In Haifa, life is sirens and shelters

In Haifa, life is sirens and shelters
About half of Israeli city’s residents have fled south

An Israeli policeman escorts a woman and children after a rocket exploded in Haifa on Tuesday.
HAIFA, Israel, July 27 - At the port of Haifa, the parking lots are empty and the docks are vacant. Long chains with hooks at their ends dangle from tall, silent cranes, swaying gently in the Mediterranean breeze. The only sign of life is a white security vehicle making lonely laps.
Nearby, crane operator Nissim Benbenishty, 62, has stopped at the Dagon grain facility to boost the spirits of a co-worker. Of Dagon's 85 employees, only three, all security personnel, are working. The rest have left town or are staying close to home, where they can be with their families and dash into a bomb shelter at the first whisper of an air raid siren.
"Even during normal times, the slightest spark will send the building sky high," he explains. Haifa residents have worried since the current conflict began that a missile strike on the silo could devastate the surrounding area.
In the past two weeks, the radical Shiite militia Hezbollah has fired more than 60 rockets from southern Lebanon at Haifa, Israel's third-largest city and largest port, killing nine people and seriously injuring 13, according to Mickey Rosenfeld, a spokesman for Israel's national police. Since then, about half of Haifa's 270,000 residents have fled south, hoping to get out of range, Rosenfeld said.
"I don't feel good. I don't feel good," Benbenishty says. "We are surrounded by Arab countries that want to annihilate us."
When the sirens scream, he says, people dash to the shelters, and afterward his wife, six children and four grandchildren grab their cellphones to make sure everyone is accounted for. "Our phone bills are going to be huge next month," he says.
Next to the Dagon Silo, the Haifa train station is closed. There is little traffic on the main road connecting Haifa to Tel Aviv, 50 miles south, and most storefronts are shuttered tight.
Amir Ardet, 23, an Israeli Arab minding his family's bakery, waves his hand over platters of sweets and breads. "Everything is delicious, but we have no customers," he says.
"The whole area is office buildings and government workers, and they are either sitting at home or have run off to Tel Aviv, and all the port workers took vacation," he says.
Resigned to their fateThat has left Haifa with a core of people who seem resigned to their fate.
"What can you do?" Ardet says, echoing a familiar refrain. "If I die, I die."
That is not the attitude adopted by Adki Kaplun, 64, his wife, Luda, 61, and their granddaughter Yulia, 10, immigrants from Ukraine who came to Israel five years ago in search of prosperity and now doubt the wisdom of their move.
They sit on plastic chairs in the covered parking lot of their apartment building, near the stairwell to the bomb shelter in the basement. Next to them are handbags with water, food and important documents.
They live on the eighth floor of the building, the elder Kaplun explains, "and since there are lots of sirens, and it's hard going up and down every time they fire at us, we just stay here all day."
As if on cue, a siren begins to screech. Kaplun jumps like he's touched an electric wire, and fear shrouds his face. He screams that everyone must rush to the basement, and people follow suit, from all over the building, down the stairs, through two large steel doors and into the sweltering storage area fitted out as a bomb shelter with a single fan, a few beach chairs, some crayons and a deck of playing cards.
Last Friday, says Annie Nissim, 23, "my husband and I went into town, we heard a siren and ran into a bomb shelter, and when we came out, a rocket had landed right where we were standing when we first heard the siren." Nineteen people were injured, she said. "Since then, we take the sirens very seriously."
Shared traumaIn the shelter, people are talking in Arabic, Russian and Hebrew. Many are immigrants, Nissim says, and their shared trauma and trips to the shelter -- "as many as 12 a day" -- have pulled them all together. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," she says.
People start wondering if the alert may be over, but Kaplun anxiously waves everyone back from the open shelter doors. Others arrive, wait a few minutes, then leave when they decide it's safe. Finally, Kaplun resumes his perch outside.
"I want to leave Israel. I just want to get out of here," he says. "Why should I lead my life running around scared that a bomb is going to hit me?"

Just down the street, the famous Bahai Gardens are closed, like so many of Haifa's landmarks. The gardens climb up Mount Carmel in 19 colorful terraces bedecked with marble fountains, conical pines and white rose trees.
Tending the islands of purple petunias and bright pink impatiens, Fade Kanboura, a gardener, seems to symbolize the cultural and religious mix for which Haifa is renowned. He is a Catholic, working for the Bahais, in a Jewish state under attack by radical Muslims.
"Everybody's a target," Kanboura says, laughing at the thought that Haifa's Jews might resent their Arab neighbors for the Hezbollah strikes. "A rocket cannot tell the difference between a Jew, an Arab and a Christian."

No one has anything against the Arabs" who make up about 10 percent of Haifa's population "or the Arabs in Lebanon -- only against Hezbollah," says Moshe Batish, 52, the owner of a curio and antique store in a posh neighborhood at the top of Mount Carmel.
A billboard advertising plays and concerts, since canceled, has been plastered with handwritten placards: "Stay strong and brave," "Stop, smile, everything's for the best," and "The whole world is a very narrow bridge -- the important thing is not to be scared."
20 guests in 222-room hotelAt the Dan hotel, although it is high season, only 20 guests are staying in the 222 rooms, says Berthe Yogev, the room manager. The lobby is empty, the bar is closed, and each place in the cavernous dining room is set, waiting for the first customer.
Nearby, the Educational Zoo is shut, manager Eti Ararat says.
"The animals are locked up in their sleeping quarters because the areas where they usually roam during the day are behind glass, and if that breaks from the Hezbollah bombings, then all the predators such as lions and tigers and bears will go on a rampage through Haifa," she says.
At Carmel Beach, two deeply bronzed men have the seashore to themselves and are playing an aggressive game of paddle ball. Usually at this time of the year, there's hardly space to spread a blanket here.
"How many days can you stay home? One? Two? We are not afraid of Hezbollah" or its leader, Hasan Nasrallah, says Simon Levi, an unemployed 33-year-old who spends every day at the shore but bristles at the term "beach bum."
"Israel invented security," he adds. "When I hear a siren, I run to the sea and go swimming."
Cabin feverShachaf Sabag, carrying a nine-foot fishing pole and red pail, arrives with his 4-year-old son, who is carrying a net. Like many in the city, they have cabin fever: no kindergarten, no summer camp, no activities at all.
"I'm not afraid, I'm worried. Everything is crashing down," says Sabag, 30, who works for Israel's prison authority. "Everything is closing down, people are losing their jobs, and people are afraid this will go on for who knows how long. Some people have even sold their homes and left."
In the distance, sirens start to wail -- a muffled moan that rises and falls on the sea breeze. Sabag puts his arm around his son's neck and tousles his hair. Nothing to fear, the gesture says.
Down the beach, Levi jumps into the water.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

BAHAIS TAKE NO POSITION

As most people around the world, we have been thinking a lot about the situation that is happening in the Middle East and wanted to share some of our thoughts. It is so important for people to realize that the Baha'i faith is entirely non-political and therefore we take no position on the situation here - or anywhere else in the world. The aim of the Baha'i faith is the establishment of peace and justice for all people, and we believe that this can only come about as each of us works to overcome our prejudices and accept each other as members of one family. The Baha'i Writings state: "The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established."This is what we are doing here and why we want to stay. Above all we feel confident in our hearts that unity in the world will happen as long as each of us does our part, however small it may be.We wanted to share this prayer that explains our heart-felt hope for humanity:
O Thou kind Lord! Thou hast created all humanity from the same stock. Thou hast decreed that all shall belong to the same household. In Thy Holy Presence they are all Thy servants, and all mankind are sheltered beneath Thy Tabernacle; all have gathered together at Thy Table of Bounty; all are illumined through the light of Thy Providence. O God! Thou art kind to all, Thou hast provided for all, dost shelter all, conferrest life upon all. Thou hast endowed each and all with talents and faculties, and all are submerged in the Ocean of Thy Mercy. O Thou kind Lord! Unite all. Let the religions agree and make the nations one, so that they may see each other as one family and the whole earth as one home. May they all live together in perfect harmony. O God! Raise aloft the banner of the oneness of mankind. O God! Establish the Most Great Peace. Cement Thou, O God, the hearts together. O Thou kind Father, God! Gladden our hearts through the fragrance of Thy love. Brighten our eyes through the Light of Thy Guidance. Delight our ears with the melody of Thy Word, and shelter us all in the Stronghold of Thy Providence. Thou art the Mighty and Powerful, Thou art the Forgiving and Thou art the One Who overlooketh the shortcomings of all mankind.Baha'i Writings

christine and brian's blog: What life is like here

christine and brian's blog: What life is like here

Haifa, City of Peace

Haifa, City of PeaceBy Bruce KeslerDemocracy Project July 27, 2006Some partygoers to Beirut may be inconvenienced by the Hezbollah terrorists and their rocket stores and sites targeted by Israel. Meanwhile, the media are silent about what is targeted in Haifa by Hezbollah.
What few are told by media reports is that Haifa is the chosen home of one of the world’s most pacifist sects, the Baha’i, a model of Arab-Israeli coexistence, and source of many of the world’s scientific breakthroughs for health and technology. In short, it represents everything Hezbollah opposes. Haifa represents the imagined future supposedly so dear to Western anti-war, really anti-Western civilization, activists who hypocritically speak of what a wonderful world it would be without Western defense against terrorists.
As the secretary-general of the Baha’i International Community in Haifa, with its gorgeous temple and Babylon-like gardens, says:
"Hizbullah would think it pretty neat if they destroyed our temple"… "Shi'ites consider a Baha'i an apostate who can be killed for nothing," said Lincoln. "There are 350,000 Baha'i in Iran. They are excluded from higher education, including the last year of high school. If a Baha'i is killed in a traffic accident he is ineligible for compensation, because a Baha'i's life is worthless." Members of the Baha'i community have been persecuted, and sometimes killed over the years by Muslims, especially by Shi'ites.
The Baha’i are a special target of Hezbollah’s Iranian taskmasters, even recognized by this latest U.N. report.
It’s not just Shia or Iran who hate the Baha’I for their faith, but others like Sunni-majority Egypt who detest its peaceful ways and persecute them.
Haifa is known as the center of Arab-Israeli constructive relations.
For the most part, “there is coexistence here, there is integration and practical cooperation in a normal and natural fashion,” said Fathi Marshood, an Arab who directs the Haifa office of the New Israel Fund’s training and empowerment center, Shatil. “It is a place where Jews and Arabs really can work together, argue, have a dialogue of equals and work toward joint interests as equals.”
There’s a history to this. When Arab states told their fellows in the Mandate to leave while Arab armies crushed the new Israel (then festered their hatreds and let them languish in squalid camps for decades), Jewish leadership in Haifa said stay:
The legacy of the city’s legendary Arab mayor, who between 1914 and 1920 ruled Haifa as the CEO of a successful Arab-Jewish joint venture, is a tradition of mutual tolerance and mutual respect. In 1948, when thousands of Haifa’s Arabs packed up to flee as the war erupted, members of the city’s Jewish labor federation — the strongest community organization in town — handed out leaflets pleading with their Arab neighbors to stay. Yahav keeps one of those leaflets in his drawer. “There is a history of coexistence, and there is almost no history of trauma here,” Yahav said. “There were no religious wars here. It’s no more than a fishermen’s village that has evolved into a thriving town. That’s all.”
Surely, there are Israeli Arabs who fearlessly support Hamas or Hezbollah, but their true fear is demonstrated by they have not put their feet where their mouth is by moving to Gaza or Lebanon, to leave the country that provides them the most rights and opportunities in the Middle East.Then there’s Technion, one of the world’s top-ten scientific research and development sites in the world:
Known as "Israel's MIT," the Technion has earned a worldwide reputation for its pioneering work in electronics, information technology, water management, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials engineering and aerospace. It is one of just 10 universities in the world that build and launch satellites. It is also one of only five similar institutions worldwide that include a medical school, encouraging progress in the rapidly developing science of biotechnology. The Technion is a recognized leader in stem cell research. It is one of only 15 academic institutions and companies worldwide approved by the National Institutes of Health for government funded research.Companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and others have established their operations near or even on campus, where they can take advantage of the Technion's research power and outstanding graduates.
Hold your breath waiting for the CNN Special on Haifa, or the New York Times’ feature article, comparing its contributions to the world's hopes to the hopelessness that comes with the terrorists' agenda.

BAHAIS IN EGYPT

The Current Situation
Deprived of all rights as an organized religious community since 1960, the Bahá’í community of Egypt today faces a fresh crisis that aims to utterly destroy it as a viable religious community.
The current crisis stems from a Government decision, now being implemented, to computerize the national identity card system. The system has been set up to exclude Bahá’ís, depriving them of valid ID cards, making them virtual non-citizens, without access to employment, education, and all government services, including hospital care. Individuals without a valid ID card would even be unable to buy groceries from state markets. Already, a number of Bahá’í young people are currently without valid ID cards, a situation that has forced them out of universities and the army, placing them precariously on the margins of society.
Of equal concern, Bahá’ís have in recent months faced an upsurge in religious prejudice in Egyptian society at large. A number of attacks on Bahá’ís have been published in 2004 and 2005 in the Government-controlled news media. Likewise, in recent years, Muslim clerics in Egypt have issued “fatwas” against Bahá’ís.
A Bahá’í community of thousands, when the 1960 Presidential Decree was issued banning its activities, now shows some 500 members who are under strict and constant police surveillance. Periodically, their homes are searched and Bahá’í literature is taken away and destroyed. As Bahá’ís cannot legally marry, the entire community is without legal recourse in matters involving family allowances, pensions, inheritance, divorce, alimony or custody of children. The climate of hatred also creates a social stigma that affects education and employment.
ID Card Crisis
The immediate crisis concerns the Government’s computerization of the national identification card system — an interesting conjunction of modern technology and the oppression of a religious minority.
All citizens must carry ID cards, which must be presented not only for any type of government service, such as medical care in a public hospital or processing for a property title or deed, but also to obtain employment, education, banking services, and many other important private transactions. ID cards are also required to pass through police checkpoints, and individuals without such cards are accordingly deprived of freedom of movement.
In Egypt, ID cards require a statement of religious affiliation. Moreover, the system allows for one of only the three recognized religions of Egypt — Islam, Christianity, or Judaism — to be entered.
Bahá’ís have long refused as a matter of principle to falsely list themselves as Muslim, Christian, or Jew. Not only would such a step constitute committing fraud against the state, but such a denial of faith would effectively play into the hands of those who seek to eliminate the Bahá’ís in Egypt. Accordingly, Bahá’ís have simply left the religious affiliation slot blank, made a dash, written “other,” or even sometimes boldly listed “Bahá’í.” With the old paper ID cards, Bahá’ís were thus able to obtain cards and survive as individuals in Egyptian society.
In the 1990s, the Government announced it would be upgrading its identification card system by issuing computerized cards that would be less susceptible to forgery. This, the Government indicated, would help to combat militant Islamic unrest, and improve data collection and access. The Government indicated the shift to the new system would be gradual, but set January 2005 as the deadline for everyone to have the new cards — a deadline which has apparently been extended to 2006.
The system has apparently undergone modifications since it was set up. In 2003, for example, four Bahá’ís sought and obtained new computerized cards in which the religious affiliation field listed “other” — a designation to which the Bahá’í community does not object. More recently, however, the software has been updated so that only one of the three recognized religions can be entered. If the field is left blank, the computer refuses to issue the card.
The Bahá’í community of Egypt has approached the Government on numerous occasions to plead for a simple change in the programming, if not the law, so that they could be issued valid ID cards under the new system. Such pleas, however, have been met with rejection and refusal.
Accordingly, all members of the Egyptian Bahá’í community face the prospect of being left wholly without proper ID Cards by the year’s end — a situation in which they would essentially be denied all rights of citizenship, and, indeed, would be faced with the inability even to withdraw their own money from the bank, get medical treatment at public hospitals, or purchase food from state stores.
Already, the Government has asked young people to start coming in for the new cards, and a number of Bahá’í youth have accordingly been stripped of paper identification cards. Once stripped of ID cards, Bahá’í youth essentially become prisoners in their own homes, since the authorities often set up evening checkpoints to verify the identity of young men. Individuals without proper ID face detention. Likewise, young people without ID cards are denied entrance and continuing enrollment in colleges and universities, as well as service in the armed forces.
Given the Government’s refusal to make what would be the simplest of programming changes — such that the cards could be issued with a blank religious affiliation field or perhaps with the word “other” — one can only conclude that the ID card situation is in reality an attempt to further marginalize and eliminate the Bahá’í community of Egypt.
At one point, for example, Government officials offered Bahá’ís the possibility of using passports in lieu of ID cards — a ploy that would set the Bahá’ís apart or even drive them from their homeland. There is concern, as well, that refusing to list Bahá’í in any kind of national identification database enables the Government to officially proclaim that there are no Bahá’ís in the country.
Set against the burgeoning call for freedom and democracy in the Middle East, the Egyptian ID card “scam” offers an interesting twist in human rights oppression: the use of modern technology to nullify a community of one of the most progressive and peace minded religious groups in the Middle East.
Attacks in the Media
All this comes against bland denials by the Egyptian Government that the Bahá’ís lack fundamental human rights — rights which are ostensibly outlined in the Egyptian Constitution and definitively specified in international human rights agreements to which Egypt is a party. Indeed, the Government and its media have launched what amounts to a public campaign of the character of a chimera, proclaiming their adherence to the principles of human rights by publishing a series of inaccurate and negative articles about the Bahá’í Faith. No opportunity is given for the Bahá’ís to respond.
On 23 July 2004, for example, a weekly magazine, Rose el-Youssef, published a lengthy article insinuating that the Bahá’í Faith was a “dangerous” force in Egyptian society.
Under the defiant headline “The Bahá’ís in Egypt enjoy all rights of citizenship,” the article claimed that Bahá’ís in Egypt have no human rights problems. “The Bahá’ís feel no threat or danger,” the article asserted, while at the same time noting that Bahá’í institutions are banned because they are “dangerous.” The article’s defensive tone was apparently inspired by the July 2004 visit of the United States Committee on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which in fact did meet with members of Egypt’s Bahá’í community as part of their investigation of religious freedom in Egypt.“What is strange is with regards to the Bahá’ís, they are not suffering any persecution in Egypt,” the article said, referring to the inquiries made by the USCIRF.
Yet the bulk of the article went on to misrepresent Bahá’í teachings and practice. It was claimed, for example, that the Bahá’í teachings “cause strife and differences” among its believers; it asserted that Bahá’ís threaten the unity of Egyptian society.
The writer seemed to feel no need to check even technical facts readily available in libraries or through the Internet. The article states that the Faith, which is established in over 200 countries, is limited to only 35 nations, “mostly the United States of America and Israel.” The article also named as the representative of the Bahá’í International Community to the United Nations a man who has been dead since January 2001.
On 1 August 2004, similarly, Nisf El Dunya magazine published the first installment of a two-part article that also started by mentioning the July 2004 visit of the USCIRF. Once again, the article defended the Government’s human rights record on the Bahá’ís, saying “Egypt does not know of any persecution of the followers of any denomination or religious sect…”
However, the article went on at considerable length about how the Bahá’í Faith is a “schismatic faction from under the cloak of Islam.” It also repeated old but false attacks on the Bahá’í community of Egypt, implying that they were once spies for Israel and, previous to that, agents of British colonialists.
Fatwas against the Bahá’ís
The Bahá’í community of Egypt has also faced persecution and harassment from the religious orthodoxy in Egypt. Over the years, the Faith has been the subject of at least 15 “fatwas” that deride the Faith as a heresy and accuse its followers of apostasy, a charge which is punishable by death under traditional Islamic law (Shariah).
Most recently, for example, on 15 December 2003, a fatwa by the Islamic Research Academy of the well-known Al-Azhar University described the Bahá’í Faith as “a lethal spiritual epidemic in the fight against which the state must mobilise all its contingencies to annihilate it.” The statement goes on ominously to demand “those [Bahá’ís] who have committed criminal acts against Islam and our country must disappear from life and not be allowed to announce their deviation from Islam.”
Past fatwas have made similar pronouncements — and they have been repeated and reported on in the press, further fuelling the air of discrimination and oppression faced by Bahá’ís in Egypt.
Although the situation of the Bahá’ís of Egypt has certain parallels to the on-going persecution of Bahá’ís in Iran, there are a number of differences: the community is much smaller (and therefore more vulnerable); the restrictions on activities are more explicit (spiritual and administrative institutions and all forms of assembly are banned); and the persecution comes at the behest of a secular government, albeit one that must pay political heed to the cross-currents of Islamic traditionalists.
What is similar to the situation in Iran is the profound hatred long expressed by Muslim orthodoxy towards the Bahá’í Faith.
Less than non-entities
Against this backdrop, the continuing refusal of the Government to rescind the 1960 Presidential Decree banning Bahá’í institutions is made all the more ominous by the new threat involving computerized identification cards.
As noted, ID cards in general are required to receive virtually any social service. Over the years, Bahá’ís have managed to obtain legitimate ID cards by simply leaving the space designating “religion” blank — something that was possible with old style paper cards.
But once the computerized system is fully operational, if there is no change so as to allow Bahá’ís to register, a change that could be as simple as allowing “blank” or “other” to be input, the Bahá’ís of Egypt will become non-entities — or worse.
In January 2002, for example, an Egyptian Bahá’í went to a Civil Affairs Office to obtain a new ID card. The official refused to accept the form after noting the space indicating religion had been left blank. The Bahá’í was sent to a Directorate level office where he was handcuffed and blindfolded, and ultimately detained for five days. During that time, he was interrogated on such questions as “How did you become a Bahá’í?” and “What are the names of other Bahá’ís?” At one point during the interrogation, the officer took out his pistol, loaded it, and threatened the detainee, saying “Do you know what the penalty for apostasy is?” At another point, the officer said, “You have to be frank with me, or else I shall electrocute you, or break your bones.”

EXCLUSIVE: HANGED FROM A CRANE AGED 16

23 July 2006
EXCLUSIVE: HANGED FROM A CRANE AGED 16


EXCLUSIVE JUSTICE IRAN STYLE: SICK GIRL EXECUTED BY JUDGE SHE DEFIED Her crime? She had sex with an unmarried man
By Susie Boniface
IT WAS exactly 6am and the start of another blisteringly hot summer day when 16-year-old Atefeh Rajabi was dragged from her prison cell and taken to be executed.
Every step of the way the troubled teenager plagued by mental problems shouted "repentance, repentance" as the militiamen marched her to the town's Railway Square.
The Iranian judge who had sentenced Atefeh to death was left unmoved as he personally put the noose around her neck and signalled to the crane driver.
Kicking and screaming, Atefeh was left dangling for 45 minutes from the arm of the crane as the crowd sobbed and - under their breath - damned the mullahs.
Atefeh's crime? Offending public morality. She was found guilty of "acts incompatible with chastity" by having sex with an unmarried man, even though friends say Atefeh was in such a fragile mental state that she wasn't in a position to say no.
But Judge Haji Rezaii was determined she should hang, regardless of the rules of international law which say only adults over 18 can be executed, and that the courts have a duty to children and the mentally ill.

The brutal end to Atefeh's short life has shone a new light on Iran's Shariah law, where adultery, theft and rape all carry the same punishment - death. Officially around 100 people - some just children like Atefeh - are executed each year. But human rights groups say the true figure could be much higher in a country where only half of the women can read, only one in 10 have a job and two-thirds are beaten in their homes.
Life was never easy for Atefeh, who was brought up in the industrial town of Neka, 250 miles from Tehran and close to the Caspian Sea. Her mother died when she was a child and her father Ghasseem, a heroin addict, left her grandparents to bring her up. She suffered from bi-polar disorder, which led to severe mood swings from hyperactivity to depression. Worried parents told their children to stay away from her - something many regret now. "Perhaps we should have helped her instead," said Hamid. "I think the death of her mother had a devastating effect. Before that, she was a normal girl. Her mother was everything to her. After she died, there was no one to look after her."
Mina, a childhood friend, said Atefeh was abused by a close relative. "She never dared talk about it with an adult," said Mina. "If she had told her teacher they'd have called her a whore. Tell the police? They lock you up and rape you." Atefeh first appeared in court, accused of having sex with an unmarried man at 14. Over the next two years she was accused of the same crime with different men.
They denied it and were sentenced to the lash and then released. But Atefeh pleaded guilty and each time received 100 lashes and a prison term. Mina said: "Atefeh sometimes talked about what these 'moral' Islamic policemen did to her while she was in jail. She still had nightmares about that. Atefeh said her mood swings made it easy for men to take advantage of her, and that most of her lovers were in the security force."
Two of them were members of the anti-vice militia. They encouraged other men to sign statements saying Atefeh had engaged in vice, and even claimed she had AIDS.
It was when Atefeh appeared before Judge Rezaii for a fourth time that she lost her temper - and also her life. In a rage she tore off her hi jab - a headscarf - and told the judge she had been raped and it was his duty to punish her tormentors, not their victim.
Rezaii told her she would hang for her "sharp tongue" and that he would put the noose around her neck himself. It became a personal crusade as he travelled to Tehran and convinced the Supreme Court to uphold his verdict.
Two petitions by her friends, saying she was mentally unwell, were ignored. Her father produced her birth certificate proving she was 16. Yet the judges "decreed" she was 22.
Atefeh also wrote to the Supreme Court: "There are medical documents that prove I have a weak nerve and soul. In some minutes of the day and night I lose my sanity. In a society where an insane person can be serially raped it is no wonder that a person like me is the victim of such an ugly act."
The day before she died she wrote again, saying: "Repentance, repentance, repentance." In Iranian law anyone who shows remorse has an automatic stay of execution and a right to appeal, but she was ignored.
A local pharmacist watched Atefeh's execution "She looked so young standing there," he said. "Rezaii must have felt a personal grudge against her. He put the rope around her neck himself. I looked around and everyone in the crowd was sobbing and damning the mullahs." The family's lawyer has now filed a suit of wrongful execution against the judge and is preparing a murder case. Her life is also the subject of a secretly filmed documentary, Execution of a Teenage Girl, which will be screened on BBC2 on Thursday.
One of Atefeh's teachers said the authorities wanted to make an example of her: "She wouldn't take injustice from anyone, but the mullahs equate these qualities in a girl to prostitution and evil. They wanted to give all the girls and women a lesson."
Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said: "The killing of Atefeh is a catalogue of the most appalling human rights violations. The public hanging of a child, believed to be mentally incompetent, totally beggars belief. To hang a child flies in the face of all that is humane."
CRUELTY OF SHARIA LAW
PENALTIES imposed by Iran's religious mullahs include:
THEF T: Amputation of hands or feet for persistent offenders.
ADULTERY: Death by stoning.
UNMARRIED SEX: 100 lashes.
CONVERSION TO RELIGION OTHER THAN ISLAM: Death.
SODOMY: Death for adults, 74 lashes for consenting child.
LESBIANISM: 100 lashes, or on the fourth occasion death.
HOMOSEXUAL KISS: 60 lashes.
RUBBING ANOTHER MAN'S THIGHS OR BUTTOCKS: 99 lashes - on 4th occasion, death.
susie.boniface@sundaymirror.co.uk