“Doctor’s office.”
“Hi, this is Meryl Yourish. Say, remember when you guys set me up with someone that your office works with who was going to contact my insurance company and make sure that I could get that MRI approved without getting a surprise bill of several thousand dollars somewhere down the line?”
“Yes.”
“Surprise!”

Say, that famous Muslim tolerance of other faiths we’ve heard so much about?

I’m thinking someone’s not being quite truthful.

A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled “Islamic Penal Code”, which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against.

Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran’s own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs.

And yet few politicians or clerics in Iran see any contradiction between a law mandating the death penalty for changing religion and Iran’s constitution. There has been no public protest in Iran against it.

Not only that, but they’re probably really anxious to put the law into practice.

For one woman living in London, however, the Iranian parliamentary vote cannot be brushed aside. Rashin Soodmand is a 29-year-old Iranian Christian. Her father, Hossein Soodmand, was the last man to be executed in Iran for apostasy, the “crime” of abandoning one’s religion. He had converted from Islam to Christianity in 1960, when he was 13 years old. Thirty years later, he was hanged by the Iranian authorities for that decision.

Today, Rashin’s brother, Ramtin, is also held in a prison cell in Mashad, Iran’s holiest city. He was arrested on August 21. He has not been charged but he is a Christian. And Rashin fears that, just as her father was the last man to be executed for apostasy in Iran, her brother may become one of the first to be killed under Iran’s new law.

Guaranteed that when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is asked about this in his next interview, he’ll say the reporters are a) Zionists b) not speaking for all Americans or c) don’t have the facts straight.

We have the facts straight. Iranian law is sharia law. According to sharia, apostates must die.