But it would be a brutal political amputation.
An October report from Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, cited the country for brutal floggings, amputations, and hangings.
The report said rebels had summarily executed Malian army soldiers, carried out brutal punishments including amputations and public floggings, and made threats against women and Christians.
So it was that Mr. Reid, lead guitarist of the 1980's rock group Living Colour, became the unlikely organizer of an ongoing project to raise money and awareness for victims of the civil war in Sierra Leone, where rebel forces have been engaged in a particularly brutal form of intimidation by amputation.
Because of its fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law, the kingdom engages in practices that are undeniably heinous, from draconian restrictions on women to brutal punishments including beheading and amputation.
It is not clear if Syria – where Isis controls towns and operates administrative services as well as brutal regime of justice featuring amputations – operates a similar system.
Children barely big enough to shoulder a weapon have been involved in a very brutal civil war in Sierra Leone marked by amputations of limbs and the terrorizing of villages.
Civilians have been flocking to take up arms to battle ISIS, notorious for its use of brutal tactics that include beheadings, crucifixions and amputations of limbs.
The Islamists allied with Al Qaeda appear to have gained a firm military hold in the north, and have subdued the local population with a brutal application of Shariah law, including public beatings, amputation and a stoning death.
The article unsparingly described the author's swift, brutal encounter with the illness, which resulted in the partial amputation of eight fingers: "I went dancing the night before in a black velvet Paris gown, on one of those evenings that was the glamour of New York epitomized.
