ISIS have also been using crucifixion as a punishment. What history wonks they are.
A man has survived being crucified by Isis in Syria, after the jihadists raided his village and nailed him to a cross for eight hours.
The unnamed man from Al-Bab, near the border with Turkey, was crucified as a punishment, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
He managed to survive the ordeal.
But eight others who received the same punishment did not survive. The men, from Deir Hafer in the east of Aleppo province, were subjected to the same treatment and crucified “in the main square of the village, where their bodies will remain for three days”, the Britain-based monitor said.
It’s a very horrible way to die – slow torturous suffocation as the weight of the hanging body compresses the lungs.
It’s a very horrible way to die – slow torturous suffocation as the weight of the hanging body compresses the lungs
Don’t say that, they’re looking for a slow torturous way to kill people in Arizona. Apparently 2-hr long torture sessions with lethal injection isn’t cruel and unusual enough.
What were any of these people crucified for? Any actual offense, or was this just some way of killing people in a gruesome and painful way?
I think they want to relive the glory days of the Persian Empire.
Not being ISIS enough. Or being a little too Isis. Whatever.
I’m with @4. These people don’t need a reason to be cruel. Their god tells them they should be, and that’s good enough for them.
I don’t agree with Hitchens’ assertion that “religion poisons everything”…but in this case, I think we have a clear cause-and-effect relationship.
I think we have a clear cause-and-effect relationship.
Do you think so? I don’t. I think it’s political – they’re subjugating the population in the oldest, simplest, way. Religion is a justifying framework for some of it, but in the end what motivates people who do this kind of thing is power – love of power. Those that hunger for power will be attracted to nationalism, religious extremeism, racism, tribalism, whatever ideology gives them an excuse to grab a gun and lord it over someone else.
As a form of punishment, crucifixion has the advantages of not just being in public, but torturous and drawn out over a long period of time. It’s a great way of making an example of someone.
@4,5: What did they do? They fought with the rebels. ISIS wants everybody to know what happens to rebels.
Crucifixion is one possible punishment for those who fight against Allah and his messenger and spread corruption in the land, as per Koran 5.33. ISIS haven’t just picked a random, painful way to kill people. Allah told them it was the right thing to do.
Marcus Ranum rushes in to prove once again that no human rights abuse anywhere in the world can occur without some leftist drawing an absurd false equivalency with something in the West. First of all at this point we really do not know if the botched execution in Arizona caused any pain, that is a faith-based assumption of people inherently opposed to the death penalty based on subjective evidence.
Marcus rushes back in post No. 6 to run further interference on behalf of Islam. Notice how his list of sins leaves off misogyny, the most glaring and widespread abuse associated with Islamic conservatism, let alone fundamentalism as extreme as the IS. He is sure to mention racism, despite that being largely irrelevant in the context of IS unless any random jew fellow into their clutches, but not homophobia, a prejudice actually likely to violently enacted under IS.
And of course never mind crucifixion is a specifically prescribed punishment in the Quran, I am sure to Marcus that is really “political” too.
Hey, Katherine, you’re back! I’ve missed you.
First, just to get it out of the way; there is no good way to die.
Reading the book “Last breath”:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780345441515
There was a section citing research that suggests that the classic crucifixion might have killed more by heat exhaustion than obstructing breathing. The person, stripped naked and spread out facing the sun in the desert sun would see their body temperature rise to the point it kills them in a short amount of time.
Neither positional asphyxia nor heat stroke are, strictly speaking, painful. It isn’t comfortable. Volunteers for Crucifixion report that after the initial shock they tended to drift into an altered state where what was happening to their body was very distant.
More on-point, Someone needs to tell ISIS, or whatever name they are going by, that crucifixion has a lot of negative connotations and historical precedents for a good part of the world population. If their intent is to win people over the effect is likely to be quite the opposite. On the other hand, if the desired effect is to alienate as many people as possible and paint themselves as comic book villains, enemies of civilization, and humanity in generally, then hanging people on crosses and bragging about it is one of the better methods.