J - Iran: A Religious Dystopia

To take a break on Scientology, I wish to inform you all about the state of Human Rights in Iran, or more to the point, how they are being completely disregarded by a society based on religion.

Religion is good. It gives people hope, morals, security and a welcoming community. However, problems arise when entire countries follow the same religion to a T without any interpretation or updating of their beliefs. Such is the case in Iran.

Essentially, in Iran, the word of the QuRan is the word of the law. Those that break any rule, no matter how minor, are punished, even children. For example, on Thursday 11th November 2004, a 14 year old boy died of receiving 85 lashes for breaking his Ramadan fast. In October 2004, a 13-year-old girl was sentenced to death for incest. In July 2005, two homosexual teenagers were whipped 228 times and hung, purely for their sexuality. Indeed, members of parliament were not angered by this, but by the fact that journalists were reporting it. I could go on, but these already illustrate my point.

Perhaps the most inhibited freedoms are those of religion and free speech.

Numerous sects of Islam believe that Muslims that convert to another religion should be killed, something that is upheld in Iran. A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled "Islamic Penal Code", which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against. While such executions have happened since the Iranian revolution in 1979, it is now legal to kill a man simply because he exercises his human right to cease or change his faith.

Free speech is practically inexistent in iran. Anything negative about Islam or anything that opposes Irans government in the slightest will be punished. Iranian academic Hashem Aghajari was charged with blasphemy for calling on Muslims not to blindly follow clerical leaders like "monkeys and sentenced to five years in prison. Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian journalist of Iranian descent, tried to photograph a very controversial Iranian prison. She was detained, reportedly raped, and died in prison of a fatal head wound. During a peaceful protest for Womens rights on March 8th 2006, police attacked protesters as old as 76 with truncheons. Even Youtube.com has been blocked from all Iranian internet access.

Iran is a clear example of religious dystopia. Everything is dictated from an archaic interpretation of a religious text, removing ones freedom to choose what to believe, removing ones freedom to express their thoughts, removing their freedom to live the way they feel they should. Society should not be based on religion. All religions were founded in times gone by, living by them word for word places you a millenia or two in the past.

Conditions in Iran are slowly improving since its revolution, but only through the work of people and organisations such as Amnesty International. I sincerely hope that listeners to this this might look for or start a local Amnesty international group. Together, people can change the world.

I am J
I am Justice
Justice prevails.

Note: I know the audio is bad at the end. And in the middle. And a little at the beginning... My point is that it's a problem of background noise and using built-in equipment.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Anonymous
• Scientology
• Death
• note
• Kira
• Speech
• Ian
• Islam
• Mulsim
• execution

[JforJustice]

By the way, I am returning to Scientology after this one excursion. Just trying to show I'm not a 1-trick pony.

[Az0psKira]

its not L its J

and are u from England or somthing like that because u have a accent

[chris94]

uhm.? L saying religion is good? rofl I guess...