Sakineh

Last month, June, a protest march was brought to my attention. I don’t do this sort of “activist” stuff but by coincidence I was there, in a sort of roundabout way.

The protest march was on 20th June and organised by a body called “One Law for All” which is, I find out later, a body campaigning against Sharia and religious laws.

As it happened I had been under strict instructions from my children to keep this date clear for their mother’s 60th birthday. In the morning a stretch limo turned up to whisk us all off to the Kensington Roof Gardens for Sunday Lunch. This is what they look like inside.Funny thing is that it was also Father’s day so everybody thought it was me who was the subject of attention and indeed it was on this day that I learnt of this – although Mrs Weggis had already read the runes and knew, but didn’t tell me. That’s witches for you.

Anyhow, on the way home we passed along Kensington Road where there were demonstrators opposite some Iranian government building. Lots of banners and a gallows complete with noose. Further on we encountered a march coming from Whitehall to meet up with the other lot.

Thing is I didn’t realise the full gravity of the protest until I received a couple of emails from Avaaz. It seems that an Iranian woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, has been saved by global protests from being stoned to death. But she may still be hanged. Her alleged crime – adultery, watch out John Terry, don’t see any transfer for him to the middle east if his agent is on the ball – otherwise he might loose both of them!

Stoning is where the victim is buried up to their necks in the ground and then large rocks are thrown at their heads until their craniums crack and their brains spill out onto the ground.

I do not claim to keep up with this sort of thing, but those who do, ie. the Left, Green Left and the Green Party, of which I am a member, have been strangely quiet on this. Not a bloody peep as far as I can see. These are the people who espouse fundamental human rights and social justice. Where the fuck are they? Too busy demonising Israel, [admittedly no angels] supporting anarchy in the dubious form of “non-violent direct action” and sucking up to Hamas and Jew-hating clerics with whom they share platforms, no doubt?

Silence can be deafening. You just have to listen for it.