ALIZEERA MOLLA-SOLTANI, 17, EXECUTED BY PUBLIC HANGING

This week the President of Iran made a great public show of bringing about the release of two Americans, Shane Bauer (29) and Josh Fattal (29) who have been held in single cell custody for the past 26 months, but not of course before securing bailment of $1 million (£644,000).

This was meant to coincide with the Iranian President's speech to the UN General Assembly where, as is his practice, he castigates the West and seeks to belittle all who oppose Iran, but usually singling out the USA and the UK.

For a few moments, one is left to consider the possibility that this people is perhaps trying to come to terms with living in the 21st Century - a task rendered almost impossible by its insistence that its religious creeds must be read and acted upon in exactly the manner in which they were written and laid down 1,500 years ago. To them this is the 'will of Allah' and they cannot comprehend that western civilisation sees this as utterly barbaric and repugnant, and most definitely an affront to the current Arab Spring.

Strong words?

Yes, but deliberately chosen.

In this same week we read the international reports of the public execution of a 17 year old boy, Alizeera Molla-Soltani, for the murder in July of Ruhollah Darlashi, an athlete and who, "The Times" of London reports in an article by Martin Fletcher on Thursday 22 September 2011 as "Iran's strongest man."

We read that Alizeera Molla-Soltani was hanged before dawn in front of a crowd of thousands, in the town of Karaj, a few miles from Tehran. Martin Fletcher writes that eye witnesses reported that this boy was crying aloud, calling for his mother and begging for forgiveness before being hoisted by a crane by means of a noose around his neck. As can be expected with this benighted country, some in the crowd cursed him, while others chanted Allahu akbar [God is greatest].

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has denounced this execution, in the words of the FCO Minister Mr Alistair Burt, as "inhumane' and 'abhorrent'. I would have said it was inhuman. Mr Burt commented that death by suspension strangulation was a punishment with no place in [this] modern world.

That, I think, is putting it mildly.

I meet Iranians here. They are pleased to be living in the UK. It is why they are living here. Others worryingly surmise that such methods should be adopted here. Thankfully, the one or two who say such things are too few to warrant serious consideration, though that does not stop me from giving them some good old-fashioned advice.

Let us be in no doubt that Iran remains a very serious threat to global peace, as too does Syria.

Whether or not this young man committed murder or was, as has been suggested by some, acting only in self-defence and happened to get the better of a popular public figure is irrelevant. Simply put, you do NOT execute people who have not even attained the age of 18. Neither do you use different calendars, in this case the lunar calendar, to overcome that problem. In short, you do not execute people.

A society that goes about justice in the barbaric manner that we have seen this week is unfit to occupy a place at the UN General Assembly. It is a pariah state. It is putting into effect methods of killing that the Nazis used; but of course its president denies that there ever was a Holocaust.

No. Any nation that allows itself to be ruled and dictated by religious leaders of whatever religion is a nation that is unfit for involvement in international affairs, international trade and international assistance.

Ian Bradley Marshall
LIVERPOOL