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Iran’s penal code recognizes inferior and superior humans
Dear Editor,
Farhang Amiri, 63, was murdered outside his home on 26 September 2016 in the city of Yazd, Iran, where he and his family have long resided. A court in Yazd has recently sentenced a man convicted of the public murder of a Baha’i to just eleven years in prison and two years away from home.
The court justified the sentence by stating that according to the Islamic penal code, the accused and the victim are not equal for the general purpose of retributive justice. This astonishing provision clearly and deliberately deprives Baha’is of the legal right to seek justice on equal-footing with the country’s non Baha’i majority.
The murder of Farhang Amiri, a 63-year-old father of four children, occurred in September 2016 in Yazd on the street outside his home in public view. He was brutally stabbed to death by two brothers who immediately admitted to having been motivated by religious hatred. The younger man was sentenced to half of his brother’s sentence for aiding in the murder. The two men confessed to stabbing Farhang Amiri to death with the explicitly stated intention of killing a Baha’i.
These sentences for the killing of an innocent man clearly demonstrate the inherent discrimination and injustice at the heart of Iran’s penal code, which treats its own citizens on an unequal basis because of their religious belief. Such a verdict undermines the Iranian authorities’ claims to equality for all their citizens before the law.
Clearly, the legal system encourages violence against Baha’is, the largest religious minority. We call on Iranians to consider how their society can possibly advance when the legal system, which should dispense justice, manifests such breath-taking inequity.
Rooplall Dudhnath
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