The recent news of the stoning deaths in the Middle East have really shaken me to my core. In a country where we are trying to guarantee that everyone is insured and has their basic human needs accounted for, we cannot sit idly by as people are being executed by stoning. Certainly, we must try to do something about this, if only call attention to it and to prevent future similar acts.

Two weeks ago, a young couple in love was stoned to death in northern Afghanistan for trying to elope. Last month, an Iranian woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, was stoned to death because of purported adulterous act. Over the last seven months, 200 people have been killed by stoning for showing their disapproval or critique of the Taliban.

This oldest form of execution, for violation of some moral law, is barbaric and it should have absolutely no place in the twenty-first century. We fight wars over oil but don’t bat an eye that human life is exterminated because of a sex act or a difference of opinion or belief.

What is wrong with us? For all intents and purposes we are sitting idly by as women are pelted to death with rocks for making love or for questioning a moral tenant. The stoning for sex acts seems to be rampant. How many of us would be liable for the same death if we lived in the Middle East? Someone I hold dear once said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” These words should resound louder than ever with the recent news of the death sentences imposed on innocent men and women.

Staying silent is the wrong approach to any problem. Unfortunately, this is what America has done. Admittedly, I’m not sure what action can be taken to eradicate this vicious punishment but one thing is certain, something must be done. It’s not as simple as some people would like to reduce it to—namely, that it’s a difference of religions and approaches to sexual attitudes and that it doesn’t affect us here in the United States. Sure, there is a vast disparity between these beliefs and approaches to justice but this resurgence and perhaps restoring of this draconian punishment is alarming. It’s possibly marking a reactionary move to the war, a response to Westernization and/or a move to restore some sense of religious authenticity to a faith that is being attacked ever since 9/11.      

The rest of the world is not sitting idly by, as I perceive the U.S. to be. In fact, Brazil’s president offered Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani asylum and made it clear that she was a victim. An online petition for her transfer to Brazil netted hundreds of thousands of signatures. All this meant nothing, of course, as Iran carried out her execution by stoning. Iran suffered only embarrassment and re-characterized Ashtiani’s crime as murder, though it’s abundantly clear what she lost her life for.

In addition to Iran practicing this stoning death sentence, the Taliban is instituting its own reign of terror on its own members. Anyone found to have taken part in a homosexual act has a brick wall collapsed upon him. If a man and woman are caught having sex, the man, having any connection with the Taliban, is released while the woman is killed forthright. 

This is not an easy problem and it’s a hard one to wrap one’s head around. Though this is and cannot be an excuse. Certainly, if we have people stomping around propounding the virtues of the environment, animal welfare, global warming and the like, we must certainly find some way to call attention to this problem of death by stoning.