Stick a fork in her - she's done

In Iran, the penalty for being raped (if you're a woman) is death, and the penalty for successfully fighting back against your attacker is also death. It is not so different from things in this country (the U.S.) for dogs. If a human attacks a dog and the dog bites the human, the dog is typically killed. So in Iran, woman have roughly the same legal protections that dogs have in America - but you already knew that. You didn't know that? I'm shocked! Funny how this aspect of Iranian culture is never mentioned by our trusted sources for news, nor do we hear any complaints from the National Organization for Women or other liberal groups - you know, those groups who care so much for women and minorities and the human rights of the oppressed. Apparently, maintaining the constitutionally protected right to stick a fork in the head of a half-born baby is more important.

Quoting Betsy's Page verbatim:

These are some sweet people running Iran.

Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

Last week, a court in the city of Rasht, northern Iran, sentenced Delara Darabi to death by hanging charged with murder when she was 17 years old. Darabi has denied the charges.

In August 2004, Iran’s Islamic penal system sentenced a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, to death after a sham trial, in which she was accused of committing “acts incompatible with chastity”.

The teenage victim had no access to a lawyer at any stage and efforts by her family to retain one were to no avail. Atefeh personally defended herself and told the religious judge that he should punish those who force women into adultery, not the victims. She was eventually hanged in public in the northern town of Neka.

So, let me see if I have this straight. If a woman or a girl is raped, she is sentenced to death for committing "acts incompatible with chastity". And if she fights back, and escapes rape by killing her attacker, she is also to be sentenced to death. There's no information about what happens to the rapists, but I suspect that they're not getting the death penalty. So waht incentive is there for men not to rape women if the penalty will fall on the victim? What a travesty of a government.

Amnesty USA is upset because these are minors who are going to be put to death. How about being upset because rape victims are being put to death? Being over 18 wouldn't make this penalty any less heinous.