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Soraya M., Stoned to Death for Being an "Inconvenient Wife''
In the mid-1980s, an Iranian-born, France-based journalist named Freidoune Sahebjam was traveling in his native land, assessing the impact of the Iranian Revolution, when he came upon a rural mountain village and learned of a ghastly crime. It had been committed by an entire community against a local woman. It was a crime that indicted a nation, a movement, and a religiously inspired ideology.On August 15, 1986, with the complicity of a local mullah who had been imprisoned for child molesting under the Shah, Ghorban-Ali showed himself to be more than a garden variety sociopath and town bully; he was a sadistic monster, and Islamic fundamentalism was his enabler, his aider, his abettor.
In the anarchic days of the Iranian Revolution, Ghorban-Ali had found work as a prison guard in a neighboring town. There, he met a 14-year-old girl whom he wanted to marry. Polygamy was encouraged in Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran, but Ghorban-Ali didn't want to support two families, and did not desire to return his wife's dowry. How to rid himself of his "old" wife? That was the easy part. Accuse her of infidelity. No matter that her husband had not actually seen anything untoward, or that Soraya was completely innocent, or that her husband's cynical accusations were only backed up by his cousin, who as it turned out had been coerced into concurring with the vaguest of accusations: a smile here, a brushed hand there.
What court of law would find someone guilty on such flimsy evidence? A "sharia" court is the answer. And so Soraya was convicted. The sentence was death-death by stoning.
That was the story relayed to Freidoune Sahebjam by Soraya's brave aunt, Zahra Khanum. His riveting and spare account became an international best-seller. Critics compared "The Stoning of Soraya M." to Kafka, but actually nothing in the western canon of literature is comparable to the inadvertent self-parody -- the simple lunacy -- of a system of law that maintains that if a man is accused of infidelity by his wife, she must prove his guilt, but if a woman is accused, she must prove her innocence. Thus, in a single sentence, is a belief system codified. It is a system that rejects modernity, justice, equality and rationality -- and treats female sexuality as a vice. Apparently, you can get away with this kind of madness in much of the world by simply inciting crowds to chant, "God is Great," while you throw the stones.
It's a fitting image, rock-throwing...fitting for the Stone Age, that is. Such show trials pay no heed to the natural rights we presume to be universal in a 21st century society: The right to be present at your own trial, to testify in your own defense, to cross-examine the witnesses against you, to be represented by counsel, to have an impartial arbiter of fact, to appeal the judgment to higher courts. None of these were present in rural Iran in the drunken days of "the Islamic Revolution." For women and girls in Iran and in many other parts of the globe they are not present today.
The verdict against Soraya M., was carried out in a village called Kupayeh, but it could have been almost anywhere in rural Iran. It could happen, and does still, in Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, or anyplace where sharia is the law of the land. More common, by far, in the Muslim world is the perverse practice of "honor killings" -- the slaying of a woman or girl by male members of her own family on the basis of some presumed sexual indiscretion. The barbarity of this practice is mirrored by its Orwellian description, for it is one of the most dishonorable practices in the world.
Soraya M's brutal execution occurred more than two decades ago, but it was only last October that a girl barely into her teens was stoned to death in a stadium in the Somalian port city of Kismayo. Initially, her "crime" was said to be adultery, and her age given as 23. Actually, according to Amnesty International, she was 13 years old, and she came into the custody of an Islamic militia when she had the temerity to report to authorities that she had been gang-raped. Her three attackers were not charged. The girl was publicly murdered before 1,000 cheering spectators. Her name was Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow.
In the religious traditions of the West, free will is offered as an explanation for such depredations, but that rationale seems grossly insufficient. When packs of armed men shout "God is Great" while disfiguring, abasing, or killing women, surely God is weeping.
Cyrus Nowrasteh, a Colorado-born film director of Persian descent, said, "When I read the book, I thought, if this is really happening all over the world, someone needs to shine a light on it. The world has to become more aware of it."
Now he has done that. I watched the movie version of The Stoning of Soraya M. at a private screening earlier this week, and have been unable to concentrate on much else since. The film will make its debut on June 26 in 10 American cities, including Washington, D.C. I'm sure its backers would like reviews to run closer to the movie's public premier; I hope they understand: I feel compelled to write about it now.
The Stoning of Soraya M. opens with a dilapidated car breaking down on mountainous road, as the radio announcer intones that everything is so much better in the new Islamic Republic. Meanwhile, an old woman chases away a dog that is picking at bones beside a stream. The old woman carefully, lovingly, washes the bones. We, the viewers, wonder in horror: Can those bones be... human? Who would discard a body for wild dogs?
The sense of menace begins immediately, when our stranded motorist -- Freidoune Sahebjam himself, played by James Caviezel -- bumps into Kupayeh's mayor and mullah. Sahebjam, who died last year at the age of 75, didn't live to see the film, but I imagine would have been honored by the subtle way he is portrayed by Caviezel, who played Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. This is perhaps not a coincidence, as the screenplay written by Nowrasteh and his wife Betsy wound up in the lap of John Shepherd, president of Mpower Pictures, the outfit founded by Shepherd, Stephen McEveety, and Todd Burns.
McEveety worked with Gibson on Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ, both of which were "message" movies that grossed hundreds of millions of dollars. It's doubtful that The Stoning of Soraya M. can duplicate that kind of box office success. But I do agree with McEveety, whose reaction upon seeing the Nowrastehs script was that this story "absolutely had to be told."
Sahebjam's book was banned in Iran, of course, and undoubtedly this movie will be as well. Will it be vilified by various radical mullahs around the world, or will it be ignored? That is an interesting question, although probably not one that will keep these filmmakers up at night. Nowrasteh was previously the victim of a kind of liberal fatwa, apparently issued by William Jefferson Clinton, or his supporters: Nowrasteh's two-part television miniseries The Path to 9/11 was pointedly critical of the Clinton administration for its tepid interest in capturing or killing Osama bin Laden. Some 25 million people watched the mini-series, and although it cost ABC $40 million to make, the Disney-owned network never released it on DVD. (The explanation provided by company suits was that they said they didn't think it would be profitable to re-release it; a more plausible explanation to some company critics is Disney CEO Robert Iger's support of the Democratic Party.)
Getting the rights to produce this film was not easy, either. Freidoune Sahebjam had been approached previously, but the hurdles he erected were not easily overcome -- until Nowrasteh came along. The Iranian-American filmmaker never actually met the Iranian-French writer, although the men did speak on the phone to hash out the details of the project. Sahebjam wanted the movie to be made in Farsi, the language of Iran, and with Persian actors. Nowrasteh agreed; that was how he wanted to shoot the movie, too.
Mozhan Marno, the Iranian-American actress who plays Soraya, said the subject matter became so real to her that she had nightmares during the filming of the graphic final scenes; in her dreams, crowds of angry people were surrounding her menacingly until she could no longer breathe.
The expressions of hatred on the older son's face are deeply disturbing; it's alien, this virulent brand of sexism, this genuine loathing of women. I understand that it is fueled by religion and by misplaced national pride and by feelings of impotence in a rapidly changing world. But the sheer unnaturalness of it left me unsettled. We certainly have remorseless and evil men in our society, who hurt, and even murder, their wives. But the difference is that we hunt these men down and imprison them, and we revile their names: Scott Peterson, and now Drew Peterson. We don't help them kill their spouses.
I do not know, as I told one of this movie's financial backers, whether Americans will sit through a film this sad and grisly. I only know that they should. It has been said many times since 9/11 that we are in a war of ideas -- and a shooting war as well -- with men who are confident that one day all the world will be governed by this kind of law. It would not be a world worth inhabiting. I am haunted by Soroya and her sisters.
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I have seen this film and was very moved by the plight of Soraya. especially with the flimsy way the so called evidence was presented against her. I am a muslim, and I know better than most of the posters here, and far better than the Carl Cannon, what Shariah law is and its implementation; I'll give some feedback on the actual film before I go into that.
The film was very well made, very strong and gritty characters, although it was a little 2 dimensional in its character development. The men in the village were all portrayed as cowards or just plain ignorant, except Ali, who was just a tyrant. the women too, other than Soraya and her aunt, were typecast gossips or wailing old women. However I haven't read the book, so maybe thats the effect the author was going for.
The stoning was particularly disturbing, I watched it a few times by forwarding through it before I built up the nerve to actually watch it right through. Her final appeal was very heart-wrenching, as someone who is married, and has nieces (no daughters yet) this is something I would never stand by and watch, let alone comply with.
Now to move further afield, most of the comments I tend to read about this movie instantly seem to accuse Islam and Sharia of being the culprits in this woman's death. In reality, Islam killed Soraya no more than Atheism killed the victims of Soviet Russia.
For a woman to be accused, and convicted in a Sharia court, requires 4 witnesses, which clearly wasn't the case here. In addition, the man would also be convicted of extra marital sex, and stoned too. If this had happened, obviously there would have been no case here because Ali's cousin would have backed out completely. And of course, the Mullah who was convicted of child molestation would have been executed long before he rose to the pulpit. Violence against women is not an Islamic or an arab phenomenon. It happens everywhere, from Kathmandu to New York, from Paris to Seoul. It happens because of ignorant people, men and women (there are many instances of wife beating by mother in laws and others). In this case, Soraya was killed because Ali didn't want to return her Dowry, which he would have to should he marry again.
The only defense against corruption of law is the integrity and honesty of the people appointed to uphold it. If they are corrupted, there is no defense other than the voice of the people.
I just saw the movie and I found it very disturbing but am glad that the story is being told for all to see and hear. It was extremely sad and really shows the lack of power of women in the world and unfortuately makes me wonder about the motivation of some men. The question I have been asking myself is what can I do to stop this senselessness? Soraya's aunt was very brave to keep talking, and the journalist used his craft to make sure the story was not lost. Did the men of this village not see that they were in fact stoning their own mothers, daughters, and wives? Who gave them birth, who nurtured them, cared for them, fed them, had children with them? They reminded me of a pack of wolves who could smell blood--- and after a certain point, could not back off of stoning Soraya without losing their power over the situation. Incredibly sad.
March 05 2011 at 3:24 AM Report abuse Permalink +2 rate up rate down ReplyI don't like how this article is blaming the religion for the disgusting way these men act. According to Islamic law, there have to have been 4 male witnesses see the act of intercourse happening.. That it to say that they have to have been sure the act was happening. If there was a blanket over them, they can't accuse them because they're not 100% sure. These people in Iran and Afghanistan are misguided people who are mistakenly doing these horrendous acts in the name of God. Yeah right. They're so far gone.. I feel sorry for them if they actually believe they're Muslims. They can't make their own laws and call it Sharia, and they can't let their own customs affect the way they practice Islamic law. If they do.. they're not following the Sharia.
December 20 2010 at 12:54 PM Report abuse Permalink +5 rate up rate down ReplyWell maybe she could have explained her side of the story if sharia law didn't dictate that only the men convene and make the ruling! Its comedy how Muslims portray the West and their traditions and the "freedom of woman" however, Islam also has a fatwa called Marriage for pleasure which allows Muslim men to marry woman for whatever time they specify... in other words, their version of legal prostitution.
And btw, this is not so far gone, I'm middle eastern as well, thank god not Muslim though, but this certainly does happen. In fact, this is an accurate portrayal of how woman are treated in Islamic culture.
I just finished watching the movie and I cried for a very long time. After watching movies based on true stories I like to go read as much as I can on the individual portrayed and see what others thinks. This article had me a little bit angtsy because it was dangerously close to missing, in my opinion, the point of the movie. Reading the comments below, it's evident that one has to be very careful of turning something into an anti-religion and holier than thou speech. When you use terms like 21st century, modernity, rationality.. you immediately imply that you own the definitive definition of these words. xoxosalina starts off by saying "I have been afraid of catholicism and christianity taking over"... to me it's that irrationality that is scary. In The Stoning of Soraya, her aunt does not lose faith in the religion. She even says "The God I love is great." The thing I loved most about the movie is the subtle ways in which it tried to portray Islam in its beauty and MAN in his weakness and fears. I agree the movie is really wonderful and it begs to give life to the women oppressed around the world. But it in no way wants Eileen to "greatly fear the takeover of America by Islam." The movie, by showing us each perpetrator involved, asks every person to take responsibility by being truthful in life. To not get caught in the mob mentality. To not only say you would have done differently, but HEY, actually do differently. So. RELAX.
November 26 2010 at 1:55 AM Report abuse Permalink +16 rate up rate down ReplyThis movie moved me deeply. I am 19 and a naturalist, with that I have been afraid of catholisism and christianity taking over and becoming not just religion, but THE way of life. This movie opened my eyes to a more vast world full of larger problems then I ever thought possible. I have nothing personal against any Irani women or men, but I would/will not live in a place where men domenate not just everyone, but everything. Men already have too much control in the world. I mean look at religion, we worship jesus, man. god, man. allah, man. buddah, man. Men have the power, point blank. I am so proud to live in a country where women have rights and share some power. The thing that disgusted me most was as long as the men yelled "God is good" it was fine to murder a perfectly innocent women. HOW LUDICRIS IS THAT!? So if I have road rage it is all right to hit the person in front of me as long as I do it in the name of God? Yes, that is precisely how I would like to live day to day. This movie is a MASTERPIECE! And needed to be brought into the light. Thank you all who made that possible and thank you Zahra, without whom we would have never known of this remarkable tragedy.
August 22 2010 at 12:53 AM Report abuse Permalink +4 rate up rate down ReplyThis story illustrates why I greatly fear the takeover of America by Islam. Religious freedom doesn't mean sitting by and watching criminal acts done in the name of God.. anyone's God. We are a nation of law by consent but not sharia law. I would rather die then live under such a completely heinous rulebook. Read the Quran - A book by a military dictator and wife beater turned into a religion is just scary reading. Add in the associated books of 'religion' and it's revealed to be a cult of male domination. It makes me sick and worse.. it makes me afraid. I have five granddaughters who will have to live in the world that we allow to be made here. Let's keep it free and legal, shall we?
July 09 2010 at 7:03 PM Report abuse Permalink -5 rate up rate down Reply
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