Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi is an Iranian teenager who was sentenced to be hanged for murder by an Iranian court. I had been unaware of her case until I read about it in the Power Line Forum last night. According to her account, Nazanin was with her sixteen-yeare-old niece and their two boyfriends when they were approached by three men who tried to rape them. The boyfriends fled, and Nazanin defended herself with a knife she carried in her purse. She stabbed one of the men, who later died. So far, at least, I haven't seen any version of the facts that differs materially from Nazanin's account.

Nazanin was prosecuted for murder and sentenced to hang. The verdict was apparently set aside by an ayatollah, and she is due to be retried tomorrow, January 10.

Wikipedia has the story here. A Canadian singer (and former Miss World runner-up) named Nazanin Afshin-Jam has taken up Nazanin Fatehi's case and has set up a web site called Help Nazanin. So far, over 250,000 signatures have been collected on an internet petition. Check out the Forum post linked to above for more links.

One intriguing aspect of this controversy is that some have called on prominent American Muslims to try to intercede on Nazanin's behalf. Dymphna of Gates of Vienna has written an open letter to Congressman Keith Ellison. It says, in part:

You have been elected to serve the Fifth District of Minnesota in the United States House of Representatives. This is a crucially important opportunity, not only for all of your district’s constituents, but also for Muslims in America — even Muslims worldwide, who watch American politics with close attention.

You are in an unprecedented position: the political point man for Islam in this country. As our only elected Muslim in national office, you have the heavy burden and the unique responsibility to aid the cause of Islam in its endeavor to become the religion of conciliation.

There is no doubt that you, as our sole Muslim member of Congress, could bring to bear a high level of influence on Iran and other Muslim countries, in order to make the situation for women in these countries more humane.

If you were to use your bully pulpit to speak out about the plight of women under sharia law — especially in Iran and Pakistan — you would be a powerful influence for good.

Muslim women in other countries live under the yoke of a draconian hatred towards women qua women. Their original sin lies in being born female, and thus being worth half the value of a man. This law is not something your leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, would understand or condone.

Thus, Rep. Ellison, your public stance on the predicament of Muslim women is vital to the progress of reforming the view many Americans have of Islam at the moment. The news from Afghanistan and Iran is unutterably sad: the number of women choosing suicide over the prospect of living under sharia is increasing dramatically.

You have emphasized your Muslim beliefs by choosing to take your oath of office using the Koran. With this public emphasis on your religion, it is imperative that you follow through on this symbolism with vital action on behalf of Muslim women everywhere.

Why not begin in Iran, where women like and support our country, where people have begged the United States to intervene on behalf of the homeless children and the underage sex slaves who are sold into lives of degradation in other Muslim countries?

I think Dymphna has a good point. Millions of people have wondered how Sharia can be reconciled with the United States Constitution. This is a golden opportunity for Ellison to put his Nation of Islam years behind him, and show unequivocally that he rejects Sharia. If he can use his unique position of influence to save an innocent human life--or at least make the attempt--it will go a long way toward quieting the concerns that his history in public life has raised.

Likewise with CAIR. CAIR always postures itself as a mainstream, patriotic American organization, yet its leaders have repeatedly been associated with those who seek to impose Sharia around the world through violence. Thus, this blogger wonders why CAIR has not taken up Nazanin's cause:

Where does CAIR - the Council on American Islamic Relations - that always strikes me as a peculiar go-between sort of implication - stand on the fate of Nazanin? Do they support her execution for self-defense?

Why isn't CAIR in Iran working to defend this young woman? ... [I]s it because women don't have "rights" in the Islamic Republic of Iran[?] Makes one wonder why CAIR is so worried about "civil rights" in America for Muslims.

Again, these strike me as excellent questions.

One would think that just about anyone, in this country, anyway, would oppose a teenaged girl's being hanged for an act of self-defense. Yet, among those who raised a hue and cry about Saddam Hussein being "taunted" before being hanged for the murders of thousands, there has been a strange silence about Nazanin's case. It is a bit troubling that so far, all of the liberals who have weighed in at the Forum have been hostile to the idea of asking Ellison and CAIR to use their influence on Nazanin's behalf. Why is this, exactly?

You can weigh in at the Forum. More important, you can telephone Keith Ellison's office at (202) 225-4755 (fax is (202) 225-4886). You can call CAIR at (202) 488-8787, fax them at (202) 488-0833, or email at info@cair.com.

I think most people believe that moderate Muslims world-wide need to stand up against the insanity that now prevails in countries like Iran. This strikes me as a good opportunity for moderate Muslims to show that they do not accept the precepts of Sharia and have no desire to impose them here or elsewhere.

UPDATE: Beldar writes:

Re your post on Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi: I’m in the middle of reading George Crile’s “Charlie Wilson’s War” (soon to be released as a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts), and I was immediately struck by the parallels to this passage (at pp. 206-07):

[In 1983,] everything seemed on track for [Charlie Wilson] to make his legislative strike [for more U.S. funding of the anti-Soviet mujahideen in Afghanistan] when [U.S. Rep. Clarence “Doc” Long, D-Md., the then-chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on government operations] stumbled across an article recounting the plight of a young, blind, orphaned Pakistani girl who had been raped. To [Long’s] disgust, the article explained that by Islamic law, rape can only be proved if there are four witnesses. Since here there was only one, and since the girl admitted that intercourse had taken place, the Pakistani authorities promptly tried her and threw her in jail for fornication.

All bets were now off. Hair swirling, eyes bugging out in a fury, [Long] was suddenly calling his newfound friend General Zia [of Pakistan] a barbaric dictator. “Zia is not going to get a dollar of foreign military aid. Period,” screeched Long. “I want him to know that I control the bucks.” Long dispatched his aide Jeff Nelson to inform the Pakistani ambassador that if the girl was not immediately pardoned, put in a home, and cared for, Pakistan would be cut off.

For a moment, the plight of this unfortunate teenage girl became the most sensitive issue in U.S.-Pakistani relations. In Wilson’s view, Long was just powerful and crazy enough to sabotage the entire Afghan war effort if Zia did not yield. ***

Very quickly, General Azim assured Long that the girl would be taken care of in a private home for life. The president, he said, wanted the chairman to know that he personally guaranteed this. “As far as I’m concerned,” says Nelson, “the blind girl was the key to everything.”

So: There’s precedent for a U.S. Congressman (like Keith Ellison) to speak out to save a rape victim who might otherwise suffer outrageous injustice at the hands of fundamentalist Islamic justice — and it’s worked before.

The circumstances were obviously different, but the precedent is nonetheless heartening.