The worlds most barbaric punishments!

I've known for a long time that these punishments are carried out all over the world... but to read the detail into how they carry them out is disturbing!

Stoning is not the only cruel and unusual measure courts around the world—and in America—hand out.

An Iranian woman was spared being stoned to death for adultery this week, in response to international outcry. But the barbaric punishment is not the only medieval remedy still meted out by courts around the world.

Blinding

In 2003 an Indian citizen working in Saudi Arabia took part in a brawl, wounding a man's eye. Puthan Veettil Abd ul-Latif Noushad was eventually sentenced, in 2005, to have his own right eye gouged out as punishment. It was, according to charity Human Rights Watch, the third eye-gouging sentence handed down within a year. HRW was unable to confirm whether any of the gougings had actually taken place. In Noushad's case, the Indian government made an appeal for clemency. It is not clear if the appeal was successful. The State Department, on its website, still lists eye-gouging as a punishment that can be handed down by courts in Saudia Arabia.

Iran also allows chemical blinding. In 2005 a 27-year-old man named only as Majid had been stalking a woman, Ameneh Bahrami. When she refused his advances he poured a container of sulphuric acid over her. Bahrami was blinded and disfigured. Majid was sentenced to have five drops of hydrochloric acid dripped into each open eye, blinding him.

Amputation

Right hands have been cut off at the wrist as punishment for theft in Sharia-controlled areas of Nigeria and in Saudi Arabia. Repeat offenders in the latter country can lose both hands, and legs are sometimes taken for other offenses. An executioner, Muhammad Saad al-Beshi, told the Saudi newspaper Arab News in 2003 that "I use a special sharp knife, not a sword. When I cut off a hand I cut it from the joint. If it is a leg the authorities specify where it is to be taken off, so I follow that."

In Iran, in early 2008, five robbers had their right hands and left feet cut off in one week—a practice known as cross amputation. According to The New York Times "doctors watched to limit bleeding and infection during the procedure." Hands and feet are also reportedly cut off as punishment in Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia.

Beheading

Recent figures suggest that about 100 people per year are beheaded in Saudi Arabia. According to unconfirmed reports the condemned are given tranquilizers, and taken to a public square after midday prayers. They are forced to kneel facing Mecca, over a blue plastic sheet. "With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled meters away," said one executioner, al-Beshi.

Shooting

Ronnie Lee Gardner, a convicted murderer who elected to die by firing squad, was strapped to a chair at a prison in Draper, Utah, and shot with .30 caliber bullets just after midnight on June 18 this year.

According to the Associated Press his head was "secured by a strap across his forehead. Harness-like straps constrained his chest. His handcuffed arms hung at his sides. A white cloth square affixed to his chest over his heart—maybe 3 inches across—bore a black target."

Five police officers took aim from 25 feet away—four of the guns were loaded and one contained a blank, so no officer could know definitively that he had killed Gardner.

It was the first U.S. death by firing squad in 14 years.

More punishments and Full article here.

I fail to see how some of those are less barbaric than execution by fatal gas or electrocution. You know, the "modern American" ways.

Electrocution basically fries the nervous system, it doesn't necessarily kill in and of itself. The cooking does that, and the autopsy knife.

Horrible.

It could be worse, (Ling Chi)

The worst I can think of is “Ling Chi” (death by a thousand cuts). Many have said that this form of execution came from Arabia but no it is an ancient Chinese method of death and it is horrific.

I will post no links as to Google Ling Chi will give you all the details and imagery you need to discover the worst of what humans can and have done to each other. Please be warned that the photographs (1905) are horrific and is more a dismembering of the human body via the soft tissues and a sharp blade.

Blinding, amputation, beheading and shooting seem to pale into comparison when put beside such a horror (death by slow dismemberment).

can we also have a little balance here.

It really looks like a middle east bash here.

No mention of

Lethal injection
Electric chair
Gas chambers
incarseration and the torture and rape inflicted upon prisoners by other prisoners
etc.......

lets not also forget Children being taken from parents by social workers.
That in itself is a cruel and barbaric punishment.

The list goes on.

it would also appear that Ian McLean is a faster typer than me and replied while I was typing lol

[edit on 12-7-2010 by munkey66]

reply to post by munkey66


I'm not having a bash at them. The thing that disgusts me is that these punishments are given for stupid things... like looking at a man the wrong way, the woman gets beaten to within an inch of her life, for pinching fruit he got his hands and feet cut off, and the woman who left the house without a man to accompany her was nearly stoned to death.

It is just barbaric.

This is a horrible subject to focus upon. I do not want to see any of the graphics.

But I recognize that a spotlight needs to be focused wherever these are practiced.

Good luck bringing about change; especially in Amerika which sentences more people to death each year than just about any country -- right up there with China.

Originally posted by ReeVeeR
reply to post by munkey66

 

I'm not having a bash at them. The thing that disgusts me is that these punishments are given for stupid things... like looking at a man the wrong way, the woman gets beaten to within an inch of her life, for pinching fruit he got his hands and feet cut off, and the woman who left the house without a man to accompany her was nearly stoned to death.

It is just barbaric.

What makes this world so diverse is not only the people but the different cultures and the way they live.
You may find it offensive to cut off a hand, those who you judge may take greater offence at you eating a pork chop.

To disrespect our parents by putting them in nursing homes may be far more offensive than stoning an adulteress.

different cultures have different values and it is the judgement of those values which has had a war going for the last 8 years

reply to post by munkey66


I am ambivalent about the cultural values thing. I think there is a difference in the notion of appropriateness of the use of torture as punishment. I am also ambivalent about that.

In the west I think there is a notion that torture is wrong and so long jail terms are used. To me that translates to an extended stay in the school of "how to be a better criminal".

Sometimes I think a short, abrupt torture, tailored to whatever would most constitute torture for the specific criminal, might in the end be more productive.

The real problem with any kind of punishment of course is when people get wrongly accused, or get punished for something stupid like a more or custom that really doesn't hurt anyone. The imbalance and misuse of powers by the majority against the minority or some weaker class, like women.

Stoning to death and cutting off body parts is without question barbaric. So is capital punishment no matter how it is delivered.

reply to post by munkey66


I understand where you are coming from, but I am not causing anyone pain and suffering by eating a pork chop or putting my parents in a nursing home. To cause pain and suffering to any creature like is described above is just evil and barbaric.

Iran also allows chemical blinding. In 2005 a 27-year-old man named only as Majid had been stalking a woman, Ameneh Bahrami. When she refused his advances he poured a container of sulphuric acid over her. Bahrami was blinded and disfigured. Majid was sentenced to have five drops of hydrochloric acid dripped into each open eye, blinding him.

When I read this I could not feel a shred of symapthy... Offcourse these barbaric punishments should be held in check but there are, most definetely, exceptions... the above mentioned case is IMO one of those exceptions..

For the rest of the punishments listed I can only look on in horror...

I do want to add 1 other thing where current punishment is less then adequate.. Look in the average western country and it becomes quite obvious how crooked the current world is.. in 1 part of the world we can only use 1 word to describe "justice".. BARBARIC. But in the part where I live we cannot even come close to that.. the Netherlands hands out higher punishment for tax-evasion then it does for murder or child-molesting. It all boils down to the personal "justice" as depicted by our current world leaders...

Its a mess!!!

Aww, they left out my personal favorite, the Angel of Death.

Thats where they make two long incisions along the middle of your back, and then pull your lungs out so they look like a set of wings.

reply to post by ReeVeeR


it wasnt long ago we were burning witches, or drowning them, doing basically the same barbaric things. but just because we have evolved to a some what better state doesnt mean we should shove our ideas down their throat. you have to give the people time to react them self, slowly they will come around. going around and saying you are barbarians stop doing this wont do any good. each nation should be allowed to develop at their own pace, but thats just my point of view.

Some 'judges' don't own their own judgements.
A 'writ' of Habeaus Corpus (peer jury trial) was/is a good idea.

Hiring sadists to watch the penn, a bad one.
A 6 month random rotation of personnel seems more appropriate.
I wouldn't want to imagine anyone getting comfortable in the 'field' of folly.

reply to post by ReeVeeR


The are plenty of other gruesome capital punishments..
I was reading accounts of U.S electrocutions, botched lethal injections and gas chambers - OMG grim...

Necklacing
Necklacing - summary execution in South African townships during the 1980s and 1990sis a type of execution in which a rubber tyre is filled with gasoline, forced over the arms and chest of the victim, and set alight. It was a common practice in South Africa during the 1980s and 1990s anti-apartheid struggle.

The Brazen Bull was invented by Perilaus of Athens (a Brass worker) in the 6th Century BC and offered to Phalaris, Tyrant of Agrigentum, as a gift. It was a large brass bull that was completely hollow inside with a door on the side large enough for a man to enter. Once the man was inside the bull, a fire would be lit beneath it in order to roast him to death. In the head of the bull, Perilaus put a series of tubes and stops that were designed to amplify the screams of the victim and make them sound like the roar of a bull.
Phalaris tricked Perilaus into climbing to the Bull and ordered a fire be set underneath.

Perilaus was removed from the Bull before he died and Phalaris had him thrown off a cliff. The Brazen Bull became one of the most common methods of execution in Ancient Greece.

Hanging Drawing and Quartering
was the common form of punishment in England for the crime of treason which was considered the worst crime you could commit.
The first stage of the execution was to be tied to a wooden frame and dragged behind a horse to the place of your death.

Following that, the criminal would be hanged until they were nearly dead. The criminal would then be removed from the noose and laid on a table. The executioner would then disembowel and emasculate the victim, and burn the entrails in front of his eyes. He would still be alive at this point. The person would then be beheaded and their body cut in to quarters.

- it disgusts me what we are/were capable of.

In 2005 a 27-year-old man named only as Majid had been stalking a woman, Ameneh Bahrami. When she refused his advances he poured a container of sulphuric acid over her. Bahrami was blinded and disfigured. Majid was sentenced to have five drops of hydrochloric acid dripped into each open eye, blinding him.

In 2003 an Indian citizen working in Saudi Arabia took part in a brawl, wounding a man's eye. Puthan Veettil Abd ul-Latif Noushad was eventually sentenced, in 2005, to have his own right eye gouged out as punishment.

It might be just me, but they both seem fair deals... he sharp lesson being - don't hurt other people or you get it back again!

This is not a declaration of guilt or innocence in terms of the people affected, purely the punishments.

reply to post by ReeVeeR


marriage

I am very glad that we do not have the death penalty here.

But then sometimes when I see people who have tortured and abused kids getting it easy in jail it makes me think ' should they be allowed to have it so easy? or if one of my relatives were to be brutally murdered then i would probably be the first to cry out for the death penalty, or at least torture or vengence. Its hard to know if i would still support the lack of death penalty if it were a family member who was the victim of murder. Hypocritical i know.

One of the many tortures in use today by our government is repeated waterboarding, vaccines that slow skill, & chemicals in our water to wash down the genitically modified food we eat.

Cultures like Afghanistan and Pakistan, or some African nations, are, for all intents and purposes, a thousand years behind the rest of the world. They didn't develop as Western nations did, undergoing their own industrial revolution, or developing their own constitutions or declarations of freedom as we did. They've had all that FORCED on them from Western powers. The effect is that they have all this modern technology but they still have a medieval mindset.

If you want to make a fair comparison between their forms of punishment and the west, you have to compare them (as they are now) with the European middle ages. Which were more brutal? Stoning, or the Iron Maiden? Blinding, or Dunking? Beheading by a saw, or by a Guillotine?

The sad fact is, the Human is a cruel animal.

The cruelest things man does to his fellow man are done in the name of justice.