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| Africa North |
| Tunisia's Islamist Leader Backs Death Penalty for Child's Rapist |
| 2013-04-02 |
| [An Nahar] Rached Ghannouchi, the head of Tunisia's ruling Islamist party, said he backs the application of the death penalty, describing it as a "natural law" in a television interview to be broadcast Monday evening. "We say that capital punishment is a natural law, a soul for a soul. And whoever threatens the life of another must know that his life is also threatened," the Ennahda party's veteran chief told news channel La Belle France 24. He was asked in particular about the punishment of rapists, after a number of incidents in Tunisia, including the case of a three-year-old girl repeatedly raped by the caretaker of a children's nursery, which has caused shock and anger. "This crime must be sanctioned in the severest possible way and I would even say yes, by capital punishment," Ghannouchi said. "Rape is like a death sentence for a woman and for the entire family." Under Tunisia's penal code, rape, murder, acts of terrorism and plotting against the state are punishable by death, but in practice no executions have been carried out in Tunisia since 1991. Amna Guellali, the Tunisian representative of Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... , said she regretted Ghannouchi's comments, which follow efforts by rights groups to get the death penalty's abolition inscribed in the new constitution currently being drafted. "It is a setback, given that Tunisia has a moratorium on the death penalty. It's a challenge to that and it's quite serious," she told Agence La Belle France Presse. Guellali said the Islamist leader was publicly expressing the position of a number of members of his party, who believe the death penalty is "something natural, an obligation in Islam and a just penalty for... an atrocity that has been committed." Ennahda, which heads Tunisia's coalition government, is frequently accused by the secular opposition and rights activists of seeking to Islamize society and impose the key provisions of sharia, or Islamic law. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 Geez, Tunisia might be more enlightened than I thought. They didn't stone the three year old for adultery...that's a refreshing change. Yep, Islam is the only religion in history to be based upon the delusional rantings and ravings of a psychopath. |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2013-04-02 09:34 |
| #4 ...maybe SCOTUS can take the issue up [and given the steepness of the slope they've sliding on recently, probably will]. If you must have a permission slip from your parents for a school day trip or get an aspirin from the school nurse, but don't need to tell the parents that their daughter can have an abortion, your country may be run by idiots. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2013-04-02 08:31 |
| #3 There should be a referendum and see HRW scream about how awful democracy is. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2013-04-02 07:58 |
| #2 Of course when the girl is nine you can still be a holy prophet |
| Posted by: European Conservative 2013-04-02 06:29 |
| #1 I think killing child rapists is a beat we can all dance to. |
| Posted by: Destro 2013-04-02 03:10 |