NEWS: Hollywood Tackles Stoning of Women in Iran

While Iranian authorities have wasted no time accusing foreign powers, including United States, of plotting the recent protests in Iran, a new American film has taken issue with stoning of women in Iran. Last week saw the release of The Stoning of Soraya M., a movie adopted from the 1994 novel of the same name by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam. The film, which stars The Passion of the Christ’s Jim Caviezel and the Oscar-nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo, harshly criticizes Iran’s legal system denouncing what it portrays as mistreatment of women in a patriarchal society. The movie, which won the Audience Award at Los Angeles Film Festival and was the runner-up for the Audience Choice Award at Toronto Film Festival, has been criticized for its graphic violence and giving a rather unbalanced portrait of the Iranian society, as well as for implying that the only solution to the problem is foreign intervention. Having said that, the film could not be more relevant to troubled Iran whose stoning victims are mostly women. Although stoning is not prescribed in the Koran, it is practiced as a penalty for adultery in many Islamic countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Read full story here.

Related articles:

Shiism in the Modern Context: From Religious Quietism to Political Activism

By Rainer Brunner , Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(Vol. 3, December 2008)
Religion Compass

Zina
[xix] A term which in Islam denotes illicit sexual relations and covers the concepts of both adultery …
From A New Dictionary of Religions