03 October 2026

The double standards of a failed execution

 Al Jazeera English

Let’s pretend that the Islamic Republic of Iran had undertaken to execute a 50-year-old woman for a crime committed when she was an 18-year-old.

Let’s say the crime was murdering a fellow female student. Let’s also say that the woman slated for execution had suffered rape and sexual abuse since she was a toddler and had been diagnosed with mental illness, later admitting: “It took me numerous years to even realise the gravity of what I’d done.”

A fair amount of international uproar would presumably ensue, alleging Iran’s barbarity in choosing to kill a woman with such a troubled past. The United States would no doubt be at the helm of the criticism.

And yet no such uproar has transpired since Wednesday’s attempted execution in the US state of Tennessee of 50-year-old Christa Pike, to whom all of the above details pertain in reality. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.