Iranian Punishment Ignites Viral Facebook, Social Media Campaign

Earlier this week, a Kurdish man was sentenced to be paraded down a street wearing women's clothes. All these took place in the city of Marivan, Iran's Kurdish region near the Iran-Iraq border, after a man was convicted of domestic abuse.

This unusual punishment sparked reactions from various communities in the country. A day after the incident, local feminist organization, Marivan Women's Community, immediately organized a street protest joined by 100 men and women wearing garbs. According to the organization, the judge's decision is degrading to women.

Shortly afterwards, a Facebook page named "Being a woman is not humiliating and should not be considered a punishment" was made. To date, the page already has almost 10,000 Likes. This opened the incident to different people around the globe. As an effect, men from different parts of the world-Iranian and not-posted photos of themselves wearing women's clothes.

Aside from sharing photos, many users posted their views on the Facebook page timeline.

One wrote, "For many years, women in my country have been side-by-side with men, wearing men's clothes, struggling. Tonight I am happy and honored to wear women's clothes and be even a small part of the rightful struggle of people to express gratitude and excellence to the women of my country."

Indeed, the punishment has ignited an outrage in the Internet. Inevitably, the incident reached the country's parliament where 17 MPs addressed the Justice Ministry, stating that "this action is against Islamic values and it degrades the clothing and character of Muslim women."

While some say that the sentence has never been carried out in Iran before, Al-Arabiya, an Arab news channel, reported that the kind of sentence has already been passed to three other criminals in the same city.

Iran is known for carrying out unconventional punishments for crimes proven in court. In 2005, a man was sentenced to be blinded with five drops of hydrochloric acid in each eye. This is after he was found guilty of pouring sulfuric acid on a woman he was stalking, blinding and disfiguring her.

In 2008, five robbers underwent to their sentenced cross-amputation. It is a process of cutting off the right hand and left foot of the convicts. Doctors were present to make sure no infection and excessive blood loss occurred.

Adultery, as stated by the Iranian Penal Code Article 104, is punishable by stoning to death. The law is specific by stating the stones to be used must "not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes; nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones."