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Save Malak Ghorbany

Jill

On or about June 29, 2006, a court in the northwestern Iranian city of Urmia sentenced Malak Ghorbany, an Iranian woman, to death by public stoning after finding her guilty of the crime of “adultery.” Under Iran’s Penal Code, the term “adultery” is used to describe any intimate or sexual act between a man and a girl or a woman outside of marriage. The crime of adultery is also used in cases where a girl is deemed to have committed “acts incompatible with chastity,” which includes instances of rape. In Iran, the punishment for “adultery” is death. In Ms. Ghorbany’s case, the particular method of execution mandated – death by stoning — is one of the most inhumane and gruesome acts of torture and violence.

On the day of her punishment, Ms. Ghorbany’s hands will be tied behind her back as she becomes covered from head to toe in winding sheets and is placed seated in a pit. The pit is then filled up to her chest with dirt and the dirt is tamped down. At that point, members of the community are invited to murder her by hurling rocks at her. To ensure that the person condemned to stoning receives the absolute maximum amount of pain and torture, the Iranian government has even mandated the size of the stones that are to be used in this barbaric act of public execution. By law, no stone should be thrown that would kill Ms. Ghorbany with the first or second blow, or so small as a pebble to do no injury to her body.

More here. If nothing else, sign the petition.

Thanks to Joanne for sending this on.

3 thoughts on Save Malak Ghorbany

  3. Dear friends – I send a kind of poem I have written for Malak Ghorbany, alongside signing the petition for saving her life – in the hope that we might be able to make these men in Iraq change their minds. All my very best to all you readers of this web-site – this US feminist blog – from Karl Hoff, in Norway!

    BACK TO SAPHO ~ MALAK GHORBANY

    by Karl Hoff – Norway, July 2006

    Malak Ghorbany is no anti-oxydant we must
    have, she is no dog days’ lively, brisk breeze
    no brook-chilled Chablis. No, Malak Ghorbany
    is a Kurd woman, alone, herself barely alive
    “She has sinned. Adultery is unpardonable.
    She is to be stoned.” In Urmia, northwest in Iran

    The husband of Malak, Mohammad Daneshfar
    and Abu Bakr Ghorbai, her brother, they have
    already killed her notorious lover. Sentenced to
    six years’ jail, they are, by the Court in Urmia
    The Cradle of the Water, by the hallowed Men
    now 1374 years old, who so desire Malak stoned
    But who is to throw the last stone at her, when

    And here, who leaves the sun, goes in, writes
    to save her, use their power on behalf of us
    left only with words, images – the vomiting
    Who here orgs a galley, rowed by women
    of age-old ancient Europe, to Urmia to give
    the sun, the water, the orange evenings back
    to Malak, who has suffered, mourned enough

    Malak, lifted by amazons on to the rocking vessel
    out at Lake Urmia, the emerald green, lightly
    after a Penthesilea’s screams of liberty, for all
    to know of the Urmian and her dead Achilles
    who did not fear their near world enough, and of
    the Rūmi-ghazals that healed their fated injuries
    The ostracized brought back by daughters of
    Europa, women with water in bottles ululating
    fierily of their fragile homes, their democracies

    Back to Sapho, where one night Malak will
    stand, speak up, without bitterness or scorn
    With my story told and written down, I go
    now, a living dead, with his coin ~ to Karon

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