Public hangings, stoning and beheadings are carried out by South Africa’s closest friends without a moral murmur.
By Allan Wolman
WARNING GRAPHIC PICTURES
South Africa maintains a very warm and close relationship with Iran. Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor recently concluded discussions on “mutual bilateral interests” with President Ebrahim Raisi during her visit to Tehran in late October of last year. Pandor also co-chairs the SA-Iran Joint Commission of Cooperation with her counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
It is widely acknowledged that Iran supports and sponsors terrorism around the world including organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.
The South African Constitution of 1996 upholds the nation’s commitment to human rights and dignity, guaranteeing the right to life and protection from cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment. Furthermore, by abolishing the death penalty, South Africa joined a global movement towards more humane and progressive justice systems, serving as a moral example for others to terminate such draconian practices. Both President Ramaphosa and Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor’s commitment to human rights and the abolition of capital punishment suggests that both would ardently support the country’s stance against the death penalty.
While Iran dominated world headlines these past days, here are some facts that South African media does not report on, nor does the ANC seem to be concerned about human rights when it applies to close friends.
Capital punishment is included in the Iranian legal code, where various methods of execution are practiced, including hanging, firing squad, and stoning to death. Most common is by hanging, but also includes, firing squad and, stoning to death.
The conservative politician, Mohammad-Javad Ardeshir Larijani, a top adviser to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei interviewed last year, said that stoning for adultery, is a good Islamic law protecting “family values,” adding that “Stoning is a very important restraining law to protect the marriage contract of families.”
The execution procedure by “Stoning”, involves burying the condemned person up to their chest and then hurling stones at them until they are dead. The stones used are not so large as to kill immediately, but large enough to cause significant pain and injury over a prolonged period.
This monstrous method of execution and systemic oppression faced by women in certain cultural contexts, was brought to life in the internationally acclaimed 2008 Iranian film “The Stoning of Soraya M” which tells the true story in graphic detail of the stoning to death of Soraya Manutchehri in a small village in southwestern Iran in August 1986. Falsely accused of adultery by her husband who sought to marry a younger woman, the accusation stemmed from Soraya’s refusal to grant him a divorce. Despite Soraya’s innocence, she was subjected to a sham trial in a misogynistic society that favoured her husband’s word. This led to her stoning to death.
Like Iran, Saudi Arabia also has capital punishment within its legal system. President Ramaphosa concluded his State Visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on 16 October 2022, cementing continued bilateral cooperation and consolidated their strategic partnership.
Saudi Arabia’s primary method of execution is public beheading by sword, which is typically carried out in a public square after Friday prayers. However, other methods of execution include firing squad and occasionally, death by stoning. The mass execution of 81 people on 12 March 2022 hardly made world headlines. Human Rights Watch wrote:
“Saudi Arabia’s mass execution of 81 men this weekend was a brutal show of its autocratic rule, and a justice system that puts the fairness of their trials and sentencing into serious doubt.”
It remains unclear whether any of those executed were underage at the time of their alleged offenses.
South Africa has ties with Afghanistan via its embassy in Pakistan. The Taliban has only this month announced that they will resume the public stoning to death of women.
Several other Middle Eastern countries that South Africa maintains strong diplomatic ties, still have capital punishment as a legal penalty for certain crimes. Amongst those are countries whose method of execution is public beheading and public stoning.
It is indeed noteworthy that both the Palestinian Authority (in the West Bank) and Hamas (in Gaza), whose cause South Africa and in particular Pandor champions, have laws allowing for the death penalty to be imposed for crimes, such as murder, and collaboration with Israel.
How does Minister Pandor balance South Africa’s constitutional commitments to the right to life and protection from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment when engaging with Teheran? This is the same minister known for her strong views on human rights, particularly in ‘select’ countries of the Middle East.
Who can forget this this same minister together with her president, grandstanding at the Peace Palace in The Hague hardly bothered with stoning and beheading during “discussions of mutual interest.”
Proud of constitutionally abolishing the death penalty, South Africa’s biggest buddies are the biggest killers of its own people.
And it says nothing!
About the writer:
Allan Wolman in 1967 joined 1200 young South Africans to volunteer to work on agricultural settlements in Israel during the Six Day War. After spending a year in Israel, he returned to South Africa where he met and married Jocelyn Lipschitz and would run one of the oldest travel agencies in Johannesburg – Rosebank Travel. He would also literally ‘run’ three times in the “Comrades”, one of the most grueling marathons in the world as well as participate in the “Argus” (Cape Town’s famed international annual cycling race) an impressive eight times. Allan and Jocelyn immigrated to Israel five years ago.
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