Monday, November 06, 2006

A Sense of Justice?

It worries me that Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death. The main reason I am troubled is that this decision will severely damage the perception of democratic justice within the Middle East. Already one of the largest obstacles to functioning democracy in the Muslim world is the apparent discrepancy between democratic political justice and religious law, sharia. Now, a verdict has been given after a trial in which multiple judges sat behind the gavel. I sincerely believe that this trial should have been declared a mistrial. With the apparent revolving door of judges and attorneys, the trial was an apparent media circus. All of this was televised on Iraqi television, as Saddam ridiculed and undermined the judges, even accusing them of being puppets of the colonizers. The appeal process will last until January, but will justice ever be done?

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