Another day, another execution--or two--in Iran.

Worried--or not--about Iran's nuclear endeavors with its president boasting about eliminating Israel and maybe other countries? Some ignored news seeping out of Iran proves it is as toxic to its own citizens as to the rest of the world. The Arabs own news source, al-Arabiya reports that after China, Iran has the second largest number state authorized executions; on a per capita basis it is first. Those who aren't executed are punished with amputations; amputating hands to prevent pickpocketing and other crimes is common. Minors are not exempt from amputations or executions.

According to the ICHRI's (International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran) statement, based on the testimony of former prison inmates, prisoners are in many cases executed in groups and the last mass execution took place on October 12 when ten prisoners were executed together. A former inmate told the ICHRI that he was witness to 46 executions in one day in October 2009.According to Ahmad Ghabel, a religious scholar who spent three months at Vakilabad Prison earlier this year, at least 50 executions took place during his detention.

And what horrible crime did most of those executed commit? Drug smuggling. In the Islamic paradise that is Iran

Drug trafficking ranks first amongst Iran's capital offences and clashes between security officers and more than 3,500 officers were killed in the past two decades in clashes with drug smugglers on the border with Afghanistan.Iran is believed to have the world's highest addiction to opium and heroin, which are usually available in cheap prices after failing to reach Europe from Afghanistan. Analysts argue that unemployment and social problems contribute to the rise in addiction rates.

Befitting its proud membership on the UN's Commission on the Status of Women, later rescinded , Iran has no qualms about executing women.

The lawyer for Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, the Iranian woman facing death by stoning for alleged adultery, has accused his country of placing women

in a real situation of slavery," Mohammad Mostafaie, who fled Iran for Norway last July, told the European Parliament's human rights committee.

Iran "is one of the world's worst violators of human rights, with deaths by stoning, executions of minors aged under 18 and amputations," he said.

Mostafaie fled Iran when Tehran issued an arrest warrant against him at the end of July.

"Women and children are tortured," he told the committee. "When a country fails to respect the rights of its own citizens, it won't respect the right of any other country."

Exactly.

A few days ago another woman was hung despite protesting her innocence, despite pleading for her life til the end. The quasi wife, a form of marriage permissible in Islam, of one of Iran's soccer greats, she was accused of murdering her sort of spouse's legal wife. The sons of the victim refused to spare her, as is permissible in Iranian law, choosing instead to pull out the chair supporting her on the gallows, thus completing the 146th Iranian execution of the year.

Ignoring these tragedies, so called human rights protesters along with farcical counterparts at the UN, continue to whine about the evils of Israel and the US as they cheer on President Ahmadinejad. And innocents in Iran continue to die.