Opposed execution by stoning: 1
Car versus man on motorbike: 1
Women on Facebook: Too many!
Hopefully, by the time you read this Sakeneh e Ashtiani will have been reprieved. Following a week of high-profile lobbying by her family the Iranian government have so far conceded the execution of Sakaneh by stoning. Stoning has been used as a means of execution in Iran for a number of years. Iran also uses hanging and Sakenh. Accurate figures for the number executed in Iran by either method are difficult to ascertain but it seems that of the people stoned to death, the majority are women. The conduct of stonings is regulated; the victim is buried up to the chest or breasts after being wrapped in bandaging or a shroud like garment. This limits the movement of the victim and occurs, perhaps, because the law also states that if a victim escapes, they will automatically be granted a pardon. The law also defines the size of stones that can be used and stones that could kill in one or two blows are prohibited. Victims take approximately 20-30 minutes to die from brain damage and concussion. There are an another 15 people (3 men and 12 women) facing the prospect of execution by stoning in Iran. For me, the issue of guilt is irrelevant in these cases and I not only condemn stoning as a means of execution but also capital punishment in general. It is difficult for me to expand on this view, because despite my preference for fully rationalised choices and opinions, in this case I just feel that killing people is wrong.
Another accident related issue this week when a young man ended up laying on my doorstep after his motor bike was hit by a car. Fortunately, he had been wearing all the right clothing, helmet, boots etc. and was remarkably uninjured for his ordeal. The reason I mention it here has more to do with the way that the cyclist and the car driver were subsequently treated. The cyclist, a young guy of about twenty years old, and the car driver, a women in her late sixties received markedly different treatment from the authorities. The lad, laying on the pavement visibly stunned, was waiting for the ambulance to arrive when he was asked firstly, had he been taking drugs and secondly was he driving legally. The woman, on the other hand was asked if she was OK. Later the lad was questioned by the police for about twenty minutes, breathalyzed and also fined £60 for a dodgy back tyre. The woman was questioned for about five minutes and when I asked, she said that she had not been asked about drugs and I don’t know if she was breathalyzed. He limped off home pushing his precious but battered bike, definitely the loser in this encounter.
An interesting piece of research out this week claimed that a third of young women aged 18-34 check Facebook first thing in the morning before they go to the loo. Another 21% check the site during the night – it doesn’t say whether they wake up especially to do this or not. If they were older I might have thought they were awake anyway (or perhaps that’s just me) and I can’t imagine looking at Facebook before I’ve had my first cup of coffee. More worryingly, 58% use Facebook to track their ‘frenemies’ (people they are ‘friends’ on the site but do not like in real life) which seems vaguely duplicitous and 50% are ‘friends’ with strangers. When we consider that 50% of women also felt comfortable dating people that they had met on Facebook, it seems that there are a lot of young women using Facebook to an extent that may be impacting on other aspects of their lives, and also perhaps putting themselves at risk by meeting people they have only met online. When it comes to relationships, Facebook has other uses as well and 49% use it to track their partner’s online activity by using their logins and passwords. What strikes me about the results of this research is the insecurity that many women must be experiencing. Tracking what your partner and frenemies are up to can only end in tears and we all know that if you feel a bit insecure about something, dwelling on it only makes things worse.What do you do if your partner spends more time chatting with your frenemies than with you. Or perhaps that is the cause of the 9% of women and 24% of men that break-up with their partners on Facebook.
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