This Post Is Long But Important

I recently saw "The Stoning of Soraya M." Quite possibly the most powerful, disturbing, and enraging movie I have ever seen.  The film is based on the true story of Soraya Manutchehri, a 35 year-old wife and mother of seven in Iran whose abusive and philandering husband falls in love with a 14 year old girl and rather than enter into a polygamous marriage which is legal in the Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran of 1986, he decides it would be more economical and financially to his benefit to rid himself of his wife entirely. He accuses her unjustly of adultery knowing the punishment is death by stoning and together with corrupt officials of the small town they live in, she is "tried" and found guilty of adultery with basically no evidence to support the accusation other than the husband's word. She is then dragged into a hole buried up to her waist and what follows is the most brutal 20 minute scene in which the men of the town (including Soraya's father and even her own sons) stone her until she is little more than a bloody heap in the ground.  It is heartbreaking to watch and even more heartbreaking is that it actually took place.  I found myself crying even after the film ended and wanting to know more about Soraya and women like her.
The information I garnered from the internet is most horrifying.  Women in many Middle Eastern countries are routinely stoned for adultery real or imagined, in the name of Islam and cultural standards that are strictly enforced by those in a position of power, namely men.  It must be said however that Islam in no way, shape or form condones or mandates that women not be allowed out of their homes without their husband's permission, lose custody of their children in the event of a divorce, be stoned to death or raped by their husbands (which is acutally legally sanctioned in Afghanistan as it turns out).  Nowhere in the Koran are any of these ridiculous laws found.  It is those who continue to perpetuate the asenine notion that women are lesser beings than men, and therefore should be treated accordingly, who twist religious and cultural ideas to suit their own needs and ideals. 
There are organizations who are calling attention to the plight of women in Muslim countries everywhere.  Amnesty International, Women Living Under Muslim Law, Stop Stoning.org and http://www.stop-killing.org/ just to name a few are leading the way for fight for women's rights in Muslim countries.  Amnesty International exposed the truth regarding a Somali female, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, who was stoned to death in a Stadium in front of 1000 people for adultery in October of 2008.  The female was in fact a 13 year-old girl who had been gang raped and was seized by authorities and charged with adultery when she and her father tried to report the crime.  The three men who assaulted her were never even charged with a crime.  At the time the incident, some Sheik gave a radio interview in which he lied and said that Aisha was 23, was in fact guilty of adultery by her own admission and "happily" accepted her punishment under Muslim Law.  Such is the "justice" still served in this day and age in countries all over the world.
As a woman it saddens and outrages me to no end that there are girls and women who are subjected to the tyrranies of men and are abused, mistreated  and in many cases, killed in the name of a religion that is meant to provide its followers with faith, hope and something to believe in and turn to in times of crisis.  Nearly nine years after the fall of the Taliban, there is not apparently not much that has changed. Instead women are now turning to self-immolation as a form of escape and protest.  These are women who have taken to setting themselves on fire because life as they are living it has become unbearable.  It is a way of taking control to an extent, governing their existence however inconceivable it may seem.  At that moment they are in charge of their life, of their body and as insane as it sounds,  I can completely understand the level of desperation it takes to set yourself on fire, though I don't know that I could personally do something so drastic.  I would have to be in that situation in order to be sure one way or another.  But I pray that I will never know that life and I pray for those women that live it everyday.