The penalty for adultery under Article 83 of the penal code, called the Law of Hodoud is flogging (100 lashes of the whip) for unmarried male and female offenders. Married offenders may be punished by stoning regardless of their gender, but the method laid down for a man involves his burial up to his waist, and for a woman up to her neck (article 102). The law provides that if a person who is to be stoned manages to escape, he or she will be allowed to go free. Since it is easier for a man to escape, this discrimination literally becomes a matter of life and death.

Interestingly, Article 6 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iran has ratified, states: “Sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime.” Offenses for which the Law of Hodoud provides the death penalty do not involve murder or serious bodily harm, constituting the “most serious crimes”.

Article 104 of the Law of Hodoud provides that the stones should not be so large that a person dies after being hit with two of them, nor so small as to be defined as pebbles, but must cause severe injury. This makes it clear that the purpose of stoning is to inflict grievous pain on the victim, in a process leading to his or her slow death.

The Iranian woman facing death by stoning has expressed surprise over reports that she was lashed after a British newspaper published a picture showing her without a headscarf, a judiciary official who says he met her told Fars news agency on Wednesday.

“She was unaware and surprised by reports of (receiving) lashes after a British newspaper printed a picture which was not hers and had mistakenly mentioned her name under it,” Kazemzadeh said.

Mohammadi-Ashtiani’s son, Sajjad, told a Paris news conference by telephone on Monday that he “heard” his 43-year-old mother received 99 lashes in prison after The Times of London published on August 28 a picture claiming to be of Mohammadi-Ashtiani and showing her hair unveiled.

By law, women in the Islamic republic must be covered from head to foot, with their hair completely veiled.

Kazemzadeh said Mohammadi-Ashtiani’s death sentence had been “suspended on the orders of the head of the judiciary and will not be applied for the moment”, confirming what Iranian officials have been saying since July.

On Tuesday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said that her stoning sentence remained stayed as a final verdict in her case was still pending.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International said in a statement in London that suspending the sentence was not enough.
“The whole world is aware of my situation because of Mostafaie’s rogue action. I am ready to be present in front of the media and on television any time to defend myself,” Kazemzadeh quoted Mohammadi-Ashtiani as telling him, adding that she had filed a complaint against the lawyer with the judiciary.

Kazemzadeh said the condemned woman, a mother of two, told him that she continued to have weekly meetings with her family and children, Farideh and Sajjad.

The complaints submitted to professional bodies by the losing side in custody battles are turning experts off the important work, the group says in a discussion paper. The result is a “major social and legal problem,” it says.

The group urges changing the rules so disciplinary bodies can only consider complaints from such parents if they have been first approved by the judge in the case or by the other, winning parent, or have been screened to weed out frivolous grievances

“The family law justice system is seriously undermined every time a vexatious complaint is made by a parent to the college,” said the paper signed by 11 psychologists, psychiatrists, lawyers and social workers. “It feels like a professional sucker punch and has no correlation to the skill, experience and savvy of the assessor.”

Earlier this year, the Ontario Medical Association’s board directed its staff to work with other professionals to push for changes to protect members against such complaints.

A parents-rights organization, however, says people embroiled in emotional disputes often feel the assessor is biased against one side, and need some recourse to question their professionalism.

Kris Titus of the Canadian Equal Parenting Council said she has heard from parents about psychologists or others who will spend a whole day with one parent in their home, and an hour in a “sterile” office environment with the other.

“When you’re dealing with children, where every decision made is essentially going to affect someone’s entire future, there has to be strict regulation of assessors,” Ms. Titus said. “There are some assessors we have heard multiple complaints about.”

The report suggests three options, based partly on legislation in a handful of U.S. states.

• -Require that a judge approve any disciplinary complaint, ensuring that it is more than merely an attack on the assessor’s conclusions.
• -Require that the complaint be approved by both parents, again making it less likely the grievance will be just another appeal by the losing party.
• -Set up a vetting process within regulatory bodies that would throw out vexatious complaints before they are formally investigated.

Together, they would drastically lower taxes in Colorado. Proposition 101 would cut income taxes 0.1 percent a year until the rate was 3.5 percent – down from the current 4.63 percent. The initiative also would cut auto-registration fees to $1 or $2 and repeal all taxes and fees on telephones and computer networking, except for the 911 fee
The paper and printing costs alone for the 1,600 pages of petitions would have exceeded $200, according to the complaint.

“I just don’t think they have any regard for that aspect of the law,” said Tyler Chafee, spokesman for Protect Colorado’s Communities.

Of the official six ballot proponents, only conservative activist Freda Poundstone is well-known in political circles. Poundstone was visiting family in Washington on Tuesday and said she was not aware of the complaint, but she said she spent no money on the petition campaign.

She referred questions to Jeff Gross, the main sponsor of Proposition 101. Gross did not return an e-mail Tuesday, and he has declined previous interview requests.

Even if the complaints are successful, they will not keep the three questions off the ballot, said Rich Coolidge, spokesman for Secretary of State Bernie Buescher. If Buescher finds the complaints meet legal requirements, he will send them to an administrative law judge, who will set a hearing in the next 15 days, Coolidge said.

Chafee’s group is asking for fines of $50 a day and disclosures of the fundraising and expenses of the anti-tax campaigns since they started working

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who handed over more than 60,000 previously secret church files to the three-year investigation, said he felt deep shame and sorrow for how previous archbishops presided over endemic child abuse — yet claimed afterward not to understand the gravity of their sins.

Martin said his four predecessors in Ireland’s capital, including retired Cardinal Desmond Connell, must have understood that priests’ molestation and rape of boys and girls “was a crime in both civil and canon law. For some reason or another they felt they could deal with all this in little worlds of their own.

“They were wrong, and children were left to suffer.”
That report in May sought to document the scale of abuse as well as the reasons why church and state authorities didn’t stop it, whereas Thursday’s 720-page report focused on why church leaders in the Dublin Archdiocese — home to a quarter of Ireland’s 4 million Catholics — did not tell police about a single abuse complaint against a priest until 1995.

By then, the investigators found, successive archbishops and their senior deputies — among them qualified lawyers — already had compiled confidential files on more than 100 parish priests who had sexually abused children since 1940. Those files had remained locked in the Dublin archbishop’s private vault.

The investigators also dug up a paper trail documenting the church’s long-secret insurance policy, taken out in 1987, to cover potential lawsuits and compensation demands. Dublin church leaders publicly denied the existence of the problem for a decade afterward — but since the mid-1990s have paid out more than euro10 million ($15 million) in settlements and legal bills.
It was not until 1995 that then-Archbishop Connell allowed police to see church files on 17 clerical abuse cases. At that time, Connell actually held records of complaints against at least 29 priests, the report found. Connell later pursued a lawsuit against the investigators in an abandoned bid to keep them from seeing more than 5,500 files documenting the church’s knowledge of abusive priests.

The report said all four archbishops sought “the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities.”

The investigators lauded a handful of priests and mostly low-ranking police who pursued complaints and prosecutions, almost always unsuccessfully, from the 1960s to the 1980s.
The government also apologized for the state’s failure to pursue Dublin priests accused of child abuse until recent years.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, who received the Dublin Archdiocese report in July but delayed its publication for legal vetting, vowed that the state would never again treat the Catholic Church with deference.

“A priest’s collar will protect no criminal,” he said.

But pressure groups representing more than 15,000 documented victims of abuse by Irish Catholic officials said the government was not doing enough to end the danger of Catholic child abuse — in part because the law still stops short of requiring bishops to report abuse complaints to police.
And she forecast that, because abused children often do not seek justice until they reach adulthood, children today were still being abused by priests. “It’s very likely in 10 or 15 years’ time that the children who are being abused today will bring forward allegations,” she said.

“As Irish people we like to think we live in a civilized society,” she said, “but we need to hang our heads in shame.”

By way of introduction, immigration law violators are not immigrants . They are aliens who are in the United States in violation of law. There is a profound difference between individuals who legally apply for admission and fulfill all the requirements for admission, and those who decide to enter the United States, or intentionally overstay their visa in violation of law.

Two years ago, illegal immigration was such a hot topic that any conservative politician who even mentioned the word “amnesty” for undocumented aliens—also called illegal immigrants—in anything other than a hostile tone risked being tarred and feathered and subject to a recall. But today the issue of aliens unlawfully present in the United States has been moved to the back burners, if not completely off the stove. The only recent controversy involving undocumented aliens is whether they and/or their children should be covered by the new healthcare plan that is currently being crafted by Congress. President Obama, on the other hand, is supportive of a “path to citizenship” for immigrants who are here unlawfully.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, the number of illegal aliens in the United States dropped by almost 14 percent, or 1.7 million people, between the summer of 2007 and the spring of 2009. It has been estimated that the number of immigrants entering the U.S. illegally has dropped by one-third, while the number of illegal aliens returning to their homeland has more than doubled.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, the number of illegal aliens in the United States dropped by almost 14 percent, or 1.7 million people, between the summer of 2007 and the spring of 2009. It has been estimated that the number of immigrants entering the U.S. illegally has dropped by one-third, while the number of illegal aliens returning to their homeland has more than doubled.

What are the reasons for this dramatic turnaround? One reason is that more of our border with Mexico has been fenced in, deterring potential immigrants from trying to illegally cross into the United States. Although during his candidacy President Obama pledged that he would moderate the Bush administration’s tough policy on immigration enforcement, his administration is pursuing an aggressive strategy for an illegal immigration crackdown that relies substantially on programs started by his predecessor
President Obama favors shifting the burden of immigration enforcement to employers, while making it difficult for illegal immigrants to get hired. It is estimated that tens of thousands of jobs created by the economic stimulus law could end up being filled by illegal immigrants, especially in big states like California where undocumented workers make up a substantial number of construction workers. Studies by two conservative think tanks estimate that illegal immigrants could take 300,000 construction jobs, or 15 percent of the two million jobs that new taxpayer-financed projects are expected to create.
Illegal immigrants come to the United States to improve their lives through the opportunities offered in this country, but often end up becoming employed in low-paying sectors that don’t attract American workers. The illegal workers may be abused and exploited by their employers, but they are afraid to report such abuse and exploitation to the authorities out of fear that they will be deported.
Illegal immigrants are a big burden on hospital emergency rooms. Unable to purchase health insurance, they do not receive preventive medical care. If they have a medical problem, they wait until it is serious enough to warrant treatment. Federal law requires emergency rooms to examine everyone who comes in with a medical complaint and to treat emergency conditions regardless of whether or not the person has health insurance or is here legally or illegally. Undocumented aliens should be free to purchase their own private insurance if they can afford it, and if they can’t, then they should be covered by Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California).

Undocumented aliens are vital to the economy of the United States, doing the jobs most Americans would not do. They are underpaid, overworked, exploited, work in substandard and often dangerous conditions, and live in constant fear of being caught by immigration authorities, jailed, and deported. Call them illegal aliens or undocumented aliens, the fact is that the lure of a better life in the once prosperous United States is hard to resist. We who are fortunate enough to live in the United States take many things for granted, such as pure drinking water, healthful and abundant food, easy transportation, a comfortable house or apartment to keep us cool in the hot summer and warm in the cold winter. Can you really blame a Latino or eastern man for wanting better living conditions for his wife and children, let alone himself? The squalor they often live in in the United States is considered by them to be a paradise as opposed to the cardboard shack, impure water, tainted food, and rampant disease of their native country

The FTC, in a November complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, charged the companies with using unfair and deceptive collection tactics.

The companies told consumers that the loans had to be repaid by their next payday with a fee ranging from US$35 to $80, or the loans would be extended automatically for an extra fee debited from consumers’ bank accounts until the loans were repaid, the FTC said. Some customers voicing complaints on Internet sites have reported being charged hundreds of dollars in late fees for a small loan.
The settlement order, approved last week, requires the defendants to pay $970,125 to the FTC and $29,875 to the state of Nevada. The order prohibits them from falsely claiming that consumers may be arrested or imprisoned for failing to pay debts, that they are legally obligated to pay the full amount of a purported debt, and that for nonpayment they are subject to lawsuit, seizure of property, or garnishment of wages.

The defendants also are barred from repeatedly calling consumers’ work places, using obscene or threatening language toward consumers and third parties, and disclosing the existence of consumers’ purported debts to third parties.

The order also includes provisions relating to alleged violations of Nevada law. The order prohibits the defendants from violating Nevada state consumer protection law when conducting business from the state or when selling goods or services to Nevada residents, including failing to be properly licensed, failing to provide notice and disclosure of all material facts, and failing to comply with any state or federal law in selling goods or services.

The university released a report Monday from the American Bar Association, the accreditation agency for law schools, that concluded the central administration provides sufficient funds to the law school.

The funding of the law school became controversial in June when the school’s dean, Glen Weissenberger, complained to the ABA that the university had breached a 2004 agreement that guaranteed the college of law 75 percent of the “net tuition” in any given year. His memo also charged that the administration had provided inaccurate information about the revenue-sharing agreement to the ABA’s accreditation committee.
On June 18, two days after Weissenberger sent the letter to the ABA, the university fired him. The administration appointed Illinois Appellate Judge Warren Wolfson as interim dean.

Weissenberger’s dismissal sparked a revolt among students and faculty that has yet to die down. Two weeks ago, 16 professors filed a complaint with the ABA, charging that the administration had violated ABA standards when it hired Wolfson without faculty consultation.Weissenberger, who remains on the faculty, did not return a phone call seeking comment. The ABA has a policy of not commenting on individual accreditation issues.

The ABA’s standard on finances broadly states that the resources of a law school shall be adequate to sustain a “sound program.” The accreditation committee found that the law school is in compliance with its standard and that Weissenberger’s letter had not raised any additional issues, according to its report dated July 23.

But the ABA said DePaul has not met its strategic-planning guidelines that require schools to regularly establish ways to improve. DePaul, which had self-reported the issue, has until Sept. 1, 2010, to correct the problem.

The Alaska Personnel Board has dismissed 11 complaints against the governor as of Tuesday’s count. Many of these were based on creative interpretations of the state’s new Executive Branch Ethics Act.

A few of the complaints to the board have highlighted circumstances that deserved a thorough review.

Those circumstances — involving the governor’s removal of former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan and the hiring of a transportation department employee in Fairbanks — received the proper investigations. The investigations concluded that the governor did not violate the law.

The rest of the complaints, or at least those that have been made public, have been as frivolous as they are inadvisable.

The complaints have challenged the legality of the governor’s speech in Indiana and her campaigning in Georgia. They claimed she violated the law by establishing a federal political action committee and a legal defense fund. They said she improperly conducted post-election interviews about her vice-presidential campaign while in a state office building. They even asserted that she should not have worn a coat bearing the logo of her husband’s sponsor in the Iron Dog snowmachine race.

Rather, they would dress her and every future governor in a straightjacket.

The most recent criticism comes from those who assert that the governor has violated the ethics act by contracting to write a book. The critics come to this conclusion based upon their reading of this sentence in the law: “The head of a principal executive department of the state may not accept employment for compensation outside the agency that the executive head serves.”

Using this sentence to challenge the book contract requires the same misinterpretation that underpins the complaint about the governor’s political action committee — that somehow the governor has taken outside “employment” in each case.

The ethics law defines compensation as “any money, thing of value or economic benefit … in return for services.” The book contract clearly fits that definition, while the PAC does not.

Regardless, neither a book contract nor a PAC could be called “employment.” The obvious intent of the act is to prevent the governor from being “employed” by someone other than the state and thus compromising her independence. In writing a book and forming a PAC, she is working for herself and no one else.

The letter, sent to Mr. Obama by CPSC Acting Chairman Nancy Nord, a George W. Bush appointee, was blunt, underscoring concerns about the pace at which the Obama administration is filling key posts at federal agencies. At the CPSC, one of three commission chairs has been vacant for nearly three years. Ms. Nord, a commissioner since 2005, became acting chairman later.

A White House spokesman said: “We are moving ahead in an aggressive fashion on a whole array of issues. When it comes to staffing, we are remarkably ahead of where previous administrations were at this point.” He declined to comment on the specifics of Ms. Nord’s letter.

The most immediate challenge facing the CPSC is the daunting task of clarifying a sweeping consumer-product safety act passed in 2008. The law’s limits on lead in products aimed at children aged 12 and under have made it illegal to sell or distribute numerous items that manufacturers and retailers had in stock as of the effective date for the law’s lead limit, Feb. 10, 2009.

The goods in question include bicycles, older library books and youth-model ATVs, all of which contain lead in places manufacturers say children won’t reach with their mouths, if at all. Manufacturers and retailers want exemptions for these products. CPSC staff Wednesday said they wouldn’t recommend an exemption for ATVs. (Please see related article.)

The Toy Industry Association says its members already have more than $1 billion in inventory that has been returned from retailers or is sitting in limbo in warehouses as members are hoping for exemptions, amendments to the law or clarifications. An additional $800 million in inventory is in jeopardy of being returned to manufacturers by retailers, the group said in a statement. The National Association of Manufacturers is also urging Congress to amend the law to “fix the flaws.”

A hearing is scheduled March 30 in Cobb County Superior Court and the outcome could have a significant impact on thousands of Georgia consumers targeted by debt collectors —- especially those who don’t owe money.

Here and across the nation, consumers complained more about debt collectors than any other industry in 2008, according to new data from the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel Network.

The network, used by law enforcement, tracks complaints to the FTC, as well as to groups such as the Better Business Bureau, FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Social Security Administration and the National Consumers League.

Last month the FTC issued a report saying the debt collection legal system needs reform and the 1977 Fair Debt Collection Practices Act needs to be modernized to reflect changes in technology, debt and the collection industry.

While the FTC said timely payment of debts is important, it said the law needs changes to better ensure that collectors are going after the right people for the right amounts of money. The law also needs to mandate that collectors give consumers better information about their legal rights.

Complaints about debt collectors are on the rise and some of the tactics firms use are already illegal, Cloud said.

Until recently, it was unclear whether the state Fair Business Practices Act could be applied to debt collectors. In 2007, the Georgia Court of Appeals held that collection of a debt is a consumer transaction covered by the law.
“If this is an old debt and you do not believe you owe this money, do not in any way, shape or form reaffirm this debt,” Cloud said. “They are probably recording you.”