A Muslim Taliban court has hanged a seven-year-old boy, for spying. Prosecutors claimed that the tiny defendant had been passing information to foreign soldiers in the volatile southern Afghan province of Helmand.Following a guity verdict, the child's execution took place in the Sarwan Qala area of Sangin district late on Tuesday. The boy, whose name was not immediately known, was abducted from the village of Heratyan,
13 comments:
Culture is clearly a social construct, and we can see the benefits of 7th century desert warlord thinking brought to us today by the muzlims. They have not advanced one iota from that time, they are just as primitive as the day mighty MO fell off his camel and though some one told him to write a hate book. They are all essentially retarded by choice. What a terrible choice to make!!
While there is no excuse for killing a child of 7 years of age for "spying", it is wrong to assume that our "culture" is superior and can be assumed to have always been superior. In the 1790's, Mary Bryant was sentenced to death for stealing a bonnet (she had taken to robbery to provide food for herself and her parents), but she was later selected to "transportation to Botany Bay", which was nearly the same as a death sentence, and this when she was an adolescent.
Probably the youngest child executed in England was John Dean who was convicted of arson at the Abingdon Assizes on the 23rd of February 1629. It has been suggested that the youngest children ever hanged in Britain were Michael Hamond and his sister, Ann, whose ages were given as 7 and 11 respectively in "The History of Lynn" written by William Richards and published in 1812 (page 888). Currently there are quite a few "children" (ages 13 and 14 or a little older) on death row in the US. The Taliban is not alone in executing children for criminal activity, whether merely perceived or real. Do not point to Muslims or the Taliban and say; "it could only happen with such backward regimes", it has happened in the West and continues to happen.
Nobody is arguing that any culture is "superior", just that cultures are different and that we do not necessarily benefit from other cultured.
The instances you point to in our own culture are centuries ago, and often these things are not quite as they appear when you research them. Even if they are true, there is a vast difference between 1812 and 2010.
I need to correct you, there are no 13 or 14 year olds on death row in America. Children of that age can be tried as adults but can not face the death penalty.
Since the reintroduction of the death penalty in 1973, the youngest person to be sentenced to death, was a white boy called Sean Sellers who was sentenced for a murder he committed at 16 in 1985 but was actually executed 14 years later in 1999.
Whereas a 13 year old was executed in Yemen in 1993, and when Pakistan raised the death penalty age to 18 in 2000, 74 children had their sentences commuted.
Anonymous 17:54 said, "Mary Bryant was sentenced to death for stealing a bonnet (she had taken to robbery to provide food for herself and her parents), but she was later selected to "transportation to Botany Bay", which was nearly the same as a death sentence, and this when she was an adolescent."
Nearly the same as a death sentence, that must be the same thing as almost pregnant.
Do you have any corroboration for this alleged incident? A picture of some muslims doesn't actually prove anything.
How do you know it's not just a fake story planted to wind people up? I remember a story when Saddam's army occupied Kuwait claiming that Iraqi soldiers were throwing babies out of incubators. I mean, what a rotten thing to do. hurting defenseless babies. Tut tut.
One problem. Turned out it wasn't true. It was just propaganda. I notice that Cameron and Karzai said "if true".
I suggest you get corroboration before you go believing everything that suits your purpose.
Very well, Sarah- I stand corrected concerning 13 and 14 year olds on "death row"(being "juveniles", though some are convicted murderers, they are tried in "juvenile court" and thereby escape the death penalty), however, some states such as Alabama do have laws on the books allowing the execution of juveniles as young as age 16.
To "Dr. D" I would offer the following:
"Out of a total of 1006 prisoners, 267 died at sea and another 150 perished on arrival (Hughes 145).
At this time many of the ships were former slave transports equipped with slave shackles, iron bars placed between the ankles, rather than chains and ankle irons"
and: "The convict Thomas Milburn wrote the following home to his parents. " [We were] chained two and two together and confined in the hold during the whole course of our long voyage…[W]e were scarcely allowed a sufficient quantity of victuals to keep us alive, and scarcely any water; for my own part I could have eaten three or four of our allowances, and you know very well that I was never a great eater…[W]hen any of our comrades that were chained to us died, we kept it a secret as long as we could for the smell of the dead body, in order to get their allowance of provision, and many a time have I been glad to eat the poultice that was put to my leg for perfect hunger. I was chained to Humphrey Davies who died when we were about half way, and I lay beside his corpse about a week and got his allowance". This is from http://britlitwiki.wikispaces.com/The+Victorians+and+Australian+Penal+Colonies
There are some forms of punishment worse than death, and some which nearly always, but not all the time, resulted in death (keel hauling as practiced by the British navy at one time comes to mind), so perhaps my statement that it was "nearly the same as a death sentence" (especially for an adolescent female) might be clearer to you, or then again, perhaps you simply cannot comprehend...
@ Anonymous 13:12
Oh, thank you so much. Reading comprehension has always been so difficult for me. I just don't know what I would do if it were not for the enlightened help I get on the internet.
Anonymous 13:12
Correct me if I am wrong, but 1812 wasn't last week was it? In fact it wasn't any time in the last century, it was 198 years ago, almost ten generations.
198 years ago a child in England was sentenced to death and that sentence was then commuted to transportation, something which had a high fatality rate at a time when life in general had a high fatality rate.
Meanwhile, within the last month, at a time after mankind has managed to put a man on the moon, found out how to fly across the Atlantic in six hours and discovered a cure for the great diseases which have plagued civilisation for millennia, a seven year old child was executed on charges of spying in Afghanistan.
I do not wish to be unkind here, but you are not presenting us with an equivalent scenario.
Read Steven Pressfield's novel "The Afghan War". Nothing much has changed there for 2,500 years.
Anonymous 11:06
Sorry I didn't respond earlier, as for corroboration, the story does include a link to CNN, however, if that is not good enough for you, try the Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7147378.ece
ABC: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Afghanistan/bloody-taliban-revenge-hangs-boy-attacks-wedding/story?id=10879315
The Mirror: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/06/11/seven-year-old-boy-hanged-by-taliban-for-spying-115875-22325614/
and the New York Daily News: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/06/10/2010-06-10_taliban_hang_7yearold_boy_accused_of_being_a_spy_suicide_bomber_kills_40_at_afgh.html
I hope that is enough for you!!
" Meanwhile, within the last month, at a time after mankind has managed to put a man on the moon, found out how to fly across the Atlantic in six hours and discovered a cure for the great diseases which have plagued civilisation for millennia, a seven year old child was executed on charges of spying in Afghanistan".
Ah yes, 198 years later the West is so much more enlightened and "humanitarian" (and as you pointed out, so much more "acvanced" in science than it was all those very long 10 generations ago). The West may have stopped execution of children under 16 within the borders of its own nations, but in "less civilized" nations it uses its advanced science to kill innocents by the 100's of thousands: i.e.: Israel's decimation of Lebanon just a few years ago with white phosporous bombs, The US using "smart bombs" to kill indescriminately in Afghanistan and Iraq (and yes, Britain helped in that effort as well). How many children under 16 died in those efforts to "keep the world safe for Israel"? For every advance in medical knowledge, there are advances in weaponry as well, and savage ones at that. How laughable to sit in judgement of an entire nation in which some tribesman in a remote village had a child executed (for what is criminal activity under their law) when children who have done nothing wrong except to exist in "the wrong country" are continous "collateral damage" or, in the case of Israel, simply shot for existing (perhaps you remember the famous scene on television news of the little boy being shot at by the "gallant" Israeli soldiers while his father made pathetic attempts to shield him from the bullets?)
And please, don't try to tell me that "the war on terror" is a legitimate war effort. I will grant you outright that this is not an equivalent comparison to the child execution under discussion, but to attempt to paint Western civilization as morally superior to the "backward nation" in which that execution took place is dishonest. The treatment of children by Western courts and law has advanced, but I put it to you that the nature of Western man has changed not one iota since 1812.
According to more recent reports, it appears the child may have been executed in order to punish his family.
No doubt someone will now crawl out from beneath something unpleasant and claim that we do stuff like that all the time as well.
Anonymous, Sarah,
Here is a story that compares very effectively the West versus the muzlim countries, all in one neat package:
http://tinyurl.com/2a7v864
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