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Last month, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed a bill bringing back the firing squad as a method of execution. The state abandoned firing squads in 2004 but now, it has returned as the backup option - partly because of a shortage of lethal injection drugs, the state's default execution method.

Utah is now the only state in the U.S. that authorizes execution by firing squad.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah says the bill makes the state look "backward and backwoods," while proponents argue the firing squad is more humane, considering the recent botched lethal injection executions in Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona.

What does a modern firing squad execution actually look like? The answer lies in Utah's past - it's the only state to carry out such an execution in the past four decades.

The last time was the execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010.

He was put to death after the state abandoned the firing squad in 2004, but because he had been sentenced before that decision, he was able to opt into the older execution method.

The story begins on April 2, 1985, when Gardner was in court facing a murder charge. During a failed escape attempt in the courthouse, he killed an attorney.

That murder landed him on death row.

"There was a female friend of his that apparently was in on his escape attempt and when he was being escorted through the hallway, she passed him and handed him the weapon," says Sandra Yi, a reporter at KSL in Salt Lake City.

She covered Gardner's execution and remembers hearing the story of his attempted escape 30 years ago.

The weapon was a .22-caliber revolver used to shoot and kill attorney Michael Burdell. Gardner also shot and wounded bailiff George "Nick" Kirk.

"[Kirk] ended up passing before Gardner was executed, but I remember his family saying how much he suffered because of what had happened," Yi says.

While he was on death row, Gardner could choose how he would die, and he chose the firing squad.

"This is the quote he said when he opted for that firing squad. He said, 'I lived by the gun, I murdered by the gun, so I will die by the gun,' " Yi says.

His execution date was set for June 18, 2010, just after midnight.

Marcos Ortiz, a reporter at KTVX in Salt Lake City, was in the viewing room on the other side of a bulletproof window.

"It certainly was some moments there that you really thought long and hard about what you were about to witness," he says.

Then, the curtain opened.

"He was right there, Ronnie Lee Gardner. There he was," Ortiz says. "And you're thinking, 'Boy, this is it - this is going to happen.' "

Yi was also in the viewing room.

"He was shackled, he had his head restrained, but I remember his eyes looking around the room and trying to see who was there," she says. "I know he couldn't see through the windows, but I remember that struck me quite a bit."

"And it was so quiet," Ortiz says. "It was so, so quiet."

"There was a hood placed over him, and a target placed over his heart," Yi says.

"That was where they were going to shoot," Ortiz says. "There were five marksmen: They're all volunteers and they're police officer trained."

Of the five rifles, one is loaded with blanks so that no one knows for sure who fired the bullets.

"And so you're just waiting there," Ortiz says. "And then all of a sudden there was this, 'boom-boom-boom-boom.' "

"It happened pretty quickly. I think a lot of us were not prepared for when it did actually happen," Yi says.

"And then Ronnie Lee Gardner's hands gripping and raising, and then coming back down to rest," Ortiz says. "And that's when the medical examiner walked in and felt his pulse. And I think it was at 12:17 [a.m.] they pronounced him dead."

Gardner was Utah's most recent execution by any method; the state, notes Robert Dunham, executive director at the Death Penalty Information Center, "only rarely executes people."

Today, there are nine inmates on Utah's death row. Three of the inmates, sentenced to death prior to 2004, already chose to die by firing squad.

Under the new law, firing squad isn't available at the prisoner's request; instead, it depends on the availability of lethal injection drugs. The state doesn't currently have any of the drugs on hand.

Just last Wednesday in Utah, Douglas Lovell was sentenced to death for murder. If the drugs aren't available when his execution date is set, then under the new law, he will be put to death by firing squad.

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Utah Brings Back Firing Squad Executions; Witnesses Recall The Last One

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Last month, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed a bill bringing back the firing squad as a method of execution. The state abandoned firing squads in 2004 but now, it has returned as the backup option - partly because of a shortage of lethal injection drugs, the state's default execution method.

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Internet censorship in China - Wikipedia

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Internet censorship in China is extreme due to a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. More than sixty Internet regulations have been created by the government of China, which have been implemented by provincial branches of state-owned ISPs, companies, and organizations.

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A Short History

In October 2006, President George W. Bush said that the United States "doesn't torture, and isn't going to torture." Three and a half years earlier, in March 2003, the Bush administration had secretly tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in a single month.

But critics of the Bush administration who describe torture as unprecedented are also in the wrong. Torture is, sadly, an established part of U.S. history dating back to pre-Revolutionary times. The terms "tarring and feathering" and "run out of town on a rail," for example, both refer to torture methods that were practiced by Anglo-American colonists.

Although 19 people were executed by hanging during the Salem Witch Trials, one victim met a more torturous punishment: 81-year-old Giles Corey, who refused to enter a plea (as this would have placed his estate in the hands of the government rather than his wife and children). In an effort to force him to plea, local officials piled boulders on his chest for two days until he suffocated.

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that defendants have the right to remain silent and may not be forced to testify against themselves, while the Eighth Amendment prohibits the use of cruel and unusual punishment. Neither of these amendments were applied to the states until the twentieth century, and their application at the federal level was, for most of their history, vague at best.

The Narrative of William W. Brown calls national attention to the torture of slaves in the antebellum South. Among the more common methods used were whipping, prolonged restraint, and "smoking," or the prolonged imprisonment of a slave inside a sealed shed with an aromatic burning substance (usually tobacco).

President Theodore Roosevelt defends U.S. military use of water torture against Filipino detainees, arguing that "nobody was seriously damaged."

President Bill Clinton issues Presidential Decision Directive 39 (PDD-39), which authorizes the "extraordinary rendition," or transfer, of non-citizen prisoners to Egypt for interrogation and trial. Egypt is known to practice torture, and statements obtained by torture in Egypt have been put to use by U.S. intelligence agencies. Human rights activists have argued that this is often the whole point of extraordinary rendition--it allows U.S. intelligence agencies to have prisoners tortured without breaking U.S. anti-torture laws.

A CBS News 60 Minutes II report releases images and testimony pertaining to the abuse of prisoners by U.S. military personnel at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility in Baghdad, Iraq. The scandal, documented by graphic photographs, calls attention to the widespread problem of post-9/11 torture.

A BBC Channel 4 documentary, Torture, Inc.: America's Brutal Prisons, reveals widespread torture in U.S. prisons.

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A Short History In October 2006, President George W. Bush said that the United States "doesn't torture, and isn't going to torture." Three and a half years earlier, in March 2003, the Bush administration had secretly tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in a single month.

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A gibbet is any instrument of public execution (including guillotine, executioner's block, impalement stake, hanging gallows, or related scaffold), but gibbeting refers to the use of a gallows-type structure from which the dead or dying bodies of executed criminals were hung on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals.

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The death penalty is a barbaric relic of the past, according to our enlightened age. Is capital punishment for today? . . . Genesis has the answer.

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On July 11, Arifa Bibi, a young mother of two, was stoned to death in Pakistan. Her only "crime" was possessing a cellphone. In response to Bibi's killing, and others like it, a movement is building. More than 10,000 people have signed a petition calling on the UN to eradicate this inhumane punishment. As Arifa's story shows, stoning is as prevalent today as it has ever been. Understanding why and how this practice occurs is crucial to tackling it. Here are the answers to common questions about stoning. You can learn more about the fight to eradicate stoning by visiting Women Living Under Muslim Laws.

1. What is stoning?

Stoning (also known as lapidation) is a form of execution. It is a method by which a group throws stones at a person until they are dead.

2. Surely that doesn't happen anymore? It's 2013...

Stoning still happens today. There are 15 countries in which stoning is either practiced or authorized by law, even if it has never been practiced. In Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria (in one-third of the country's states), Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, stoning is a legal punishment. However, out of these countries, only in Iran, Pakistan and Somalia have stonings actually occurred, and all instances in Pakistan have occurred outside the legal system.

By comparison, three of the remaining five countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Mali) do not condone stoning in national legislation, but sentences and executions have been carried out by non-state actors. In the Aceh region of Indonesia and Malaysia, stoning is sanctioned regionally but banned nationally.

3. Who is stoned to death, and why?

Stoning is used as a punishment for adultery, or zina. It is a method used to control the sexuality and bodies of both men and women, but women are more often the victims. The issue of stoning takes place within the much broader conversation about gender discrimination, women's basic freedoms and culturally-justified violence against women. Simply put, women are more likely to be found guilty of adultery than men - because the hegemonic interpretations of Islamic law, personal status laws, poverty, and illiteracy among women all the likelihood of their conviction, either in a court of law or by the community.

4. Can you give me an example?

Take Aisha's story, for example. In 2008, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, a 13-year-old Somali girl, was buried up to her neck and stoned by 50 men in front of 1,000 people at a stadium in Southern Somalia. Amnesty International reports that her father said she had been raped by three men, but was accused of adultery when she tried to report the rape to the Al-Shabaab militia who controlled the city.

5. So, stoning is religiously justified?

Although Islam and Muslim codes of law are often used to justify the use of stoning as a punishment for adultery, there is actually no reference to stoning in the Koran. Furthermore, there are many prominent clerics and religious scholars who openly oppose the practice of stoning and have called it "Islamically unjustifiable." For example, Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei, a very prominent Shi'a cleric in Iran, issued a fatwa (a religious edict) against the practice of stoning.

6. How has the international community responded to the practice of stoning?

Although there is consensus within the international community that stoning violates a host of UN treaties and international human rights laws - including the fundamental right to freedom from torture - there are no legally binding commitments at the international level with regards to stoning.

7. So, stoning is a brutal form of punishment, that profoundly violates human rights, is still in use today, and there is no international law to condemn it?

Yes, that's exactly right.

8. I had no idea. What can I do about it?

Join the movement. Since 2006, men and women all across the globe have been calling for an end to stoning.

Stoning is already in violation of a host of international human rights treaties, and has been widely condemned as torture by the international community. By raising this issue in this context, we have real opportunity to bring about the legislative change that ends it.

The organization Women Living Under Muslim Laws is gathering signatures to call upon UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the UN high commissioner for human rights to denounce stoning as one of the most brutal forms of violence against women. If the UN speaks out, it could mean the start of substantive legislative change.

Can you sign the petition urging the Ban Ki-moon to bring about an end to stoning?

9. Where can I learn more?

If you would like to know more, you can see a mapping report on stoning which gives a detailed discussion of the points raised here, a comparative analysis of the Iranian and Nigerian cases, and an excellent article discussing why it is important to address the issue of stoning today.

Women Living Under Muslim Laws is an international solidarity network that provides information, support and a collective for discussion space for women whose lives are shaped, conditioned or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam. Over the past 20 years our network has extended to more than 70 countries.

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Women Around the World Are Being Stoned to Death. Do You Know the Facts?

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On July 11, Arifa Bibi, a young mother of two, was stoned to death in Pakistan. Her only "crime" was possessing a cellphone. In response to Bibi's killing, and others like it, a movement is building. More than 10,000 people have signed a petition calling on the UN to eradicate this inhumane punishment.

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Execution of Louis XVI, copperplate engraving, 1793

A public execution is a form of capital punishment which "members of the general public may voluntarily attend." This definition excludes the presence of only a small number of witnesses called upon to assure executive accountability. The purpose of such displays has historically been to deter individuals from defying laws or authorities. Attendance at such events was historically encouraged and sometimes even mandatory.

While today most countries regard public executions with distaste, they have been practiced at some point in history nearly everywhere. At many points in the past, public executions were preferred to executions behind closed doors because of their capacity for deterrence. However, the actual efficacy of this form of terror is disputed. They also allowed the convicted the opportunity to make a final speech, gave the state the chance to display its power in front of those who fell under its jurisdiction, and granted the public what was considered to be a great spectacle. Public executions also permitted the state to project its superiority over political opponents.

The ancient world

The Crucifixion of Jesus, as depicted by James Tissot

Public executions were common in China from at least the Tang Dynasty.

Medieval Islam

There are reports of public executions in early Islam.

Medieval Europe

Documented public executions date back to at least the late medieval period, and peaked in the later sixteenth century. This peak was due in part to the witch trials of the early modern period. In the late Middle Ages, executioners used increasingly brutal methods designed to inflict pain on the victim while still alive and to generate a spectacle in order to deter others from committing crimes. The cruelty of the mode of execution (including the amount victims were tortured before the actual execution) was also more or less extreme depending on the crime itself. Punishments often invoked the "purifying" powers of earth (burial), water (drowning), and fire (burning alive). Victims were also decapitated, quartered, hanged, and beaten. Bodies or body parts were often displayed in public places and authorities took pains to ensure that remains would stay visible for as long as possible.

However, the death penalty was not used in all parts of Europe. Vladimir the Great abolished the death penalty in Kievan Rus' following his conversion to Christianity in 988.

Modern Europe

During the seventeenth century, the use of premortem torture decreased; instead bodies were desecrated after death and for display purposes. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the number of capital punishments in Western Europe had fallen by about 85% from the previous century as the legal system shifted toward one that considered human rights as well as a more rational approach to criminal justice that centered around identifying the best methods for deterrence. However, there were several resurgences throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially during times of social unrest. Executions were condemned by eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers like Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria. Enlightenment thinkers were not universally opposed to public executions-many anatomists found executions useful because they supplied healthy body parts to study and experiment on. People also found postmortem torture (which was typically part of a public execution) disrespectful to the dead and believed that it could prevent the victim from getting into heaven.

Public [ [garroting of 23-year-old Juan Oliva Moncusí es], on 4 January 1879 at the Campo de Guardias in Madrid, for having attempted to assassinate es] the King of Spain Alfonso XII.

The first modern abolition of capital punishment was in Tuscany in 1786.

In Europe, the 19th and early 20th centuries saw a shift away from the spectacle of public capital punishment and toward private executions and the deprivation of liberty (e.g. incarceration, probation, community service, etc.). This coincided with a general tendency to shield all death from public view.

In Great Britain, 1801 saw the last public execution at Tyburn Hill, after which all executions in York took place within the walls of York Castle (but still publicly) so that "the entrance to the town should not be annoyed by dragging criminals through the streets." In London, those sentenced to death at the Old Bailey would remain at Newgate Prison and wait for their sentences to be carried out in the street. As at Tyburn, the crowds who would come to watch continued to be large and unruly. The last public execution in Great Britain occurred in 1868, after which capital punishment was carried out in the privacy of prisons.

In France, authorities continued public executions up until 1939. Executions were made private after a secret film of serial killer Eugen Weidmann's death by guillotine emerged and scandalized the process. Disturbing reports emerged of spectators soaking up Weidmann's blood in rags for souvenirs, and in response President Albert Lebrun banned public executions in France for "promoting baser instincts of human nature."

Nazi Germany utilized public execution by hanging, shooting, and decapitation.

United States

The last public execution in the United States occurred in 1936. As in Europe, the practice of execution was moved to the privacy of chambers. Viewing remains available for those related to the person being executed, victims' families, and sometimes reporters.

Frances Larson wrote in her 2014 book Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found:

"For as long as there were public executions, there were crowds to see them. In London in the early 19th century, there might have been 5,000 to watch a standard hanging, but crowds of up to 100,000 came to see a famous felon killed. The numbers hardly changed over the years. An estimated 20,000 watched Rainey Bethea hang in 1936, in what turned out to be the last public execution in the U.S."

2013 public hanging of the murderer Ali Mohammadzadeh in Iran

Most countries have abolished the death penalty entirely, either in law or in practice.

According to Amnesty International, in 2012 "public executions were known to have been carried out in Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Somalia." Amnesty International does not include Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen in their list of public execution countries, but there have been reports of public executions carried out there by state and non-state actors, such as ISIL. Kuwait has sometimes executed people in public. The prisoners are taken to the gallows and once a senior police officer gives the signed warrant, the prisoners are hanged.

In the US, members of the public can visit the jail where an execution is about to take place.

Amnesty International's Interim Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Rawya Rageh, criticized Kuwait's execution of five individuals, including one for a drug-related offense, as a return to executions with "vigour," urging the establishment of a moratorium on executions towards abolishing the death penalty. The executions were announced on 27 July 2023, after a pause of five years starting from 2017.

References

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A public execution is a form of capital punishment which "members of the general public may voluntarily attend." This definition excludes the presence of only a small number of witnesses called upon to assure executive accountability. The purpose of such displays has historically been to deter individuals from defying laws or authorities.

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Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment where a group throws stones at a person until the subject dies from blunt trauma. It has been attested as a form of punishment for grave misdeeds since ancient times. Its adoption in some legal systems has caused controversy in recent decades.

The Torah and Talmud prescribe stoning as punishment for a number of offenses. Over the centuries, Rabbinic Judaism developed a number of procedural constraints which made these laws practically unenforceable. Although stoning is not mentioned in the Quran, classical Islamic jurisprudence () imposed stoning as a ( sharia-prescribed) punishment for certain forms of (illicit sexual intercourse) on the basis of hadith (sayings and actions attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad). It also developed a number of procedural requirements which made zina virtually impossible to prove in practice.

Stoning appears to have been the standard method of capital punishment in ancient Israel. Its use is attested in the early Christian era, but Jewish courts generally avoided stoning sentences in later times. Only a few isolated instances of legal stoning are recorded in pre-modern history of the Islamic world. Criminal laws of most modern Muslim-majority countries have been derived from Western models. In recent decades several states have inserted stoning and other hudud (pl. of hadd) punishments into their penal codes under the influence of Islamist movements. These laws hold particular importance for religious conservatives due to their scriptural origin, though in practice they have played a largely symbolic role and tended to fall into disuse.

In recent times, stoning has been a legal or customary punishment in the Iran, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Qatar, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, northern Nigeria, Afghanistan, Brunei, and tribal parts of Pakistan, including northwest Kurram Valley and the northwest Khwezai-Baezai region. In some of these countries, including Afghanistan and Iraq, where stoning is not legal, it has been carried out extrajudicially by militants, tribal leaders, and others. In some other countries, including Nigeria and Pakistan, although stoning is a legal form of punishment, it has never been legally carried out. Stoning is condemned by human rights organizations and stoning sentences have sparked international controversies. Punishing adultery with stoning has varying levels of public support in the Muslim world, ranging from 86% of Muslims in Pakistan to 6% of Muslims in Albania and Bosnia.

The Jewish Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) serves as a common religious reference for Judaism. Stoning is the method of execution mentioned most frequently in the Torah. (Murder is not mentioned as an offense punishable by stoning, but it seems that a member of the victim's family was allowed to kill the murderer; see avenger of blood.) The crimes punishable by stoning were the following:

Touching Mount Sinai while God was giving Moses the Ten Commandments, Exodus 19:13

An ox that gores someone to death should be stoned, Exodus 21:28

Breaking Sabbath, Numbers 15:32-36

Giving one's "offspring" "to Molech" Leviticus 20:2-5

Having a "familiar spirit" (or being a necromancer) or being a "wizard", Leviticus 20:27

Attempting to convert people to other faiths, Deuteronomy 13:7-11

Cursing God, Leviticus 24:10-16

Engaging in idolatry, Deuteronomy 17:2-7; or seducing others to do so, Deuteronomy 13:7-12

"Rebellion" against parents Deuteronomy 21:18-21.

Falsely presenting a bride as a virgin, Deuteronomy 22:13-21

Sexual intercourse between a man and a woman engaged to another man in a town, since she did not cry out, Deuteronomy 22:23-24; both parties should be stoned to death.

Forced sexual intercourse between a man and a woman engaged to another man in a field, where no one could hear her cries and save her, Deuteronomy 22:25-27; the man should be stoned.

Sexual intercourse between two men, Leviticus 20:13

Describing the stoning of those who entice others to apostates from Judaism, the Torah states:

If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which [is] as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; [Namely], of the gods of the people which [are] round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the [one] end of the earth even unto the [other] end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

A case noted in the Bible, not falling into any of the above categories, was that of Achan, stoned to death together with his sheep, other livestock and his children for having pillaged valuables from Jericho during Joshua's Conquest of Canaan.

The Talmud describes four methods of execution: stoning, pouring molten lead down the throat of the condemned person, beheading, and strangulation (see Capital and corporal punishment in Judaism). The Mishna gives the following list of persons who should be stoned.

"To the following sinners stoning applies - אלו הן הנסקלין

one who has had relations with his mother - הבא על האם

with his father's wife - ועל אשת האב

with his daughter-in-law - ועל הכלה

a human male with a human male - ועל הזכור

or with cattle - ועל הבהמה

and the same is the case with a woman who uncovers herself before cattle - והאשה המביאה את הבהמה

with a blasphemer - והמגדף

an idolater - והעובד עבודת כוכבים

he who sacrifices one of his children to Molech - והנותן מזרעו למולך

one that occupies himself with familiar spirits - ובעל אוב

a wizard - וידעוני

one who violates Sabbath - והמחלל את השבת

one who curses his father or mother - והמקלל אביו ואמו

one who has assaulted a betrothed damsel - והבא על נערה המאורסה

a seducer who has seduced men to worship idols - והמסית

and the one who misleads a whole town - והמדיח

a witch (male or female) - והמכשף

a stubborn and rebellious son - ובן סורר ומורה"

Prior to early Christianity, particularly in the Mishnah, doubts were growing in Jewish society about the effectiveness of capital punishment in general (and stoning in particular) in acting as a useful deterrent. Subsequently, its use was dissuaded by the central legislators. The Mishnah states:

A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says that this extends to a Sanhedrin that puts a man to death even once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon say: Had we been in the Sanhedrin none would ever have been put to death. Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel says: they would have multiplied shedders of blood in Israel.

In the following centuries the leading Jewish sages imposed so many restrictions on the implementation of capital punishment as to make it de facto illegal. The restrictions were to prevent execution of the innocent, and included many conditions for a testimony to be admissible that were difficult to fulfill.

Philosopher Moses Maimonides wrote, "It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death." He was concerned that the law guard its public perception, to preserve its majesty and retain the people's respect. He saw errors of commission as much more threatening to the integrity of law than errors of omission.

In rabbinic law, capital punishment may be inflicted by only the verdict of a regularly constituted court of twenty-three qualified members. There must be the most trustworthy and convincing testimony of at least two qualified eyewitnesses to the crime, who must also depose that the culprit had been forewarned of the criminality and the consequences of his project. The culprit must be a person of legal age and of sound mind, and the crime must be proved to have been committed of the culprit's free will and without the aid of others.

On the day the verdict is pronounced, the convict is led forth to execution. The Torah law (Leviticus 19:18) prescribes, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"; and the Rabbis maintain that this love must be extended beyond the limits of social intercourse in life, and applied even to the convicted criminal who, "though a sinner, is still thy brother" (Mak. 3:15; Sanh. 44a): "The spirit of love must be manifested by according him a decent death" (Sanh. 45a, 52a). Torah law provides (Deut. 24:16), "The parents shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the parents; every man shall be put to death for his own sins", and rabbinic jurisprudence follows this principle both to the letter and in spirit. A sentence is not attended by confiscation of the convict's goods; the person's possessions descend to their legal heirs.

The Talmud limits the use of the death penalty to Jewish criminals who:

(A) while about to do the crime were warned not to commit the crime while in the presence of two witnesses (and only individuals who meet a strict list of standards are considered acceptable witnesses); and

(B) having been warned, committed the crime in front of the same two witnesses.

In theory, the Talmudic method of how stoning is to be carried out differs from mob stoning. According to the Jewish oral law, after the Jewish criminal has been determined as guilty before the Great Sanhedrin, the two valid witnesses and the sentenced criminal go to the edge of a two-story building. From there the two witnesses are to push the criminal off the roof of a two-story building. The two-story height is chosen as this height is estimated by the Talmud to effect a quick and painless demise but is not so high that the body will become dismembered. After the criminal has fallen, the two witnesses are to drop a large boulder onto the criminal - requiring both of the witnesses to lift the boulder together. If the criminal did not die from the fall or from the crushing of the large boulder, then any people in the surrounding area are to quickly cause him to die by stoning with whatever rocks they can find.

Islamic sharia law is based on the Quran and the hadith as primary sources.

In the extant text of the Quran, the punishment for an unmarried adulterer (Zani) or adultress (Zania) is flogging:

"The woman and the man guilty of fornication/adultery - flog each of them with a hundred stripes: Let not compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if ye believe in Allah and the Last Day: and let a party of the Believers witness their punishment."

"And those who accuse chaste women then do not bring four witnesses, flog them, (giving) eighty stripes, and do not admit any evidence from them ever; and these it is that are the transgressors. Except those who repent after this and act aright, for surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful."

Stoning in the Sunnah mainly follows on the Jewish stoning rules of the Torah. A few hadiths refer to Muhammad ordering the stoning of a married[failed verification ] Jewish man and a married[failed verification ] woman committing an illegal sexual act after consulting the Torah.

Narrated Ibn 'Umar: A Jew and Jewess were brought to the Prophet on a charge of committing an illegal sexual intercourse. The Prophet asked the Jews, "What do you (usually) do with them?" They said, "We blacken their faces and disgrace them." He said, "Bring here the Torah and recite it, if you are truthful." They (fetched it and) came and asked a one-eyed man to recite. He went on reciting till he reached a portion on which he put his hand. The Prophet said, "Lift up your hand!" He lifted his hand up and behold, there appeared the verse of Ar-Rajm (stoning of the adulterers to death). Then he said, "O Muhammad! They should be stoned to death but we conceal this Divine Law among ourselves." Then the Prophet ordered that the two sinners be stoned to death and, and they were stoned to death, and I saw the man protecting the woman from the stones.

- Volume 9, Book 93, Number 633: (See Hadith No. 809, Vol. 8)

Narrated by 'Abdullah bin 'Umar:The Jews came to Allah's Apostle and told him that a man and a woman from amongst them had committed illegal sexual intercourse. Allah's Apostle said to them, "What do you find in the Torah (old Testament) about the legal punishment of Ar-Rajm (stoning)?" They replied, (But) we announce their crime and lash them." Abdullah bin Salam said, "You are telling a lie; Torah contains the order of Rajm." They brought and opened the Torah and one of them solaced his hand on the Verse of Rajm and read the verses preceding and following it. Abdullah bin Salam said to him, "Lift your hand." When he lifted his hand, the Verse of Rajm was written there. They said, "Muhammad has told the truth; the Torah has the Verse of Rajm. The Prophet then gave the order that both of them should be stoned to death. ('Abdullah bin 'Umar said, "I saw the man leaning over the woman to shelter her from the stones."

In a few others, a Bedouin man is lashed, while a Jewish woman is stoned to death, for having sex outside marriage.

Stoning is described as punishment in multiple hadiths. Shia and Sunni hadith collections differ because scholars from the two traditions differ as to the reliability of the narrators and transmitters and the Imamah. Shi'a sayings related to stoning can be found in Kitab al-Kafi, and Sunni sayings related to stoning can be found in the Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. Based on these hadiths, in some Muslim countries, married adulterers are sentenced to death, while consensual sex between unmarried people results in 100 lashes.

Hadiths describe stoning as punishment under sharia. In others stoning is prescribed as punishment for illegal sex between man and woman, illegal sex by a slave girl, as well as anyone involved in any homosexual relations. In some sunnah, the method of stoning, by first digging a pit and partly burying the person's lower half in it, is described.

Narrated by Abu Huraira and Zaid bin Khalid Al-Juhani: A bedouin came to Allah's Apostle and said, "O Allah's apostle! I ask you by Allah to judge My case according to Allah's Laws." His opponent, who was more learned than he, said, "Yes, judge between us according to Allah's Laws, and allow me to speak." Allah's Apostle said, "Speak." He (i .e. the bedouin or the other man) said, "My son was working as a laborer for this (man) and he committed illegal sexual intercourse with his wife. The people told me that it was obligatory that my son should be stoned to death, so in lieu of that I ransomed my son by paying one hundred sheep and a slave girl. Then I asked the religious scholars about it, and they informed me that my son must be lashed one hundred lashes, and be exiled for one year, and the wife of this (man) must be stoned to death." Allah's Apostle said, "By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, I will judge between you according to Allah's Laws. The slave-girl and the sheep are to be returned to you, your son is to receive a hundred lashes and be exiled for one year. You, Unais, go to the wife of this (man) and if she confesses her guilt, stone her to death." Unais went to that woman next morning and she confessed. Allah's Apostle ordered that she be stoned to death.

Narrated by Ash-Shaibani: I asked 'Abdullah bin Abi 'Aufa about the Rajam (stoning somebody to death for committing illegal sexual intercourse). He replied, "The Prophet carried out the penalty of Rajam," I asked, "Was that before or after the revelation of Surat-an-Nur?" He replied, "I do not know."

Aisha reported: Abd b. Zam'a said Messenger of Allah, he is my brother as he was born on the bed of my father from his slave-girl. Allah's Messenger looked at his resemblance and found a clear resemblance with 'Utba. (But) he said: He is yours 'Abd (b. Zam'a), for the child is to be attributed to one on whose bed it is born, and stoning for a fornicator.

Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh)

Stoning (Arabic: رجم Rajm, sometimes spelled as Rajam) has been extensively discussed in the texts of early, medieval and modern era Islamic jurisprudence ( fiqh).

According to traditional jurisprudence, zina can include adultery (of married parties), fornication (of unmarried parties), prostitution, bestiality, and rape. Classification of homosexual intercourse as zina differs according to legal school. Although stoning for zina is not mentioned in the Quran, all schools of traditional jurisprudence agreed on the basis of hadith that it is to be punished by stoning if the offender is muhsan (adult, free, Muslim, and having been married), with some extending this punishment to certain other cases and milder punishment prescribed in other scenarios. The offenders must have acted of their own free will. According to traditional jurisprudence, zina must be proved by testimony of four eyewitnesses to the actual act of penetration, or a confession repeated four times and not retracted later. The Maliki legal school also allows an unmarried woman's pregnancy to be used as evidence, but the punishment can be averted by a number of legal "semblances" ( shubuhat), such as existence of an invalid marriage contract. These requirements made zina virtually impossible to prove in practice. Rape was traditionally prosecuted under different legal categories which used normal evidentiary rules. Making an accusation of zina without presenting the required eyewitnesses is called qadhf (القذف), which is itself a hadd crime liable to a punishment of 80 lashes and to be unacceptable as witnesses unless they repent and reform.

According to the Islamic concept of Li'an, the testimony of a man who accuses his own wife without any other witnesses may be accepted if he swears by God four times that he is telling the truth with a fifth oath to incur God's condemnation if they be lying. In this case, if his wife counter swears, no punishment will be enforced.

One of the widely followed Islamic legal commentaries, by Malik ibn Anas, state that contested pregnancy is sufficient proof of adultery and the woman must be stoned to death.

Hanafi jurists have held that the accused must be a muhsan at the time of religiously disallowed sex, to be punished by Rajm (stoning). A Muhsan is an adult, free, Muslim who has previously enjoyed legitimate sexual relations in matrimony, regardless of whether the marriage still exists. In other words, stoning does not apply to someone who was never married in his or her life (only lashing in public is the mandatory punishment in such cases).

For evidence, Hanafi fiqh accepts the following: self-confession, or testimony of four male witnesses (female witness is not acceptable). Hanafi Islamic law literature specifies two types of stoning. One, when the punishment is based on bayyina, or concrete evidence (four male witnesses). In this case the person is bound, a pit dug, the bound person placed and partially buried inside the pit so that he or she may not escape, thereafter the public stoning punishment is executed. A woman sentenced to stoning must be partially buried up to her chest. The first stones are thrown by the witnesses and the accuser, thereafter the Muslim community present, stated Abū Ḥanīfa and other Hanafi scholars. In second type of stoning, when the punishment is based on self-confession, the stoning is to be performed without digging a pit or partially burying the person. In this case, the qadi (judge) should throw the first stone before other Muslims join in. Further, if the person flees, the person is allowed to leave.

Hanafi scholars specify the stone size to be used for Rajm, to be the size of one's hand. It should not be too large to cause death too quickly, nor too small to extend only pain.

Hanafis have traditionally held that the witnesses should throw the first stones in case the conviction was brought about by witnesses, and the qadi must throw the first stones in case the conviction was brought about by a confession.

Hanbali jurist Ibn Qudamah states, "Muslim jurists are unanimous on the fact that stoning to death is a specified punishment for the married adulterer and adulteress. The punishment is recorded in number of traditions and the practice of Muhammad stands as an authentic source supporting it. This is the view held by all Companions, Successors and other Muslim scholars with the exception of Kharijites."

Hanbali Islamic law sentences all forms of consensual but religiously illegal sex as punishable with Rajm.

Maliki school of jurisprudence ( fiqh) holds that stoning is the required punishment for illegal sex by a married or widowed person, as well as for any form of homosexual relations among men. Malik ibn Anas, founder of the Maliki fiqh, considered pregnancy in an unmarried woman as a conclusive proof of zina. He also stated that contested pregnancy is also sufficient proof of adultery and any Muslim woman who is pregnant by a man who she is not married to, at the time of getting pregnant, must be stoned to death. Later Maliki Muslim scholars admitted the concept of "sleeping embryo", where a divorced woman could escape the stoning punishment, if she remained unmarried and became pregnant anytime within five years of her divorce, and it was assumed that she was impregnated by her previous husband but the embryo remained dormant for five years.

Stoning is attested in the Near East since ancient times as a form of capital punishment for grave sins. Stoning was "presumably" the standard form of capital punishment in ancient Israel. It is attested in the Old Testament as a punishment for blasphemy, idolatry and other crimes, in which the entire community pelted the offender with stones outside a city. The death of Stephen, as reported in the New Testament (Acts 7:58) was also organized in this way. Paul was stoned and left for dead in Lystra (Acts 14:19). Josephus and Eusebius report that Pharisees stoned James, brother of Jesus, after hurling him from the pinnacle of the Temple shortly before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Historians disagree as to whether Roman authorities allowed Jewish communities to apply capital punishment to those who broke religious laws, or whether these episodes represented a form of lynching. During the Late Antiquity, the tendency of not applying the death penalty at all became predominant in Jewish courts. Where medieval Jewish courts had the power to pass and execute death sentences, they continued to do so for particularly grave offenses, although not necessarily the ones defined by the law, and they generally refrained from use of stoning.

Aside from "a few rare and isolated" instances from the pre-modern era and several recent cases, there is no historical record of stoning for zina being legally carried out in the Islamic world. In the modern era, sharia-based criminal laws have been widely replaced by statutes inspired by European models. However, the Islamic revival of the late 20th century brought along the emergence of Islamist movements calling for full implementation of sharia, including reinstatement of stoning and other punishments. A number of factors have contributed to the rise of these movements, including the failure of authoritarian secular regimes to meet the expectations of their citizens, and a desire of Muslim populations to return to more culturally authentic forms of socio-political organization in the face of a perceived cultural invasion from the West. Supporters of sharia-based legal reforms felt that "Western law" had its chance to bring development and justice, and hoped that a return to Islamic law would produce better results. They also hoped that introduction of harsh penalties would put an end to crime and social problems.

In practice, Islamization campaigns have focused on a few highly visible issues associated with the conservative Muslim identity, particularly women's hijab and the hudud criminal punishments (whipping, stoning and amputation) prescribed for certain crimes. For many Islamists, hudud punishments are at the core of the divine sharia because they are specified by the letter of scripture rather than by human interpreters. Modern Islamists have often rejected, at least in theory, the stringent procedural constraints developed by classical jurists to restrict their application. Several countries, including Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, and some Nigerian states have incorporated hudud rules into their criminal justice systems, which, however, retained fundamental influences of earlier Westernizing reforms. In practice, these changes were largely symbolic, and aside from some cases brought to trial to demonstrate that the new rules were being enforced, hudud punishments tended to fall into disuse, sometimes to be revived depending on the local political climate. The supreme courts of Sudan and Iran have rarely approved verdicts of stoning or amputation, and the supreme courts of Pakistan and Nigeria have never done so.

Unlike other countries, where stoning was introduced into state law as part of recent reforms, Saudi Arabia has never adopted a criminal code and Saudi judges still follow traditional Hanbali jurisprudence. Death sentences in Saudi Arabia are pronounced almost exclusively based on the system of judicial sentencing discretion () rather than sharia-prescribed ( hudud) punishments, following the classical principle that hudud penalties should be avoided if possible.

As of September 2010, stoning is a punishment that is included in the laws in some countries including Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Yemen and some predominantly Muslim states in northern Nigeria as punishment for Zina ("adultery by married persons").

Stoning is illegal in Afghanistan, but is sometimes carried out by tribal leaders and Taliban insurgents extrajudicially in certain parts of the country. Before the Taliban government, most areas of Afghanistan, aside from the capital, Kabul, were controlled by warlords or tribal leaders. The Afghan legal system depended highly on an individual community's local culture and the political or religious ideology of its leaders. Stoning also occurred in lawless areas, where vigilantes committed the act for political purposes. Once the Taliban took over, it became a form of punishment for certain serious crimes or adultery. After the fall of the Taliban government, the Karzai administration re-enforced the 1976 penal code which made no provision for the use of stoning as a punishment. In 2013, the Ministry of Justice proposed public stoning as punishment for adultery. However, the government had to back down from the proposal after it was leaked and triggered international outcry. While stoning is officially banned in Afghanistan, it has continued to be reported occasionally as a crime.

Beginning on 3 April 2019, any Muslim individuals found guilty of gay sex and adultery will be stoned to death, according to a new penal code announced by Brunei. The punishment will be "witnessed by a group of Muslims." Brunei has become the first Southeast Asian country which officially adopts public stoning as a judicial form of punishment.

On 5 May, the Sultan of Brunei confirmed that the de facto moratorium (a delay or suspension of an activity or a law) on the death penalty will apply to the Sharia Penal Code and committed Brunei to ratifying the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT).

On 14 September 2009, the outgoing Aceh Legislative Council passed a bylaw that called for the stoning of married adulterers. However, then governor Irwandi Yusuf refused to sign the bylaw, thereby keeping it a law without legal force and, in some views, therefore still a law draft, rather than actual law. In March 2013, the Aceh government removed the stoning provision from its own draft of a new criminal code.

The Iranian judiciary officially placed a moratorium on stoning in 2002; however, in 2007, the Iranian judiciary confirmed that a man who had been convicted of adultery 10 years earlier, was stoned to death in Qazvin province. In 2008, the judiciary tried to eliminate the punishment from the books in legislation submitted to parliament for approval. In 2009, two people were stoned to death in Mashhad, Razavi Khorasan Province as punishment for the crime of adultery. The amended penal code, adopted in 2013, no longer contains explicit language prescribing stoning as punishment for adultery. According to legal experts, while an explicit prescription of stoning as punishment for adultery has been removed from Iran's new penal code, stoning remains a possible form of punishment, since the penal code still lists it, without specifying when it should be used, and allows punishment to be based on (traditional Islamic jurisprudence), which includes provisions for stoning. In 2013 the spokesman for the Iranian Parliament's Justice Commission confirmed that while the Penal Code no longer prescribes stoning, it remains a valid punishment under sharia, which is enforceable under the Penal Code. The most known case in Iran was the stoning of Soraya Manutchehri in 1986.

Article 102 - An adulterous man shall be buried in a ditch up to near his waist and an adulterous woman up to near her chest and then stoned to death.

Article 103 - In case the person sentenced to stoning escapes the ditch in which they are buried, then if the adultery is proven by testimony then they will be returned for the punishment but if it is proven by their own confession then they will not be returned.

Article 104 - The size of the stone used in stoning shall not be too large to kill the convict by one or two throws and at the same time shall not be too small to be called a stone.

Depending upon the details of the case, the stoning may be initiated by the judge overseeing the matter or by one of the original witnesses to the adultery. Certain religious procedures may also need to be followed both before and after the implementation of a stoning execution, such as wrapping the person being stoned in traditional burial dress before the procedure.

The method of stoning set out in the 2008 code was similar to that in a 1999 version of Iran's penal code. Iran revised its penal code in 2013. The new code does not include the above passages, but does include stoning as a hadd punishment. For example, Book I, Part III, Chapter 5, Article 132 of the new Islamic Penal Code (IPC) of 2013 in the Islamic Republic of Iran states, "If a man and a woman commit zina together more than one time, if the death penalty and flogging or stoning and flogging are imposed, only the death penalty or stoning, whichever is applicable, shall be executed". Book 2, Part II, Chapter 1, Article 225 of the Iran's IPC released in 2013 states, "the hadd punishment for zina of a man and a woman who meet the conditions of ihsan shall be stoning to death".

In 2007, Du'a Khalil Aswad, a Yazidi girl, was stoned by her fellow tribesmen in northern Iraq for dating a Muslim boy.

An Iraqi man was stoned to death by IS, in August 2014, in the northern city of Mosul after one Sunni Islamic court sentenced him to die for the crime of adultery.

Since the sharia legal system was introduced in the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria in 2000, more than a dozen Nigerian Muslims have been sentenced to death by stoning for sexual offences ranging from adultery to homosexuality. However, none of these sentences has actually been carried out. They have either been thrown out on appeal, commuted to prison terms or left unenforced, in part as a result of pressure from human rights groups.

As part of Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization measures, stoning to death () at a public place was introduced into law via the 1979 Hudood Ordinances as punishment for adultery ( zina) and rape ( zina-bil-jabr) when committed by a married person. However, stoning has never been officially utilized since the law came into effect and all judicial executions occur by hanging. The first conviction and sentence of stoning (of Fehmida and Allah-Bakhsh) in September 1981 was overturned under national and international pressure. A conviction for adultery of Safia Bibi, a 13-year-old blind girl who alleged that she was raped by her employer and his son, was reversed and the conviction was set aside on appeal after bitter public criticism. Another conviction for adultery and sentence of stoning (of Shahida Parveen and Muhammad Sarwar) in early 1988 sparked outrage and led to a retrial and acquittal by the Federal Sharia Court. In this case the trial court took the view that notice of divorce by Shahida's former husband, Khushi Muhammad, should have been given to the Chairman of the local council, as stipulated under Section-7(3) of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961. This section states that any man who divorces his wife must register it with the Union Council. Otherwise, the court concluded that the divorce stood invalidated and the couple became liable to conviction under the Adultery ordinance. In 2006, the ordinances providing for stoning in the case of adultery or rape were legislatively demoted from overriding status.

Extrajudicial stonings in Pakistan have been known to happen in recent times. In March 2013, Pakistani soldier Anwar Din, stationed in Parachinar, was publicly stoned to death for allegedly having a love affair with a girl from a village in the country's north western Kurram Agency. On 11 July 2013, Arifa Bibi, a young mother of two, was sentenced by a tribal court in Dera Ghazi Khan District, in Punjab, to be stoned to death for possessing a cell phone. Members of her family were ordered to execute her sentence and her body was buried in the desert far away from her village.

In February 2014, a couple in a remote area of Baluchistan province was stoned to death after being accused of an adulterous relationship. On 27 May 2014, Farzana Parveen, a 25-year-old married woman who was three months pregnant, was killed by being attacked with batons and bricks by nearly 20 members of her family outside the high court of Lahore in front of "a crowd of onlookers" according to a statement by a police investigator. The assailants, who allegedly included her father and brothers, attacked Farzana and her husband Mohammad Iqbal with batons and bricks. Her father Mohammad Azeem, who was arrested for murder, reportedly called the murder an "honor killing" and said "I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent." The man whose second wife Farzana had become, Iqbal, told a news agency that he had strangled his previous wife in order to marry Farzana, and police said that he had been released for killing his first wife because a "compromise" had been reached with his family.

Legal stoning sentences have been reported in Saudi Arabia. There were four cases of execution by stoning reported between 1981 and 1992.

In May 2012, a Sudanese court convicted Intisar Sharif Abdallah of adultery and sentenced her to death; the charges were appealed and dropped two months later. In July 2012, a criminal court in Khartoum, Sudan, sentenced 23-year-old Layla Ibrahim Issa Jumul to death by stoning for adultery. Amnesty International reported that she was denied legal counsel during the trial and was convicted only on the basis of her confession. The organization designated her a prisoner of conscience, "held in detention solely for consensual sexual relations", and lobbied for her release. In September, Article 126 of the 1991 Sudan Criminal Law, which provided for death by stoning for apostasy, was amended to provide for death by hanging.[citation needed ]

In October 2008, a girl, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, was buried up to her neck at a Somalian football stadium, then stoned to death in front of more than 1,000 people. The stoning occurred after she had allegedly pleaded guilty to adultery in a sharia court in Kismayo, a city that was controlled by Islamist insurgents. According to the insurgents she had stated that she wanted sharia law to apply. However, other sources state that the victim had been crying, had begged for mercy and had to be forced into the hole before being buried up to her neck in the ground. Amnesty International later learned that the girl was in fact 13 years old and had been arrested by al-Shabab militia after she had reported being gang-raped by three men.

In September 2014, Somali al Shabaab militants stoned a woman to death, after she was declared guilty of adultery by an informal court.

Stoning is a legal form of judicial punishment in UAE. In 2006, an expatriate was sentenced to death by stoning for committing adultery. Between 2009 and 2013, several people were sentenced to death by stoning. In May 2014, an Asian housemaid was sentenced to death by stoning in Abu Dhabi.

Several adultery executions by stoning committed by IS have been reported in the autumn of 2014. The Islamic State's magazine, Dabiq, documented the stoning of a woman in Raqqa as a punishment for adultery.[citation needed ]

In October 2014, IS released a video appearing to show a Syrian man stone his daughter to death for alleged adultery.

The late American Calvinist and Christian Reconstructionist cleric Rousas John (R. J.) Rushdoony, his son Mark and his son-in-law Gary North, supported the reinstatement of the Mosaic law's penal sanctions. Under such a system, the list of civil crimes which carried a death sentence by stoning would include homosexuality, adultery, incest, lying about one's virginity, bestiality, witchcraft, idolatry or apostasy, public blasphemy, false prophesying, kidnapping, rape, and bearing false witness in a capital case.

A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2013 found varying support in the global Muslim population for stoning as a punishment for adultery (sex between people where at least one person is married; when both participants are unmarried they get 100 lashes). Highest support for stoning is found in Muslims of the Middle East-North Africa region and South-Asian countries while generally less support is found in Muslims living in the Mediterranean and Central Asian countries. Support is consistently higher in Muslims who want Sharia to be the law of the land than in Muslims who do not want Sharia. Support for stoning in various countries is as follows:

South Asia:

Pakistan (86% in all Muslims, 89% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Afghanistan (84% in all Muslims, 85% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Bangladesh (54% in all Muslims, 55% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land)

Middle East-North Africa:

Palestinian territories (81% in all Muslims, 84% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Egypt (80% in all Muslims, 81% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Jordan (65% in all Muslims, 67% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Iraq (57% in all Muslims, 58% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land)

Southeast Asia:

Malaysia (54% in all Muslims, 60% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Indonesia (42% in all Muslims, 48% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Thailand (44% in all Muslims, 51% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land)

Sub-Saharan Africa:

Central Asia:

Kyrgyzstan (26% in all Muslims, 39% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Tajikistan (25% in all Muslims, 51% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Azerbaijan (16%), Turkey (9% in all Muslims, 29% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land)

Southern and Eastern Europe:

Russia (13% in all Muslims, 26% in Muslims who say sharia should be the law of the land), Kosovo (9% in all Muslims, 25% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Albania (6% in all Muslims, 25% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Bosnia (6% in all Muslims, 21% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land)

Places where substantial numbers of Muslims did not answer the survey's question or are undecided about whether they support stoning for adultery include Malaysia (19% of all Muslims), Kosovo (18%), Iraq (14%), Democratic Republic of the Congo (12%) and Tajikistan (10%).

Stoning has been condemned by several human rights organizations. Some groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, oppose all capital punishment, including stoning. Other groups, such as RAWA ( Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan), or the International Committee against Stoning (ICAS), oppose stoning per se as an especially cruel practice.

In Iran, the Stop Stoning Forever Campaign was formed by various women's rights activists after a man and a woman were stoned to death in Mashhad in May 2006. The campaign's main goal is to legally abolish stoning as a form of punishment for adultery in Iran.

Stoning is condemned by human rights groups as a form of cruel and unusual punishment and torture, and a serious violation of human rights.

Women's rights

Stoning has been condemned as a violation of women's rights and a form of discrimination against women. Although stoning is also applied to men, the vast majority of the victims are reported to be women. According to the international group Women Living Under Muslim Laws stoning "is one of the most brutal forms of violence perpetrated against women in order to control and punish their sexuality and basic freedoms".

Stoning also targets homosexuals and others who have same-sex relations in certain jurisdictions. In Mauritania, northern Nigeria, Somalia, Brunei, and Yemen, the legal punishment for sodomy is death by stoning.

Human rights organizations argue that many acts targeted by stoning should not be illegal in the first place, as outlawing them interferes with people's right to a private life. Amnesty International said that stoning deals with "acts which should never be criminalized in the first place, including consensual sexual relations between adults, and choosing one's religion".

Palamedes of Greek mythology, according to some sources stoned to death as a traitor.

Pancras of Taormina, about AD 40

James the Just, in AD 62, after being condemned by the Sanhedrin

Possibly Saint Timothy (by Hellenistic pagans), after AD 67

Chase (son of Ioube), Muslim Byzantine official of Arab origin, stoned in 915 at Athens

Saint Eskil, Anglo-Saxon monk stoned to death by Swedish Vikings, about 1080

Moctezuma II, 1520, last Aztec Emperor (according to Western accounts; whereas, according to Aztec accounts, the Spanish killed him)

Xenophon mentions in his Anabasis, 4th century BCE, that several people are accused and suggested stoned, but averted, including Xenophon himself

Soraya Manutchehri, 1986, stoned to death in Iran after unconfirmed accusations of adultery

Mahboubeh M. and Abbas H., at Behest-e Zahra cemetery, southern Teheran, Iran, 2006. The public was not invited to the stoning, and the incident was not reported to the media. However it was spread by word of mouth to a journalist and women's rights activist. The activist gathered information and further exposed the happening to the world. In response to this, several women's rights activists, lawyers and members of the Networks of Volunteers went on to form the Stop Stoning Forever campaign to stop stoning in Iran.

Du'a Khalil Aswad, 2007, a 17-year-old stoned to death in Iraq

Solange Medina, 2009, a 20-year-old stoned to death in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico

Gustavo Santoro, 2010, a small town mayor in Mexico believed to have been murdered by stoning

Murray Seidman, 2011, a 70-year-old senior in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, stoned to death by 28-year-old John Thomas after allegedly making sexual advances towards the younger man. Thomas' defence is that he did it because the Old Testament says to kill homosexuals in certain situations. Thomas pled guilty and was sentenced to 20-40 years imprisonment.

Amina Lawal was sentenced to death by stoning in Nigeria in 2002 but freed on appeal.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was sentenced to death by stoning in Iran in 2007, but the sentence is under review.

Safiya Husseini was sentenced to death by stoning in Nigeria but freed on appeal.

Shaheen Abdel Rahman in Fujeirah, United Arab Emirates in 2006

In the Tanakh ( Old Testament):

In the New Testament:

In the Talmud

In the Tanakh and Old Testament:

In the New Testament:

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" depicts an annual lottery in which one member of a small, isolated American community is ritually stoned to death as a sacrifice. It explores themes of scapegoating, man's inherent evil and the destructive nature of observing ancient, outdated rituals. The music video for "Man That You Fear" by Marilyn Manson is based on the story.

Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land reaches its climax with a stoning execution.

Freidoune Sahebjam's 1990 book La Femme Lapidée is based on the story of a woman who was stoned to death in Iran in 1986. The book was the basis of the 2008 film, The Stoning of Soraya M..

Simon Perry's All Who Came Before climaxes with a stoning as Barabbas enters Jerusalem.

Princess: A true story of life behind the veil in Saudi Arabia by Jean Sasson describes a girl sentenced to death by stoning.

In the 2003 novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, a couple are stoned to death at a soccer stadium in Afghanistan.

In the 2008 novel "The Dark Forest" by Liu Cixin, Wallfacer Rey Diaz was stoned to death by his own people for putting the entire world in danger.

A Stoning in Fulham County, 1988 - A made-for-TV movie surrounding the vigilante stoning in an American Amish community.

Monty Python's Life of Brian presents a Jesus of Nazareth-era stoning in a humorous context, ending with a massive boulder being dropped on the Jewish official, not the victim. The film mentions that women are not allowed at stonings, yet almost all of the stone-throwers turn out to be women disguised as men.

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" was made into a short (20 minute) film by Larry Yust in 1969 as part of an educational release for Encyclopædia Britannica's "Short Story Showcase".

The film The Kite Runner depicts the stoning of an adulteress by the Taliban in a public stadium during a football match.

The film Mission Istanbul depicts the stoning of an adulteress in Kabul, by the fictional terrorist group Abu Nazir until it is interrupted by the protagonist Vikas Sagar.

The Stoning of Soraya M., a 2008 film

Zorba The Greek, a 1946 novel by Nikos Kazantzakis and 1964 movie with Anthony Quinn, has a grim stoning scene where the woman is rescued only to be stabbed at the scene.

(2003) by director Siddiq Barmak depicts a woman being buried in preparation for stoning.

In one CSI: Miami 2011 episode a female college bully is murdered by lapidation.

In Lady Gaga's music video for her song Judas, a scene depicts Gaga being stoned to death.

Although Islamic law prescribes stoning for married adulterers, the television series Sleeper Cell, about an underground radical Islamist group, depicts a scene where a member is stoned for treason.

In Spartacus: War of the Damned (2010-13), Season 3, Episode 2, a slave is stoned by the Roman public.

In Timbuktu (2014), a film about Islamist insurgents in Timbuktu, Mali, a man and woman are depicted buried up to the neck and stoned to death.

Individuals

1. ^ Tamkin, Emily (March 28, 2019). "Brunei makes gay sex and adultery punishable by death by stoning". Washington Post.

2. "Capital Punishment". JewishEncyclopedia.com.

3. ^ Louis Isaac Rabinowitz (2008). "Capital Punishment. In Practice in the Talmud". Encyclopedia Judaica. The Gale Group. Similarly, the passage in Mishnah Makkot 1:10: "A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called a murderous one. R. Eleazar ben Azariah says, 'Or even once in 70 years.' R. Tarfon and R. Akiva said, 'If we had been in the Sanhedrin, no death sentence would ever have been passed'; Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel said: 'If so, they would have multiplied murderers in Israel.'

4. ^ Menachem Elon (2008). "Capital Punishment. In the State of Israel". Encyclopedia Judaica. The Gale Group. This refers to the statement in the Mishnah (Mak. 1:10; Mak. 7a) that a Sanhedrin that kills (gives the death penalty) once in seven years (R. Eleazer b. Azariah said: once in 70 years) is called "bloody" (ḥovlanit, the term "ḥovel" generally implying a type of injury in which there is blood).

5. ^ Moses Maimonides, Sefer Hamitzvot, Negative Commandment no. 290.

6. Moses Maimonides, ^ The Commandments, Neg. Comm. 290, at 269-71 (Charles B. Chavel trans., 1967).

7. ^ Dmitry V. Frolov (2006). "Stoning". In Jane Dammen McAuliffe (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. 5. Brill. p. 130.

8. ^ Hadith Muslim 17:4192. Also, see the following: Bukhari 6:60:79, Bukhari 83:37, Muslim 17:4196, Muslim 17:4206, Muslim 17:4209, Ibn Ishaq 970.

9. ^ Nisrine Abiad (2008), Sharia, Muslim States and International Human Rights Treaty Obligations, British Institute of International and Comparative Law, ISBN 978-1905221417, pp. 24-25

10. OU Kalu (2003), Safiyya and Adamah: Punishing adultery with sharia stones in twenty‐first‐century Nigeria, African Affairs, 102(408), pp. 389-408

11. ^ KB Khan (2014), Versions and Subversions of Islamic Cultures in the Film The Stoning of Soraya, Journal of Literary Studies, 30(3), pp. 149-167

12. ^ Ismail Poonwala (2004), The Pillars of Islam: Laws pertaining to human intercourse, Oxford University Press, Oxford University Press, pp. 448-457

13. Semerdjian, Elyse (2009). . In John L. Esposito (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195305135.

14. Peters, R. (2012). "Zinā or Zināʾ". In P. Bearman; Th. Bianquis; C.E. Bosworth; E. van Donzel; W.P. Heinrichs (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.). Brill. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_8168.

15. ^ Quraishi, A. (1999). "Her honour: an Islamic critique of the rape provisions in Pakistan's ordinance on zina". Islamic Studies. 38 (3): 403-431. JSTOR 20837050.

16. ^ Peters, Rudolph (2006). Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: : Theory and Practice from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press. p. 63. ISBN 978-0521796705.

17. Joseph Schacht, ^ An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), pp. 178-181

18. ^ Quran 24:6-9, Quote - "And for those who launch a charge against their spouses, and have (in support) no evidence but their own― their solitary evidence (can be received) if they bear witness four times (with an oath) by Allah that they are solemnly telling the truth; And the fifth (oath) (should be) that they solemnly invoke the curse of Allah on themselves if they tell a lie. But it would avert the punishment from the wife, if she bears witness four times (with an oath) by Allah, that (her husband) is telling a lie; And the fifth (oath) should be that she solemnly invokes the wrath of Allah on herself if (her accuser) is telling the truth. "

19. Elyse Semerdjian (2008), "Off the Straight Path": Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo, Syracuse University Press, ISBN 978-0815631736, pp. 22-23

20. Elyse Semerdjian (2008), "Off the Straight Path": Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo, Syracuse University Press, ISBN 978-0815631736, pp. 23-25

21. ^ McGarvey, Kathleen (2009). Muslim and Christian women in dialogue : the case of northern Nigeria. Oxford New York: Peter Lang. pp. 203-204. ISBN 978-3-03911-417-7.

22. ^ Frolov, Dmitry V. (2006). "Stoning". In Jane Dammen McAuliffe (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. Brill. doi:10.1163/1875-3922_q3_EQSIM_00404.

23. Haim Hermann Cohn (2008). "Capital Punishment. In the Bible & Talmudic Law". Encyclopedia Judaica. The Gale Group.

24. W. R. F. Browning, ed. (2010). . A Dictionary of the Bible (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

25. ^ Glen Warren Bowersock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar (1999). Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World. Harvard University Press. p. 400. ISBN 9780674511736.

26. Vikør, Knut S. (2014). "Sharīʿah". In Emad El-Din Shahin (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on June 4, 2014.

27. ^ Otto, Jan Michiel (2008). Sharia and National Law in Muslim Countries: Tensions and Opportunities for Dutch and EU Foreign Policy (PDF). Amsterdam University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-9087280482.

28. Mayer, Ann Elizabeth (2009). "Law. Modern Legal Reform". In John L. Esposito (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

29. Stewart, Devin J. (2013). "Shari'a". In Gerhard Böwering, Patricia Crone (ed.). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton University Press. pp. 503-504.

30. ^ Lapidus, Ira M. (2014). A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge University Press (Kindle edition). p. 835. ISBN 978-0-521-51430-9.

31. ^ Otto, Jan Michiel (2008). Sharia and National Law in Muslim Countries: Tensions and Opportunities for Dutch and EU Foreign Policy (PDF). Amsterdam University Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-9087280482.

32. ^ "Afghanistan - Stoning of Women". Women's UN Report Network. 8 March 2013. Archived from the original on 2015-12-08. Almost every stoning incident has taken place outside the formal legal system of Afghanistan. Tribal leaders create local courts called jirgas and decide on accusations of adultery and stone a woman to death. The man with whom the woman is accused of adultery usually goes unpunished from such a tribal court because he is often given refuge by armed groups or is given the opportunity to flee from the village.

33. "Afghan woman accused of adultery stoned to death in video posted online". The Independent. 4 November 2015. Archived from the original on 2015-12-07. According to Tolo News Agency, Police Chief General Mustafa said: "The Taliban ordered stoning of the girl after she was caught eloping with a man on the mountains. Police has started investigations and will arrest the perpetrators soon." But Wazhma Frogh, co-founder of the Research Institute for Women, Peace and Security, said the attackers could have been tribal leaders as local officials were known to blame Taliban insurgents "to cover up their own kind". She told The Guardian: "Of course the Taliban do these things, but we can't deny that tribal leaders also do the same things."

34. "Brunei to punish gay sex and adultery with death by stoning". 28 March 2019.

35. Katie Hamann ^ Aceh's Sharia Law Still Controversial in Indonesia Archived 2010-10-03 at the Wayback Machine Voice of America 29 December 2009, and: In Enforcing Shariah Law, Religious Police in Aceh on Hemline Frontline Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine Jakarta Globe, December 28, 2009

36. "Iran". Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. 2014.

37. ^ "Iraq: Amnesty International appalled by stoning to death of Yazidi girl and subsequent killings" (PDF). Amnesty International. 27 April 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-04-21.

38. ^ Gunnar J. Weimann (2010). Islamic Criminal Law in Northern Nigeria: Politics, Religion, Judicial Practice. Amsterdam University Press. p. 77. ISBN 9789056296551.

39. ^ Lau, Martin (1 September 2007). "Twenty-Five Years of Hudood Ordinances - A Review". Washington and Lee Law Review. 64 (4): 1292, 1296. Archived from the original on 2014-11-29.

40. ^ "Slow March to the Gallows: Death Penalty in Pakistan" (PDF). /www.fidh.org. Intl. Fed. for Human Rights. 2007. pp. 16, 58. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-11-19.

41. ^ "Overview of the Protection of Women Act, 2006 (Pakistan)" (PDF). af.org.pk. Islamabad: Aurat Publication and Information Service Foundation. 2008. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-11-19.

42. ^ "Expat faces death by stoning after admitting in court to cheating on husband". Archived from the original on 2014-10-06.

43. "Islamic State video 'shows man stone his daughter to death'". BBC News. Archived from the original on 2017-02-15.

44. ^ Durand, Greg Loren. "The Object and Cause of True Santification". Judicial Warfare: Christian Reconstruction and Its Blueprints for Dominion. Archived from the original on 20 October 2013.

45. ^ Invitation to a Stoning Archived 2014-04-02 at the Wayback Machine, Reason.com, Walter Olson, November 1998. Retrieved May 1, 2014.

46. ^ Clarkson, Frederick (1995). "Christian Reconstruction: Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence". Eyes Right!: Challenging the Right Wing Backlash. South End Press. p. 62. ISBN 9780896085237.

47. ^ Vile, John R. (2003). "Christian Reconstruction". Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2002 (2nd ed.). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. p. 67. ISBN 978-1-85109-428-8. OCLC 51553072. ...North favors stoning,...because of the widespread availability of rocks.... Retrieved 1 May 2014.

48. "The World's Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society" (PDF). Pew Forum. Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. 2013. p. 221. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-10-30.

49. ^ Rochelle Terman (November 2007). "The Stop Stoning Forever Campaign: A Report" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-11-28.

50. ^ "Amnesty International - Iran: Death by stoning, a grotesque and unacceptable penalty". amnesty.org. 15 January 2008. Archived from the original on 20 October 2013.

51. ^ Marisela Ortega (29 September 2010). "Man, sons convicted of stoning El Paso woman to death in Juárez". El Paso Times.

52. Bruce Chilton, Craig A. Evans ^ Studying the historical Jesus 1998 Page 447 "There are three among these that merit some attention: (1) "And it is tradition: On the eve of Passover ... And the herald went forth before him for forty days, 'Yeshu ha-Nosri is to be stoned, because he has practiced magic and enticed and led Israel astray. Any one who knows anything in his favor, let him come and speak concerning him."

53. ^ Perry, Simon (2011). All Who Came Before. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. pp. 143-145. ISBN 978-1-60899-659-9. Archived from the original on 2019-01-03.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment where a group throws stones at a person until the subject dies from blunt trauma. It has been attested as a form of punishment for grave misdeeds since ancient times. Its adoption in some legal systems has caused controversy in recent decades.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A prisoner in Karaj, Iran was executed in public by 'hanging' just after receiving lashes.