A Miscellany 42
Iranian Justice
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In the July 2005 issue of Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens wrote in an article on Iran:
Last August in the city of Neka, a 16 year-old girl named Atefah Rajabi was hauled into court for having had sex with a man. She might possibly have gotten away with one of the lesser punishments for offenses against chastity, such as 100 lashes with a whip. (That's what her partner received.) But from the dock she protested that she had been the object of advances from an older man, and she went so far as to tear of her hijab, or headscarf. The judge announced that she would hang for that, and that he would personally place the noose around her neck. And so, in the main square of Neka, after the Iranian Supreme Court had duly confirmed the ruling, poor Miss Rajabi was hanged from a crane for all to see.
Compare that with Justice O'Connor's concurrence as reported in Meditation 390.