In light of our recent discussion of the death penalty, I thought some might be interested to hear that the namby-pamby not-our-place-to-kill-them policies that dominate the Western world, are not found everywhere. In some places, the kid gloves are definitely off. Way off.

A recent law that’s come up for debate in front of the Iranian parliament would extend the scope of the death penalty. According to an NPR report that we heard last night, it may soon be available as a punishment for such bad people as “thieves, rapists, kidnappers and bloggers.”

Blogging isn’t per se a crime in Iran… it’s only a crime if you say bad things, which are vaguely defined as anything that might have “disturbing mental content.” Obviously there’s a lot of latitude for government to decide what counts as offensive. Some people speculate that this might only be a way of giving the government an excuse to go after websites peddling home-produced porn films. (They don’t already have a way to do this in Iran?) But others suspect that websites promoting dangerous political ideas, or apostasy, will also be potential targets. Perhaps we’d better skip that stop on our next trip through the Middle East?