ Afghan Police Probe Woman Stoning Over Adultery,
- ^ [http://www.iran-e-azad.org/stoning/women.html Stoning to Death in Iran: A Crime Against Humanity Carried Out By the Mullahs' Regime ]
- ^ Nigeria stoning appeal adjourned, March 25, 2007
- ^ a b Abolish Stoning and Barbaric Punishment Worldwide!,
- ^ Pakistan stoning sentence overturned,
- ^ "Iran TV: 'Evil' Jews stoning Christians", January 5, 2005.
- ^ "A Stoning in Fulham County", release date 1988.
- ^ "Sleeper Cell", Showtime, release date December 2005.
[edit] External links
- Extract of the Kitab Al-Hudud (The book pertaining to punishments prescribed by Islam)
- 1991 Video of Stoning of Death in Iran: WMV format | Real Player (Note: may be disturbing to some viewers)
- 2007 Video of stoning to death in Iraq [2] (Same note as here above).
- Khaleej Times (United Arab Emirates: Fujairah Shariah court orders man to be stoned to death for adultery - 11th of June 2006)
- Muslims against stoningar:رجم
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