The movie Stoning of Soraya M. tells a horrifying story of injustice. It is based on the true story of a woman whose abusive husband, Ali, wants a divorce so that he can marry a fourteen year old girl. Soraya is the mother of his four children and knows that without their father’s support her children would starve to death. She refuses to give Ali a divorce. Ali finds another way out of the marriage. He accuses Soraya of being an unfaithful wife and committing adultery with the local mechanic. By law adultery is a crime punishable by stoning to death. Ali blackmails the town’s mullah and threatens the mechanic to be on his side. He gets what he wants and Soraya is brutally executed for a crime that she did not commit. The story provokes a strong negative reaction of horror, disgust and anger with the injustice of the circumstances and the cruelty of the punishment.
The justice system shown in this movie is disturbingly biased. Men have all the power. Even a young boy has more power than his mother. I was disgusted by how Soraya’s husband Ali turned sons against their own mother and how young boys spoke down to her. Nothing that Soraya said mattered. She had valuable points to make, but no one cared. No one would listen to her and there was nobody to speak for her. Her aunt tried to stand up for her, but nobody would listen to the aunt either. Only the men could speak and only the men could judge. I was angry and outraged by how badly the men treated the women, even women who they were very close to, women who had raised them or taken care of them. A justice system that is so biased towards one group at the expense of another cannot really be just.
Religious law is taken to a fanatical extreme in this movie. T...
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... for individuals to use violence in the name of the law. This opens the door to people becoming vigilantes.
Soraya’s story is a warning, not an example. In her world, the extreme bias of the justice system against women is based in a fanatical interpretation of religion that gives men all the power. The most powerful men within the system are corrupt. The most corrupt men are even more powerful. Corruption and the bias against women built into the system lead to the brutal and cruel murder of an innocent woman. The stoning scene is very graphic for a reason. It shows us the harsh reality of what a public, violent death looks like. Even if she was guilty – even if she was guilty of the worst crime imaginable – she still would not deserve to die so horribly. The fact that Soraya is an innocent victim of a twisted justice system makes it even harder to watch.
In George Orwell’s essay, “A Hanging,” and Michael Lake’s article, “Michael Lake Describes What The Executioner Actually Faces,” a hardened truth about capital punishment is exposed through influence drawn from both authors’ firsthand encounters with government- supported execution. After witnessing the execution of Walter James Bolton, Lake describes leaving with a lingering, “sense of loss and corruption that [he has] never quite shed” (Lake. Paragraph 16). Lake’s use of this line as a conclusion to his article solidifies the article’s tone regarding the mental turmoil that capital execution can have on those involved. Likewise, Orwell describes a disturbed state of mind present even in the moments leading up to the execution, where the thought, “oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise!” crossed his mind (Orwell.
Sister Helen Prejean purposes of writing this text is to create awareness about the cruel and moral of death penalty and the reality of the humanness of executing a human being in the form of Capital Punishment. The audiences of this text are from college students to older age group. Because of the text used mature language and requires a deep understanding of human rights and death penalty in order to view her point of views. She wants to expresses her thought about the morality of killing a human that were allowed by our society and government. She makes the audience think about death row inmate as a person and give you the truth about what is actually taking place within our society today. She allows us go deeper into her thought to see why and how she views the death penalty as immoral and she tries to helping the poor that struggle in the justice in our
Mutilating the whites and leaving their bodies lying is inhumane. It is such a shocking story! This book was meant to teach the reader about the inhumanity of slavery. It also gives us the image of what happened during the past years when slavery was practised. The book is significant in the sense that it gives even the current generation the knowledge of slavery, how it happened and the reason for slavery.
...er not using her voice caused her to lose her life; by not speaking she already had placed her hands into blind obedience resulting in her stoning. Being very inhuman, these stories tackle the very essence of inhumanity in tradition. Are you willing to play the lottery?
Women and men shared similar roles; however, men had more rights while women had limitations. For instance, male slaves were freed after six years of service while female slaves (Ex. 21:7) were freed only if their master failed to provide clothes, food, and marital rights. Furthermore, the book of Judges (19:24) portrays how a concubine and virgin daughter were offered to satisfy a group of men who wanted to sexually assault another man. As a result, the group of men rape and abuse the concubine leading to her subsequent death. This story illustrates how women’s lives were regarded less valuable than men’s.
In the story “In Camera, Saadawi illustrated how women were treated by the legal system in Arabic country when they did something against the system. The protagonist, Leila Al-Fargani, who was a young woman on trial for calling the “mighty one”, which is a respective title for the President of their country, a stupid man. Moreover, during the time she was waiting for the court date, she was brutally beaten and raped by ten men who seem to be the guards. At the time she was in the court, she was still suffering from the pain both in physical and mental way, but she did not collapse. When the time the judge and those with him declared that ten men raped Leila and also her father’s honor got trampled. (This is the way we torture you women- by depriving you of the most valuable thing you possess”). For the response she said: “You fool! The most valuable thing I possess is not between my legs. You are all stupid. And the most stupid among you is the one who leads you.” In one hand, this quote completely showed that the man thought this sexual violence was totally right when the woman had committed a crime. In anther hand, it also showed that in the very deep of Leila, the...
Women all around the world are given little to no freedom and equality This is something that has been happening for years, where women are made to submit complete and utter control of their lives to their peers especially men.Their eyes were watching God, showed how some women feel trapped and enslaved by those around them and this is true all over the world for women who face domestic violence and unjust everyday.
It is a bible. The Koran gives examples of the ways a woman needs to act in society. A woman is supposed to be there for their husband’s. A husband can marry multiple woman and the woman may not be upset. A woman may have a dowry, but it is highly favored to give a portion of it to their husband’s. A woman is not allowed to provide testimony, because she cannot be trusted. The women in this document I feel are treated unequal to the male.
... causes of violence in the United States and that owning a gun is not unconstitutional but being denied that right is.
Today some Middle Eastern countries have passed laws “criminalizing adultery which [has] resulted in punishments ranging from the imposition of fines to flogging, hanging and death by stoning” (Deen 2014). From the beginning of The Arabian Nights, women are portrayed as disloyal adulterers that practice heavily in premarital sex. In “The Story of Kings Shahrayer and Shahrazad, His Vizier’s Daughter,” is about two kings who were brothers. The older brother was named Shahrayer and Shahzaman was the name of the younger brother. Before King Shahzaman journeyed out to go visit his brother King Shahrayer, he wanted to bid his wife farewell. Upon entering the kitchen he found his wife copulating with a servant boy. Out of rage, he drove a sword into both his wife and the servant and threw them off of the palace roof stating, “I am still here and this is what she has done when I was barely outside the city. How will it be and what will happen behind my back when I go visit my brother in India? No women can be trusted” (Haddawy 5). Because Shahzaman’s image and self-confidence as a king was sh...
In Stephen Chapman’s essay, “The Prisoner’s Dilemma”, he questions whether the Western world’s idea of punishment for criminals is as humane as its citizens would like to believe or would Westerners be better off adopting the Eastern Islamic laws for crime and punishment. The author believes that the current prison systems in the Western world are not working for many reasons and introduces the idea of following the Koranic laws. Chapman’s “The Prisoner’s Dilemma” is persuasive because of his supporting evidence on the negative inhumane impact from the Western form of criminal punishment and his strong influential testament to the actions used by Eastern Islamic societies for crimes committed.
The books The Last Day of a Condemned Man and In Cold Blood, both narrators tell the tale of two criminals awaiting and serving out their punishment to a capital offence. While The Last Day of a Condemned Man is told in a first person view, In Cold Blood is told from a third person. Although from different views, each tells the trials and tribulations of approaching the death penalty. Whether the death penalty is a humane punishment or not is a very controversial subject. One of the major issues with the death penalty is how it is conducted. Death row is a very flawed system and has been for a long time and both of these literary works show the major problems concerning it.
Today we live in a much different world than that of our founders. The rise of the United States into world dominance, the shift of population into the cities, and the increase of drug use and violence have produced great change in our society. Americans once feared the loss of the free state would come from foreign invasion or political corruption, but now the greatest threat is the violence we see on the evening news. The increase in violence and murder has sparked the greatest debate over gun ownership in our nation's history. The second amendment has been reinterpreted by those who feel the mere presents of guns have led to increased violence. I believe that the threat vi...
In the early modern era in Europe, public executions were the primary punishment given to members of society who were involved in criminal behavior. This form of punishment served to showcase the absolute power of the state, King and church to take away the life of any citizen who disrupts peace. It was a way to make the criminal justice system visible and effective in an era when the criminal justice system was in its beginning stages of demonstrating orderliness (Spierenburg). More specifically, it was a relatively straightforward and psychological way to evoke deterrence. The potential of gruesome violence, public persecution and religious betrayal were tools thought to be strong enough to make public executions a successful form of deterrence because within the community, social bonds and religion were the foundation of everyday life.... ...
Most reviewers overall enjoyed the movie very much. Christopher Null gave the movie four out of five stars and said it was “perfection and a good memorable film”. Steven Rhodes also says it is a good film “It's the sort of film that will leave you exhausted but glad you came.” (http://www.imdb.com/Reviews/210/21041) However from a woman’s point of view the film was barbaric and violent, “it's socially irresponsible and repellent in its graphic depictions of extreme violence and brutality,” says Susan Granger. (http://www.speakers-podium.com/susangranger.) I, however, even though I am a female I enjoyed the film very much. It has become one of my favorite movies because I feel like I can relate to the topic very much because I wish I was just able to let go and do what I really want to do. Everyone has his or her own opinion of things so you should see the movie and see how you react to it.