Crucifixion - Present

Present

Theoretically, crucifixion is still one of the Hadd punishments in the Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran's Islamic Criminal Law, Article 195), although it is not actually applied and there is no example of its use. If a crucified person were to survive three days of crucifixion, that person would be allowed to live. Execution by hanging is described as follows: "In execution by hanging, the prisoner will be hung on a hanging truss which should look like a cross, while his (her) back is toward the cross, and (s)he faces the direction of Mecca, and his (her) legs are vertical and distant from the ground."

Sudan's penal code, based upon the government's interpretation of Shari'a, includes execution followed by crucifixion as a penalty. When, in 2002, 88 people were sentenced to execution, Amnesty International speculated that they could be executed by either hanging or crucifixion. The accused were convicted of crimes relating to murder, armed robbery, and participating in ethnic clashes in Southern Darfur that killed at least 10 people, but Amnesty International believes that the convicted were tortured and did not receive fair trials and adequate legal representation.

In the 50th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights (1994), local bishops reported several cases of crucifixion of Christian priests.

The human rights group Karen Women Organization documented a case of Tatmadaw forces crucifying several Karen villagers in 2000 in the Dooplaya District in Burma's Kayin State.

The crucifixion of a nun in Romania made news in 2005. 23 year-old Maricica Irina Cornici was believed to be possessed by the devil. Father Daniel, the superior of the Romanian Orthodox monastery who ordered the crucifixion, did not understand why journalists were making a fuss over the story, claiming that "Exorcism is a common practice in the heart of the Romanian Orthodox church and my methods are not at all unknown to other priests." Father Daniel and four nuns were charged with imprisonment leading to death.

On 23 November 2009 in Saudi Arabia, a 22-year-old man was sentenced to beheading and posthumous crucifixion, by having his beheaded body tied to wooden beams to be displayed to the public after the beheading. The man was convicted of and admitted to abducting and raping five children, aged between 3 and 7 years, whom he left out in the desert to die.

On 1 May 2011, the Gyeongbuk Provincial Police Agency investigated a dead taxi driver in his late 50s who was crucified in an abandoned mine near Mungyeong, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea.

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