Iranian Boy Killed for Breaking Ramadan Fast

Reader Janet Nilson pointed out this appalling story, complete with a photo, about a fourteen year old Iranian boy who was sentenced by a clerical court to receive 85 lashes for breaking his fast during Ramadan. (I assume this means eating between sunrise and sundown.) The sentence was carried out, and the boy died. The only hopeful note in the article is that townspeople where the boy lived were so outraged that they stormed the cemetery when he was scheduled to be buried, and the burial had to be deferred and carried out under guard.
Keep this story in mind next time you hear a liberal referring to the “Taliban wing” of the Republican party, or arguing that Christian “fundamentalists” in America are comparable to Islamic “fundamentalists” in the Middle East, or suggesting that the Bush administration is trying to establish a “theocracy.”

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