Time to stop child killings in Iran

Three days It took me three hard days to have the heart to sit and write about the killing of a child. I don't know how those who went to protest and prevent this barbaric act would cope with the trauma of watching him plead with the mother and seeing him hanged in front of their eyes. The act of execution of a child is beyond expression. We have had executions before but not by the ordinary people. The act of execution was done by a formal executor inside the prison walls. During the past 30 years this has been reversed, People are encouraged and invited to gather for the show down of killing a human being; wether it is stoning to death or the rope or hanging from cranes and touring them round towns!

Trauma, pychological effects and sociological consequences are yet to be seen. The spiral of violence which is encouraged systematically by the regime will no doubt normalise acts of violence in other areas. People will lose their sense of empathy and acts of violence at home and in the society will become norm than exception. In recent months state violence has increased dramatically but what is worrying is the execution of minors and not by the executioner but by the families of the victim. A mother is given the honour to pull the stool from under the feet so that the jouvenile who killed or allegedly killed their son performs the dance of death and cresses the eyes of the world to the horrible fact that a mother, a woman, though in mourning for the loss of her child can be the executioner!

Behnood Shojaie was a jouvenile when he killed another jouvenile in a fight. He was sentenced to death regardless of the all facts surrounding the incident and the internationaland and national condemnation. He was executed on the day that was the International Day for the Rights of Child! And he was killed by a woman who was so brutally brain washed that felt no remorse and shut her eyes and ears to the pleas of thousans of people who urged her to forgive. Killing Behnood is not a one off incident. Our country Iran is going towards a road that will leave a population deeply traumatised by what it sees on daily bases. It's time to put a stop to it. Time to act together and urge the Iranian government to stop the kilings and traumnatising the population. Its time to urge the intellectuals, men and women, civil society activists, international human rights organisations to somewho, someway put a stop to child killings and all killings. Time to stop mothers act as executioners. Time to stop and think.

Rouhi Shafii