The Blog of the Coalition for Secular Government

Friday, February 6, 2009 13 Year Old Girl Stoned to Death By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM The BBC reports on a horrifying case of a young girl stoned to death for being raped: A young woman recently stoned to death in Somalia first pleaded for her life, a witness has told the BBC. "Don't kill me, don't kill me," she said, according to the man who wanted to remain anonymous. A few minutes later, more than 50 men threw stones. Human rights group Amnesty International says the victim was a 13-year-old girl who had been raped. Initial reports had said she was a 23-year-old woman who had confessed to adultery before a Sharia court. Numerous eye-witnesses say she was forced into a hole, buried up to her neck then pelted with stones until she died in front of more than 1,000 people last week. That such could happen in this day and age -- anywhere in the world -- is horrifying. Is a worse injustice possible? I think not. Yet such injustices are the inevitable result of blind adherence to religious dogma: the facts of this world do not matter in face of God's will. As one of the Islamic administrators said, "We will do what Allah has instructed us." So they did. Labels: Islam, Law E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink ()    Comments

Comments on "13 Year Old Girl Stoned to Death"

Friday, September 25, 2009 at 7:36:42 mst Comment ID: #1 Name: drusilla E-mail: mhencook(at)hotmail.com I know we can't ban religion altogether but I'm really beginning to think that at least some books of the Old Testanent should be burnt. I know at leat one calls for stoning to death as a punnishment for being raped in a built up area.The koran does not sanction this punishment even for voluntary adultery but Islamists seem to think it does. We all know that Nazis gave book burning a bad name, but I've been haunted by this dreadful protracted murder for nearly a year as have many other uninvolved people. The girl's family must be living in perpetual torment. We don't want to belong to a species that behaves like this. Secular government alone can enable society to be rational and civilized. I think Richard Dawkins is right that children have a right to be brought up without religion but it seems impossible to police this. It is true though that even people who are not actively religious often have an irrational tendency to see victims of terrible crimes as tainted. This especially applies to rape. People who suffer disabling illnesses or accidents are often also regarded with revulsion and may be persecuted. Only a small part of the human mind is rational, but the executive at least should be rational and compassionate.

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