Stoning...

I just recently came across a movie called "The Stoning of Soraya M.".  Since I am interested in other cultures, I thought that this movie would help me to understand more about the world in which I live. Soraya was married to a man for about 20 years. Their marriage was on the rocks. They were poor and had four children. The husband had his eye on a 14 year old girl that he wanted to marry.  He needed to get rid of his wife. So, what does a man do to get rid of a wife who will not accept his divorce proposal.  Well, he made up lies so that she would be executed. This is a true story and hails from Iran. 

 

The first time I ever heard about stoning was from the Bible.  A group of people brought a woman to Jesus who was caught committing adultery.  All of the men had stones in their hands and were ready to pelt her until death.  But Jesus said "he who is without sin throw the first stone". Here is what happens when someone is stoned:

The prisoner is buried either up to his waist (if male) or up to her shoulders (if female) and then pelted with stones by a crowd of volunteers until obviously battered to death. Under the terms of most fundamentalist courts, the stones must be small enough that death cannot reasonably be expected to result from only one or two blows, but large enough to cause physical harm. The average execution by stoning is extremely painful, lasting at least 10 to 20 minutes. The entire community gets in on this, so that not one person has blood on their hands.  As I watched the movie, I was filled with anger and swore at the characters, especially the husband.  The stoning was gruesome and I had to look away.  How did that man think the foundation for which he was trying to build on with lies and deceit will be able to stand?  A liar never wins!