Stoning

This is Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani currently under a suspended sentence of death by stoning for the offence of adultery in Iran.  One of her lawyers has fled to Norway with an arrest warrant on his head.She has now apparently been convicted of conspiracy to murder her husband and faces death by hanging.

Perhaps an attempt to make her case seem no different to the plight of some women convicted for murder in parts of the USA. A smokescreen if ever there was one.

Whatever spin the Iranian authorities try to put on all this we have to call it as it is. Death by stoning. Barbaric. Death for adultery. Horrific.

I am reminded of Jesus who was faced with a woman caught in adultery and religious leaders who wanted to apply the law of Moses and see her stoned. And then his timeless words "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".

Let us call that for what it is. Mercy. And mercy meeting the guilt we all have to handle whatever its cause.