How Sad.: Shahla Jahed: Iran executes woman accused of murdering lover's wife | The Guardian

Shahla Jahed Shahla Jahed, the mistress of Iranian football star Naser Mohammadkhani, during her trial in Tehran. Photograph: Str/AFP/Getty Images

Iran faced widespread international condemnation today after executing a woman who had been convicted of murdering the wife of her football player lover.

Shahla Jahed was hanged before dawn in the courtyard of Evin prison in Tehran in the presence of the murdered woman's family. Iran is second only to China in its use of capital punishment. Last year it staged 388 executions, according to Amnesty International.

Amnesty and other human rights organisations had called on Iran to stop the hanging on the grounds that there were doubts about the fairness of Jahed's trial. "Shahla Jahed's execution, like all such executions, is an example of premeditated and cold-blooded killing by the state, and is particularly distressing as there were serious concerns over the fairness of the trial, and the evidence used against the defendant," Amnesty said. The Foreign Office also condemned the execution.

Jahed was found guilty of the murder in 2002 of Laleh Saharkhizan, the wife of Naser Mohammadkhani, a football legend who rose to fame in the mid-1980s and who coached Tehran's Persepolis club. A documentary about her case, Red Card, was banned. According to the Isna news agency, Saharkhizan's brother carried out the final stage of the execution by kicking away the stool on which Jahed was standing with the noose around her neck.

Just before the hanging Jahed prayed, then burst into tears, shouting for her life to be spared. The victim's family could, according to Iranian law, have spared her life by pardoning her.

Jahed, who had been held in Evin prison for the past nine years, was sentenced to death on the basis of her confession, which she later repeatedly retracted at her public trial.

In 2008, the then chief of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Hashemi Shahroudi, ordered a fresh investigation and did not sanction her execution.

Activists in Iran suspect Jahed was forced to confess to the stabbing. Karim Lahidji, president of the Iranian League for Human Rights, described her as "a victim of a misogynous society". The hanging came amid uncertainty about the fate of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, whose sentence of death by stoning for adultery was suspended after an international outcry. But she may yet be hanged for involvement in the murder of her husband.

Following the murder, Jahed was arrested as the prime suspect but refused to talk for nearly a year. Mohammadkhani was also imprisoned for several months on charges of complicity but was finally released after the authorities said Jahed had confessed to committing the crime alone.

Mohammadkhani was in Germany when the killing happened, but it emerged later that he was "temporarily married" to Jahed, a practice allowed under Shia Islam. Temporary marriage, known as sigheh in Iran, allows men to take on wives for anything from a few hours to years, on condition that any offspring are legally and financially provided for. Critics of the tradition see it as legalised prostitution.

Fereshteh Ghazi, 31, a former cellmate of Jahed's who spent two weeks in prison with her in 2004 told the Guardian from Atlanta, Georgia: "Even if Shahla had committed the crime, which she didn't, Shahla and the murdered wife are both victims of a male-dominated society, a system that gives all the rights to men. Shahla, Laleh [the murdered wife], and all other women like them are all victims of flaws in the Iranian judicial system and Iran's unequal judicial system. Even the person who pulled away the chair today in her execution is a victim of the system."

"I can say that she was a very emotional woman. She was always very energetic and happy and at the same time she was very sad. You could see the sadness in her eyes, but she had an optimistic outlook … she used to help all the new inmates.

"Like her first appearance at her trial she told me in the prison that she was beaten up for 11 months and she was tortured. But she didn't confess until Naser Mohammadkhani came to see her and asked her to take responsibility for the murder and she did so."

Shahla is the 146th person to be executed in Iran this year.

I so appreciate @BrianSolis Excellent Posts! Gold Mine! 'Introducing Your Friends, Fans and Followers'

Media_httpimgskitchco_vvdla

Introduction:

"Social Media is among many things, our gateway to discovery and interconnection. While social networking may seem trivial, truth is that we get out of it what we put into it. But this goes beyond the time and energy we spend on day-to-day participation. Our investment in social media earns its largest dividends when intent and purpose meet personification and engagement....."

Read the full post on Brian Solis' most EXCELLENT blog:

http://www.briansolis.com/2010/12/bringing-the-brandgraph-to-life-introducing...

Great Argument: Why We Can't Stop Playing Angry Birds: Mixing Psychology With Physics, Cute Characters, & Lots of Cheering

Media_httpsiwsjnetpub_zdscl

Excerpt:

By NICK WINGFIELD, November 30, 2010

"Not since the invention of bacon and eggs has the collision of fowl and swine tasted so good.

A game called Angry Birds is dominating the best-selling-applications charts for Apple's iPhone with a simple, whimsical premise: Players turn different species of scowling birds into projectiles with which to crush a collection of grunting pigs scattered around various ramshackle structures. More than 12 million copies of Angry Birds have been sold since it went on sale late last year, most of them 99-cent downloads for iPhones and iPod touches, according to Rovio Mobile Ltd., the Finnish company that created the game.

Why do smart people love seemingly mindless games? Angry Birds is one of the latest to join the pantheon of "casual games" that have appealed to a mass audience with a blend of addictive game play, memorable design and deft marketing. The games are designed to be played in short bursts, sometimes called "entertainment snacking" by industry executives, and there is no stigma attached to adults pulling out their mobile phones and playing in most places. Games like Angry Birds incorporate cute, warm graphics, amusing sound effects and a reward system to make players feel good. A scientific study from 2008 found that casual games provide a "cognitive distraction" that could significantly improve players' moods and stress levels..."

Team of volunteer journalists wants to train locals in conflict zones to tell their own stories, improve their lives » Nieman Journalism Lab

What if online video could prevent genocide? That’s what three USC Annenberg School graduate students wondered when they hopped a flight to Rwanda a few years ago, Flip cameras in their carry-ons.

“The idea was, in a time where YouTube exists, it’s immoral for genocide to exist in human history,” Jon Vidar told me recently. The group wanted to give survivors tools to tell their own stories. “Honestly, we were pretty idealistic going in.” Since that first visit to Rwanda, Vidar, a freelance photojournalist, and his journalist friends have taken the concept to neighboring countries and then, earlier this year, to Iraq. Their ad hoc trips have morphed into a nonprofit, kept going by volunteers, called The Tiziano Project, named for an Italian journalist who liked to go where he shouldn’t. Their mission is straightforward: Train locals in conflict zones and post-conflict zones in the craft of journalism, particularly new media, and give them the tools they need to tell their own stories.

“We’re trying to train locals to be journalists,” Vidar said.

The group’s most recent project, Tiziano360, trained 12 locals in Iraq in new media, producing a website that “documents the life, culture, and news in present day Iraqi Kurdistan.” Vidar worked in the Kurdish region of Turkey for four years doing archaeological research, a motive for the region selection. Logistically, it was easier to work on the Iraq side of the border, Vidar said.

The site has a slick design and the content is high quality. It recently won an award from the New Media Institute for multimedia storytelling. But Tiziano also has a practical aim. “A direct goal of the project is job creation,” Vidar said. “We don’t care where people get jobs, as long as they are using the skills in new media storytelling.”

Four of the participants credit the project with new job offers. Other trainees from past projects now string for Western outlets.

“The best thing in this project was the practical aspect of it,” Shivan Soto, who participated in the Iraq project, wrote in an email. “[It] was a very good and new experience for me.”

Since picking up new skills, Soto has been offered a variety of gigs from news organizations and NGOs. And another participant, Sahar Alani, took a job with a large corporation in the region working in new media.

For now, Tiziano is funded project-by-project. For the 360 experiment, they submitted a pitch to a Facebook contest backed by the JP Morgan Chase Community Giving program. They won $25,000, Andrew McGregor, a Tiziano founder, told me.

“During the competition, we really motivated the Kurdish community [on Facebook],” Vidar told me. “We had 600 Kurdish friends, friends in the government. We had friends in NGOs.”

Next up for Tiziano is a project that will start by working with students in Los Angeles and move on to the Congo. The trainer himself is a genocide survivor.

ShareThis

Team of volunteer journalists wants to train locals in conflict zones to tell their own stories, improve their lives » Nieman Journalism Lab

What if online video could prevent genocide? That’s what three USC Annenberg School graduate students wondered when they hopped a flight to Rwanda a few years ago, Flip cameras in their carry-ons.

“The idea was, in a time where YouTube exists, it’s immoral for genocide to exist in human history,” Jon Vidar told me recently. The group wanted to give survivors tools to tell their own stories. “Honestly, we were pretty idealistic going in.” Since that first visit to Rwanda, Vidar, a freelance photojournalist, and his journalist friends have taken the concept to neighboring countries and then, earlier this year, to Iraq. Their ad hoc trips have morphed into a nonprofit, kept going by volunteers, called The Tiziano Project, named for an Italian journalist who liked to go where he shouldn’t. Their mission is straightforward: Train locals in conflict zones and post-conflict zones in the craft of journalism, particularly new media, and give them the tools they need to tell their own stories.

“We’re trying to train locals to be journalists,” Vidar said.

The group’s most recent project, Tiziano360, trained 12 locals in Iraq in new media, producing a website that “documents the life, culture, and news in present day Iraqi Kurdistan.” Vidar worked in the Kurdish region of Turkey for four years doing archaeological research, a motive for the region selection. Logistically, it was easier to work on the Iraq side of the border, Vidar said.

The site has a slick design and the content is high quality. It recently won an award from the New Media Institute for multimedia storytelling. But Tiziano also has a practical aim. “A direct goal of the project is job creation,” Vidar said. “We don’t care where people get jobs, as long as they are using the skills in new media storytelling.”

Four of the participants credit the project with new job offers. Other trainees from past projects now string for Western outlets.

“The best thing in this project was the practical aspect of it,” Shivan Soto, who participated in the Iraq project, wrote in an email. “[It] was a very good and new experience for me.”

Since picking up new skills, Soto has been offered a variety of gigs from news organizations and NGOs. And another participant, Sahar Alani, took a job with a large corporation in the region working in new media.

For now, Tiziano is funded project-by-project. For the 360 experiment, they submitted a pitch to a Facebook contest backed by the JP Morgan Chase Community Giving program. They won $25,000, Andrew McGregor, a Tiziano founder, told me.

“During the competition, we really motivated the Kurdish community [on Facebook],” Vidar told me. “We had 600 Kurdish friends, friends in the government. We had friends in NGOs.”

Next up for Tiziano is a project that will start by working with students in Los Angeles and move on to the Congo. The trainer himself is a genocide survivor.

ShareThis