From grieving mother to murderer

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From grieving mother to murderer
by Nazy Kaviani
11-Oct-2009
 

I am appalled with Behnoud’s execution. There is no way anyone can convince me that this child did not have the potential to rehabilitate. I am mother to two young men. I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that a seventeen year old boy is a child. Behnoud was a child offender and still a child when he was executed after spending four years in jail, having walked up to the noose six times. My mother’s heart says that to me.

The victim, Ehsan, was also a child. My heart wept for his mother who saw her son off one day and never saw him alive again. I cannot begin to imagine what pain and agony she must have gone through over the past four years. The worst thing anyone could have done for Ehsan’s mother was to let her decide the life and death of her son’s murderer, Behnoud. As if dealing with the immense loss is not bad enough for a grieving mother, she has had to continually search her soul for forgiveness for Behnoud. As it turned out, she could not find it.

I feel so sad for Ehsan’s mother. She will never be whole again. She is now a murderer herself. True, the law won’t come after her and she can live just like any other citizen for the rest of her life. But I am a mother and I know that by choosing revenge over forgiveness, Ehsan’s mother has forever put herself in the solitary confinement of loss, grief, shame, and remorse. Whereas up until yesterday Ehsan’s family had been affected with the unimaginable grief of a child’s loss, starting today they will have to carry the burden of having taken another person’s life. Ehsan’s mother will soon know, if not already, that Behnoud’s death is not going to bring Ehsan back, nor make her cope with his loss any better. I can only imagine that that family is now completely destroyed.

Death penalty is inhumane and Qisas Laws are savage. My heart weeps for Ehsan and Behnoud. My heart weeps for Iran.

See also //iranian.com/main/node/83690

visit: //nazykaviani.blogspot.com

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Nazy Kaviani

Thank you

by Nazy Kaviani on

Thank you all for your interesting comments. Thank you Omid for visiting my blogs and for reading my poem. Welcome back Marge and Azadeh! I have missed you guys!

I want to share something really sad with you. Here's a clip of an interview with Ehsan's mother after Behnoud's execution. It is really sad to listen to her and her rationale for seeking revenge on Behnoud. Try not to judge her and accept her pain and loss. Fast forward to 1:40.

//moj-sabz.ning.com/video/3710905:Video:6764


che khabar e

without making a stand one way or another

by che khabar e on

about the death penalty per se, this is indeed tragic.  I so agree with Nazy and others about how the family of the victim is going to suffer as well.   But for this family... I believe that one day their pain will be even greater when they realize what they've done.  It's a tragedy all around.


I Have a Crush on Alex Trebek

i am also against the death penalty

by I Have a Crush on Alex Trebek on

it had never made sense to me, that in order to punish murder, we must commit it. I think it sets up a society for failure when it comes to realizing what is wrong within. children aside, i think that all people make mistakes, big and small, and that to punish them with death serves nothing but to encourage a death obsessed culture and crime!


sadchicagodad

Unspeakably Tragic

by sadchicagodad on

Nazy Khanoom,

I share your revulsion at a system of laws that turns otherwise sane and decent people into murderers.  Like Ehsan's mother, I know well the gut-wrenching pain and sorrow of losing a child unexpectedly. Unless one has experienced such a loss, one cannot imagine the sense of loss and devestation.  I have walked in her shoes and I know how that kind of pain rips at the heart and tears at the mind. The flood of emotions that a grieving parent experiences run the gambit from utter rage to inconsolible grief.  For me, denial came first, then rage, then begging and pleading with God, then grief, and finally when I had become utterly exhausted and drained emotionally, when I was too tired to feel anything anymore.... I submitted to that which I could not change and I accepted what had happened. 

Unlike Ehsan's mother, I am fortunate that I was never put in the position of deciding the fate of the man who was responsible for my son's death, for he too perished in the accident which took the life of my child.  I can't say for sure what I would have done if I had been given the chance to decide his fate following the accident.  He was drunk and my boy was dead, and for a long time I was angry.  I am glad now that such a decision would never have been mine to make even if he had lived.  Unless one has been through the hell of losing a child...for me, an only child...one cannot begin to know how that kind of absolute, all-consuming grief twists the mind and soul of otherwise decent people.  If Ehsan's mother thought she would find a respite from her grief in Behnoud's death, she was sorely mistaken.  Now she must live out her days with the sorrow of two boys untimely deaths to regret when she had it within her hands to forgive and spare one of them.  She now will never escape the horrible pain that a simple act of forgiveness would have freed her from.  What a pity.   May God Bless both Ehsan and Behnoud.


Azarin Sadegh

So Well Said.

by Azarin Sadegh on

My dear Nazy,

I totally share your outrage and devastation. I guess the loss of a child has driven this woman toward madness...As you've said it the best, it's so sad to know that she would never find peace.

Now she has to live with her own remorse, in the search of her own salvation. 

Thanks for being such a passionate soul Nazy jan!

Love, Azarin


Louie Louie

If the tears on my cheeks can do nothing,

by Louie Louie on

If the tears on my cheeks
can do nothing,
o then take my heart as well!
Yet let it, for the flow,
when the wounds gently bleed,
be the offering-bowl as well.

"Matthäus Passion"

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEKEHSgYFFI&feature=related


Azadeh Azad

Dear Nazy

by Azadeh Azad on

 A very sad and heartfelt poem. Thank you.

While I share your sorrow for the murder of Behnoud, or actually the first degree murder of a teenager who had committed only an involuntary manslaughter according to North-American laws, I do not think that Ehsan's family "will have to carry the burden of having taken another person’s life." I believe they will not feel any remorse or guilt.  For 4 years, they refused to forgive a child who had  *unintentionally* killed their child. You are projecting your own sense of humanity upon people who have been brainwashed since their childhood to the point of having lost a good part of their own humanity.

And what equally upsets me is the existence of people who live in the West and write on this website articles in defence of the savage law of Qisas.

//iranian.com/main/2009/jan-0

Azadeh


Sayeh Hassan

The problem here is with

by Sayeh Hassan on

The problem here is with the Islamic Regime's laws that allow for a person who is suffering from the death of her son to make a life and death decision for someone elses life.

 This way they get to kill they boy anyways but aren't responsible for the death.   

 

Sayeh Hassan

www.shiro-khorshid-forever.blogspot.com 


Omid Hast

Dear Nazy Kaviani,

by Omid Hast on

.

I am so sorry for your grief, for this pain that has inflicted our nation.  Your poem is as good as the best of the poets out there.  Your poem came from a grieving mother's heart, and it’s made of raw emotions.

Back in May 2008, I drew this illustration of Behoud Shojaee when he was awaiting his execution orders to be carried out.  I can not imagine the horror that a person must go through when he is sitting around waiting to be executed.  At that time, as it has been reported, his execution was suspended.  We were delighted, we forgot, at least I did for sure.  Now the Islamic Republic of Iran has made murderers out of its own citizens, as it has done so many times before.  Victims have been turned into criminals.

Behnoud was a teenager, immature at best, when he committed his crime.  Ehsan's parents on the other hand had all the wisdom of two elderly citizens at their disposal to make a decision on behalf of forgiveness and love, as it is preached by their so called compassionate religion, but the regime turned them into executioners.  The regime turned them into liars when they went to the prison pretending as if they might forgive.  The regime turned them into liars when they asked for the noose to be put around his neck, when their intention was to kill him.  And, killed him they did.  They committed murder in broad daylight, sanctioned by the regime.  The regime has many murderers, now it has two more.


Souri

Well said, Nazy jan

by Souri on

 

So true!

"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."

Mohandas Gandhi

 


Red Wine

...

by Red Wine on

کدام قانون اسلام و کدام حاکم مسلمان در ایران کارشان درست بوده است تا به حال که این درست باشد ؟!

تمام این قوانین ریشه بدوی دارد و متعلق به مردمان بادیه نشین است،آنان مجبور بودند بر حسب زندگی‌ سخت و طاقت فرسا ،اینجور قوانین بی‌ ریشه و بی‌ منطقی‌ را ایجاد کنند تا مردمان بی‌ سواد را کنترل کنند.

این‌ها چه مربوط به ما باشد که همیشه تا قبل از ورود ننگین اعراب به ایران،برخوردار از قوانین درست بودیم و حاکمین اینجور نا بخرد نداشتیم ! آخر قانون عرب چه کارش به جامعه ایرانی‌ آید ؟!

من نمیدانم مادر احسان امشب چطور توانست بخوابد !

شرم بر آنانی‌ باد که از این وحشیان بربر مذهب طرفداری میکنند !

ممنون از بلاگ نازی جان .