Judicial killing Iranian style

When people learn that Iran still has the death penalty and uses hanging as one of the methods, I wonder if they think that Iran uses the 'long drop method' as used in the UK pre abolition of the death penalty. The long drop method means that the person to be hanged's height, weight and strength were used to determine how much slack would be provided in the rope so that the distance dropped would be enough to ensure that the neck was broken but not so much that the person was decapitated. In other words death was quick and the breaking of the neck caused immediate paralysis and immobilization and almost certainly immediate unconsciousness. A relatively humane way of killing someone I would say.

The Iranian method is somewhat different and involves what is known as the 'short drop method'. This method would normally mean that the victim is dropped just a few inches and it is their suspended body weight and physical struggling that causes the noose to tighten. This normally results in death by strangulation or carotid or Vagal reflex. In fact in Iran it can be even more cruel as hangings are sometimes carried out by using a telescoping construction-style crane to hoist the condemned aloft thus increasing the pain and terror.

I won't put any videos of Iranians being hanged on this site, but they are easy enough to find on Google.


Of course hanging is not the only method the Iranian regime uses to kill people, stoning is another. Slate explains In Iran

'When stonings happen, how do they work?... First, you get buried. Iran's Islamic Penal Code states that men convicted of adultery are to be buried in the ground up to their waists; women, up to their chests. If the conviction is based on the prisoner's confession, the law says, the presiding judge casts the first stone. If the conviction is based on witness testimony, the witnesses throw the first stones, then the judge, then everyone else—generally other court officials and security forces. Stones must be of medium size, according to the penal code: Not so big that one or two could kill the person, but not so small that you would call it a pebble. In other words, about the size of a tangerine. The whole process takes less than an hour.'

Less than an hour! That's OK then. Less than hour of people throwing small rocks at your head and upper body until you are dead; pleasant? Barbaric? If you really want to see someone being stoned to death in Iran then you can here. In case you wonder the four men are being wrapped in sheets so as to make it harder, nay impossible, to escape. Can you imagine how it must feel to be one of those men? To be wrapped tightly in a cloth and buried in a hole in the ground all the while knowing that in a short time people are going to hurl rocks at you until you are dead, a process that could take up to an hour?

So the next time someone tries to convince you of the moral superiority (or even equivalence) of Islam ask them about this stoning video and the hangings. The next time you meet someone like George Galloway, Lembit Opik or Lauren Booth, who have taken the Iranian government's money by working for Press TV, ask them about this stoning video and the hangings.