Extreme Vice Enforcement Cruelty
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:50 PM

What could be more inhumane than imposing the death penalty for victimless vice crimes? But inhumanity never lacks for a strong constituency. In Iran, plans are in place to hang a 21-year old alleged prostitute, following last year's judicial murder of a 16-year old for having an "illegal sexual relationship." Amnesty International claims that this year's scheduled victim has the mental capacity of an 8-year old, but that has been denied by Iran. Why bother with the denial? They are planning to "execute" someone whose sexual behavior they don't condone, and they quibble over her mental age? Whose mental age is most questionable in this vile, unspeakable practice?

"Would the duke that is absent have done this?
Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting a
hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing
a thousand..." Maybe the mullahs should take Shakespeare's hint, and worry more about helping women engaged in prostitution than about trying to extirp them.

Labels: prostitution, sentencing, Shakespeare