Home > From Iran to the USA: Time to End the Death Penalty!

From Iran to the USA: Time to End the Death Penalty!

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 28 July 2005
6 comments

Discriminations-Minorit. Justice International Prison Religions-Beliefs

by Vincent Fischer

“Religious killing shows man at his most depraved; for in this act he destroys the beauty of his dream by pretending to divine power” (My Brother Death, Sulzberger, Carl).

Mahmoud Asgari, 16, and Ayaz Marhoni, 18, were hanged publicly on July 19, 2005 in the city of Mashhad, Iran. http://www.beirut.indymedia.org/ar/2005/07/2999.shtml

The photographs are nauseating. Looking at the pictures of the condemned teenagers, it is easy to fall into despair. In the remaining moments of their lives, we see two young men, alive and vibrant, both of whom should have had their entire lives ahead of them. There is, I believe, a grand design to the universe. Blood coursing through veins delivering oxygenated blood to sentient brains and youthful bodies is a miracle of life, and in my humble estimation a sign of the divine.

The henchmen of each nation, in Iran, as here, are paid to do their state sanctioned evil. It is a crime in and of itself. No matter what the justification or rationalization, with the enforcement of a death penalty, additional lives are stolen and a tragedy is compounded. The elementary school axiom, “Two wrongs don’t make a right” is forgotten by proponents of capital punishment. It is a theft, a travesty, a supreme injustice, a horror, and a nightmare. One thing that it most certainly is not is, “God’s will”.

The best homage we can pay to those who fall victims to repressive regimes is to work to end the death penalty here, at home, in the U.S.A. The fact is that, by far, there are fewer executions in most Moslem countries than in the United States.

Several dozen times each year, in a prison in the U.S., perhaps in your own backyard, a man is strapped to a gurney. Needles are inserted. A lethal concoction of chemicals injected; the heart arrested, a soul extirpated, with clinical precision, well almost clinical precision. Death penalty abolitionist literature chronicles that things do sometimes go awry. In the end, more often than not, the body that is wheeled away is working class and disproportionately a person of color. This is America. We are civilized. We are the West, and we are full of it.

In any nation where there is a death penalty, otherwise good people are always complicit when they remain silent. It is a failure to voice dissent that is interpreted as assent by the ruling elite. The press, whether state regulated as in Iran, or corporatist moderated and guided as in the U.S., aids in this endeavor through its refusal to cover what are now considered routine execution of prisoners, or by focusing on graphic and lurid details of a crime in more infamous cases. Absent from the discourse is the vast body of literature that casts doubt on the efficacy of capital punishment as a deterrent. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Ten out of twelve states without a death penalty have homicide rates lower than the national average.
(Source: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=17&did=437)

In the case in Iran, it is was reported that the condemned teenagers raped a13 year old boy at knifepoint. As is often the case in the U.S., there was a racial component at work in the conviction and sentencing. Both teens were ethnically Arab in Persian Iran. Indeed, here in the U.S., it often a thinly veiled race hatred that fuels a blood thirsty desire for revenge culminating in the death penalty of the accused and convicted.

In addition, the press is often wildly inaccurate and sensationalistic. In high profile cases, there may even be a carnival like atmosphere to the media outside the courtroom which fuels a lynch mob mentality. People are whipped into a hysteria. Like sharks when they smell blood, people act as if they are predators at mealtime forming the foaming crimson tide of a feeding frenzy. In this overheated environment, appeals to base emotions rule over reason.

Failing to accept that Western jurisprudence is procedurally bound, and affords those of a certain means to afford it “equality before the law”, right wing pundits have recently caterwauled that there is something fundamentally wrong with the entire system of jurisprudence in the state of California. How else to explain that innocents are let of jail? People gnash their teeth.

The media, or what remains of it, serves to assuage collective guilt in more coarse, more ignorant, less refined, less civilized and less enlightened countries such as the U.S.A. “They had it coming!” some people will feel righteous indignation and comforted by the state sanctioned murder. These people have blood on their hands. In fact, it stains their soul.

No matter the form, whether death in a hangman’s gallows or the seemingly sanitized stateside lethal injection, death is a cruel and unusual punishment. It is savage. It is medieval barbarism.

Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a mainstream gay rights advocacy group, is demanding that the Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice issue a condemnation of Iran. Human Rights Campaign itself has never to my knowledge condemned the U.S. death penalty. Perhaps someone should condemn Human Rights Campaign for their extremely narrow stance on what constitutes social justice.

Justice for we gays has to be predicated on social and economic justice for all including working class people, heterosexual, as well as queer. HRC should have, but didn’t, made a statement condemning child executions in the U.S. They had plenty of time to do so, as it wasn’t until March 1, 2005, that a closely divided U.S. Supreme Court reversed an earlier ruling and abolished the death penalty for juveniles. What a disgrace for the court to have waited so long. How unfortunate HRC’s stony silence. In stark contrast to our feckless gay mainstream rights groups is the fact that human rights activists within Iran, including the 2003 Nobel prize winner Shirin Ebadi, have already condemned the July 19th execution.

Scarcely had the bodies been cut down in Iran, then the Islamophobic and neoconservative London queer group “Outrage” went into overdrive. Never failing to miss an opportunity to espouse their disdain for Islam, as if such criticism were in dire short supply these days, they have inserted their opinion and have been widely quoted in stories about the Iranian executions.

Firstly, as has been pointed out by others, it is not clear whether or not the Iranian teens self-identified as queer. As Sprout, a NYC activist pointed out, “Fuck this whole "gay teenagers" just like us bullshit. It is entirely unclear to me that they understood themselves as gay at all. Maybe they did but can we acknowledge the horror of lynching two teenagers without cannibalizing their experience into western gay-ass gaydom? I didn’t cry because they sucked dick. I cried because they were just two fucking kids.”

“Outrage”, the British queer activist self stylized “direct action group” these days focuses nearly selectively on Islamic fundamentalism, taking time out only long enough for an obligatory potshot here and there at, surprise, surprise the Catholic Church or Jamaica’s ill treatment of its gay population.

What is telling is that absent from “Outrage’s” press releases is anything remotely resembling impartiality. Therefore, you will not find a statement on the stabbing of three gay participants at this past Jerusalem Pride by a Jewish fundamentalist. You will find in their missives neither outrage, nor even a whimper for that matter, concerning the wholesale destruction the U.S. war against Iraq has wrought on the country, or for that matter that the havoc that globalism in general is wreaking around the world.

Judging by their protest of a Palestine Solidarity Conference, England’s “Outrage” is more appalled at a negation of gay rights in conservative cultures than the systematic ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the apartheid State of Israel. That’s not outrage. That’s Western ethnocentrism. That’s being a shill for Zionists interests. That is manipulating queer sympathies. By the way, perhaps a quarter of the International Solidarity Movement volunteers that I know, all of whom have spent time either on the West Bank or Gaza, are out queers.

Though unfortunately probably not their last word, my last word on “Outrage” is their own: “Is it possible to be gay and be part of a right wing movement?” and their answer “Of course it is!” http://outrage.nabumedia.com/faq.asp

The trail of blood leads all the way from the hangman’s noose in Edalat Square, Mashhad, Iran to the doorstep of the U.S. It was our CIA which overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953. Then as now, it was about oil. The premier, Mohammad Mossadegh wanted to nationalize Iranian oil resources. The CIA coup against Iran was named “Operation Ajax”. For the next twenty five years, the U.S. ardently supported the anti-democratic Shah of Iran. It was the backlash against our puppet, the dictatorial Shah, that gave rise to Khomeni and the religious government that has ruled Iraq since 1979.

The U.S. and Iran are soul mates. They’re both down with the murder of their citizens; those they deem undesirable. This is not to state there is some sort of moral relativism at play. By objective measure, there is no comparison. Iran as a nation, rather than an occupying force, retains the moral high ground. On the other hand, the U.S. is an invading, despoiling, pillaging, looting and raping empire. Through scores of interventions, overt and covert, from Vietnam to current day Iraq, we have the blood of millions of civilians on our hands. Moreover, our nation is presided over by a man who as governor of Texas earned the appellation of “Texecutioner” and who probably stole, not one, but two elections. Be wary, be very wary indeed, when you hear Mr. Bush or Mr. Blair talk about the “civilized world”.

Pointing out facts regarding the U.S.’s behavior is not anti-American. On the contrary, it is extremely important to continue to point out the sad reality of our past and present in order to fight the mythology that has America as holier than thou, especially when war plans for an invasion of Iran are still on the table.

Iran has a religious based legal system known as Sharia. The U.S. has a system that was founded on some fairly lofty ideals, namely, the rule of law. However, lately a reasonable person might wonder if instead we have become ruled by law. There is a difference. In the former, there are checks and balances on those doing the governing. In the later, the governed are controlled by a ruling class that is above the law.

It does seem these days that Bush and his administration are acting with an impunity that suggests they feel as if above the law. Also, it seems, that by and large, the wealthy are protected and coddled. That our legal system is mere window dressing, is probably fairly obvious to anyone who has sat in the courtroom of an ill tempered metropolitan court judge and witnessed just exactly who, racially or economically, was being led out in handcuffs and shackles. Clearly our system is not egalitarian. Was it ever so?

Finally, in closing, I’d like to mention that I am new to the abolition movement. As with other activist groups I belong to, it is exciting to know that a small, but committed, group of individuals can make a difference. In the heat of summer, I sit in a steamy church basement with a handful of others who are similarly appalled at the domestic race hatred that fuels our prison industrial complex and its reviled death penalty.

Won’t you join in helping to end the death penalty here at home, or are you only concerned when it is Arab hotties who are put to death in Persia? If you are in the New York area, please join us in Harlem on August 18th, 2005.

From Death Row to Guantanamo: Torture at Home and Abroad
As outrage builds over military torture tactics from Abu Ghraib to
Guantanamo, the sanctioned killing of prisoners continues here at home, reminding us that, with the death penalty still in place, the American government practices "cruel and unusual punishment" every day. Torture abroad is only an extension of tactics that for years have included coerced confessions, indefinite detention, and the daily, psychological torture of awaiting the march to the death chamber-in jails across the United States.
The death penalty is legalized torture. Until it is abolished, we can expect the sadistic acts of the U.S. military to continue, as the rule, not the exception.
Join the fight against torture at home and abroad!
Join the Campaign to End the Death Penalty,
August 18th at St. Mary’s Church (126th St between Broadway and Amsterdam) - 7 PM for a meeting featuring:
Lawrence Hayes, former death row inmate and member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty

Forum posts

  • Don’t agree with the death penalty. We elect (sometimes it’s not rigged) governments that then have a monopoly over death and violence. Only our governments are supposed to be allowed to kill people.
    Whenever, there is a poll about the death penalty, in almost every country the concept is endorsed by the sample populace. Think this is a gut reaction, and people envisage the worst case scenario -eg child murderers, someone in their family murdered. This is natural and seeking retribution a normal reaction. Governments play on this understandable emotion. But should someone have the right to take someone elses life ? No.
    Death Row has to be one of the most barbaric tortures in the world today. The uncertainty and doubt, not just for the incarcerated, but their kin as well. Punishment should be incarceration with differing levels of austerity for malevolent people, help for the sick of mind.

    Punishment, protection for the public through detention, and rehabiltation for those capable. Not death.

  • eloquent statement, Vincent.

    Scott Long, Human Rights Watch (HRW)

  • Dear Vince,
    Thank you for taking the time to put your thoughts, feelings ands facts into an expose regarding
    Iranian, as well as American state sanctioned deaths. I too oppose the death penalty, and believe we must clean up our own backyards before taking our own brand of insanity abroad.
    Also,I commend you for naming Israel as an Apartied State, unheard of in my fairly mainstream life. But I recently viewed the movie "In My Country" about the Truth and Reconcilliation trials in South Africa and immediately Israel came to mind. So, it was possible for me to make a connection between aparthied and Israel on an unconcious level, and I hope others innocently experience this awakening. In the meantime countless victims will fall prey to a system that is inherently based on inequality, injustice, brutality, and the like. Again,thank you Vince, you are a talented and informed writer. Wish your articles were in the local press!!
    With admiration & love,
    Your sister

  • as you are new to the anti death penalty movement, I suggest you become balanced in your approach and check any anti death penalty claims with pro death penalty sites, below.

    Those who support the death penalty do so because they find it just for some crimes.

    I am one of those people. Sincerely, dudley sharp

    www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
    http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
    www.dpinfo.com/
    www.prodeathpenalty.com
    http://www.prodeathpenalty.org/
    http://www.yesdeathpenalty.com/ (Sweden)
    www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html
    www.vuac.org/capital

  • I applaud you for a great article. I do take a bit exception to to your criticism of critics of cetain groups calling a spade a spade. I doubt anyone who uses the term "IslamoFascist" is actually against islam. Rather, I would assume, like myself that they have no problem with Islam itself, but just the factions that would use it to persucute.

    Secondly, there is a huge burgeouning gay movement around the world. I think it would be just as stereotypical and detrimental to dismiss the actions of these two boys as what westerners deem typical to that of many males in the Middle East: male-on-male sex because they aren’t allowed to be around girls. They quite possibly could have been persucuted for being a little too comfortable and open with there sexuality. They have even been reported to have spoken openly to the press on the way to their execution about their sexual practices with other males. Bottom line is this, they were hung for male on male sex, and it really makes no difference how they identified. I too an upset that they were so young, that they had their whole life ahead of them. It also does quite piss me off that they were executed for "sucking dick" as someone in your article so eloquently put it.

    This whole thing and those pictures that I will never be able to "unsee" has ignited a fire in me. I have decided that I will use my voice and my time where I can. I now have a face, actually two faces, that confirms the horror that I have long suspected.

    Anyways......I really did enjoy your article.........keep up the good work

  • Vincent,

    I too am horrified by this act of state-sponsored killing and I fully oppose the death penalty. But your line about it not mattering that they were gay (and the way you say it), speaks volumes about your personal prejudices. I suppose you believe that if they had merely been imprisoned for being gay, this would have been morally acceptable?

    Moreover, if you think Peter Tatchell’s Outrage group is neo-conservative then clearly you have not done any research at all... And why don’t you cut the North American clap-trap about Outrage’s bias... I suppose you aren’t biased? Grow up…