COMMENTARY

LONDON, January 4, 2008  –  Unconfirmed reports coming from Iran suggest that two youths are facing brutal execution in the southern city of Shiraz.

According to the Iranian official Quds Daily, two youths, identified as Tayab and Yazdan, had their execution confirmed by the Supreme Court on Wednesday and regional justices are preparing the execution.

Also included charged in the same case were four others who are to receive 100 lashes each.

The ages of the two to be executed are not given, but they were convicted, according to Quds, of  “kidnapping, mugging and raping two university students”.  The gender of the two students is not known.

Quds reports that the executions will be carried out by putting each youth in a sack and throwing them off the top of a cliff and into a ravine.

This form of execution under Shariah law is normally reserved for those convicted of gay offences (lavat).  But there is no mention of ‘lavat’ in the Quds report of this case.

If a person survives this execution, then he is hanged.

Iran’s shari’a-based penal code defines ‘lavat’ as penetrative and non-penetrative sexual acts between men.  Penetrative sex carries the death penalty, while non-penetrative sexual acts carry lashes for the first three convictions and then death on the fourth.

Any form of rape should be severely punished.  But execution – and such a barbaric execution?  Would this type of execution have been handed down if the two victims were women?

There are a lot of unanswered questions.  But whether this is another “gay case” or not, human rights groups are this weekend trying to get more information.

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