"the world which waits in horrified amazement to see whether the rulers of Iran are going ahead with the stoning of a woman..."

I hardly think "the world" in much of a position to point fingers over this case. The American government kills criminals every day. The woman in question is supposed to have assisted her lover in murdering her husband. You'd get put to death for that in the States. Electrocution is no less of a state sanctioned atrocity *in my view*, than stoning someone to death. But maybe state sanctioned atrocities aren't so horrifying when it's 'civilised Christian' nations committing them as opposed to 'barbaric Islamic' ones? It would certainly seem so anyway, if one believes the propaganda of the media.