Western hypocrisy, in two parallel cases - Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani & Teresa Lewis

The US Supreme Court has refused a last-minute appeal by a female convict diagnosed with borderline mental retardation for a stay of her execution.

Teresa Lewis was found guilty of plotting to kill her husband and step-son in 2002 for life insurance money. The court said in a ruling on Tuesday that the stay of execution request by the 41-year-old woman "is denied."  The ruling means that she will be executed by lethal injection on Thursday, September 23, becoming the first woman to be put to death in Virginia since 1912. Lewis has admitted to hiring two accomplices for the murders, but has denied pulling the trigger. Doctors, meanwhile, have said that she was not intelligent enough to mastermind the murders. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, however, said that he could find "no compelling reason to set aside the sentence that was imposed by the Circuit Court and affirmed by all reviewing courts." Lewis is the first woman to be executed in the United States since 2005. 

Human rights groups have described her conviction as 'unsubstantiated.' Amnesty International, for its part, has called on US officials to commute the death sentence of Lewis. The controversial case is reportedly not the first and will not be the last one in the US to draw fire over what has been described as "a mockery of justice." .. in parallel Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani in IRAN ..>>

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticizes Western hypocrisy, saying the West is hyping up the case of an Iranian woman whose sentence is not yet final, while 53 women are on the death row in the US. The Iranian president was referring to the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who has confessed to premeditated murder and adultery and is awaiting the finial decision on her sentence. "Right now, 53 women in the US are on the death row, while the sentencing of Mrs. Mohammadi is yet to be finalize in Iran; however, [the West] has launched an anti-Iranian wave of media hype," Ahmadinejad said late on Monday. One of those on the death row is borderline mentally retarded Teresa Lewis, who is slated to be executed in the US state of Virginia by lethal injection on September 23  for plotting the killing of her husband and stepson in 2002. "Unfortunately, the 'war on terrorism' motto has translated into the war on Muslim nations," he was quoted by IRNA as saying in a meeting with Islamic figures and scholars in New York. Ahmadinejad condemned NATO for killing innocent Afghans in a war launched under the pretext of finding a select few "allegedly behind the September 11 incident." "According to official estimate 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 incident…but in Afghanistan at least 110,000 people have been killed so far and there is no telling how long the killing will continue," said the Iranian president. "In reality, they are not taking revenge on terrorists; they are taking revenge on Muslims," Ahmadinejad concluded. 

-----------------------
"Human rights.." in the west