The liberal press has taken some notice to the death sentence by stoning for an Iranian woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, for adultery. The execution has been postponed for review after the international uproar; however it still may be carried out.

In order to burnish its appearance of caring about justice (so important to liberal media), Newsweek (July 9) has presented a list of brutal punishments in response to the Iranian stoning case. So virtuous.

Since many of the truly cruel punishments occur in the Muslim world under sharia law, Newsweek threw in an American execution by firing squad to promote the diversity fable that all cultures are morally equal.

The article did note that the man to be executed actually chose death by firing squad, but nevertheless included shooting as one of its brutal punishments, along with the everyday punishments of beheading, amputations and stoning so favored by Islam.

The World’s Most Barbaric Punishments: Stoning is not the only cruel and unusual measure courts around the world–and in America–hand out.

Blinding

In 2003 an Indian citizen working in Saudi Arabia took part in a brawl, wounding a man’s eye. Puthan Veettil Abd ul-Latif Noushad was eventually sentenced, in 2005, to have his own right eye gouged out as punishment. It was, according to charity Human Rights Watch, the third eye-gouging sentence handed down within a year. HRW was unable to confirm whether any of the gougings had actually taken place. In Noushad’s case, the Indian government made an appeal for clemency. It is not clear if the appeal was successful. The State Department, on its website, still lists eye-gouging as a punishment that can be handed down by courts in Saudia Arabia.

Iran also allows chemical blinding. In 2005 a 27-year-old man named only as Majid had been stalking a woman, Ameneh Bahrami. When she refused his advances he poured a container of sulphuric acid over her. Bahrami was blinded and disfigured. Majid was sentenced to have five drops of hydrochloric acid dripped into each open eye, blinding him. […]

Shooting

Ronnie Lee Gardner, a convicted murderer who elected to die by firing squad, was strapped to a chair at a prison in Draper, Utah, and shot with .30 caliber bullets just after midnight on June 18 this year.

According to the Associated Press his head was ”secured by a strap across his forehead. Harness-like straps constrained his chest. His handcuffed arms hung at his sides. A white cloth square affixed to his chest over his heart–maybe 3 inches across–bore a black target.”

Among some in the military, death by firing squad is considered more honorable than hanging. One example was Nazi Hermann G?¶ring, who requested that form of execution, but was denied and managed to commit suicide rather than be hanged.

There’s no nice way to be executed, of course, but according to Newsweek, a firing squad is right up there with a Saudi sword removing the head.

In Somalia, stoning is a popular form of do-it-yourself execution by sharia enthusiasts.