IRAN: Government backs off on stoning, but what's next?

Will she be stoned, executed or set free?

Though the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in London issued a news release Thursday announcing that the regime would not stone to death an Iranian woman accused of adultery, it did not clarify what fate awaited her.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has been in a Tabriz prison since 2006. It is speculated that she may still face a similarly gruesome death penalty sentence of hanging or beheading.

Her lawyer, Mohammad Mostafai, aid in an interview that he will approach the judiciary on Monday to inquire about his client’s fate.

Though she was a widow at the time, Ashtiani has already received a public flogging of 99 lashes for an “illicit relationship” outside marriage. With murky evidence, the judge convicted her of adultery during her husband’s lifetime as well in May 2006.

Though she retracted what her defenders say was a forced confession made during interrogation, she was still found guilty of "adultery while being married." Iranian law stipulates that three out of five judges can convict based on “knowledge of the judge," without significant evidence, reported Amnesty International.

The communique issued by the Iranian Embassy apparently denies stoning as the sentence doled out to Ashtiani."It is notable that this kind of punishment has rarely been implemented in Iran," it said.

Yet others disagree. Some are skeptical about the regime’s apparent about-face. Mina Ahadi, head of the International Committee against Stoning and Execution maintains that “the main aim of the embassy’s press release is to create doubt and detract from the campaign to save Sakineh and others sentenced to death by stoning and execution.”

Her 22-year-old son, Sajad, remains optimistic.

"They gave me permission to talk to her and she was very thankful to the people of the world for supporting her," he told the Guardian. "I'm very happy that so many have joined me in protesting this injustice. It was the first time in years I heard any hope in my mother's voice."

Mostafai said the statement made by the Iranian Embassy in London is not enough to convince him his client is safe. "The judiciary has to make the announcement," he said. "In Iran, nothing is accountable. Sakineh's life is still in danger."

In Iran, a man sentenced to stoning is first buried in the ground up to his waist; a woman is buried up to her neck. Then, a group of executioners throw small stones at the victim. The size of the stone is such that it causes grave injury but not enough to kill a person with one strike, instead ensuring a slow and painful death.

Maryam Ayubi passed out while being ritually bathed before her stoning in 2001 and was stoned to death while tied to a stretcher. It was her death that led activists to mark July 11 as the Annual International Day Against Stoning.

Now the campaign takes a new shape. Ashtiani’s supporters are fighting for a total ban on stoning and the death penalty as well as Ashtiani’s unconditional release.”Sex outside of marriage and the sexual relations of adults is their private affair. It is not a crime and must never be prosecuted,” Ahadi said.

-- Becky Lee Katz in Beirut

Upper photo: Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. Credit: Associated Press

Lower photo: An Iranian woman in Brussels protests the punishment of stoning. Credit: Thierry Roge / Reuters

Comments

[MissMarple]

Iran freely admit they do these things, because they see nothing wrong with it. They see nothing wrong with flogging men, women and children 50, 100, 200, plus times, depending on how they see the wrong. That is when nobody was killed or injured. Their law thinks it is fine to tell a lactating woman to give breast milk to a total stranger five times, so he can be a family member, and see her naked face. Some of their religious leaders think she should suckled that strange man. Though the idea was first Egyptian, it is approved by Iranian religious leaders. Iran freely admits this, because they see nothing wrong with this; why should they hide it?

It is one thing for one country to have left it's senses over religion, but other countries don't call them out. Syria says noting, because they share politics, but who are they more likely to listen to than someone they are close to? Instead of resisting Iran's religious radicalism, Hamas is becoming more religiously radical.

Nothing is going to stop Iran from becoming more pathological in their treatment of women. The country is run by men who don't like women. They use women, fear women, and hate women. That is why they cover them up when they don't want to be, so they don't have to acknowledge their existence, and force them to be non-persons.

Iran is run by psychotic men, who are more dangerous than we can imagine.

[Eva SK]

You don't get stoned to death for sex outside marriage. Having sex with an unmarried person is a much lesser offence. Punishment is purely for adultery: for damage it causes the marriage institution. Iranians have option of divorce, if they find themselves overcome with love or lust. Concepts of sexual restraint, modesty and purity are, of course, treated with derision in the West, where self gratification is the highest good. Sexual restraint is an optional extra in the society where safety net for broken and abandoned families is a non-negotiable right provided by the state. Sexual restraint is a matter of survival in a society where safety net comes from immediate family, and, to a lesser degree, from the extended family and a local community which is only maintained by unity and social order.

[Jeri Harmonay]

Hurray for the Pastor at my church for spearheading a campaign to aid these two women! Mark Paterson,PhD wrote a very passionate letter with understanding of the situation and with the love needed to make hundreds of people aware of this. I just wanted to say thank you to Reverend Mark Paterson!

[NowIC]

No problem. Once Muslims start working with NASA on the flight to Mars all of this Sharia foolishness will be left behind. Right?

/sarc/

[Viktoria Luther]

Do something now.

[Jake]

This is just another fake news article, originated and propagated by the BBC, and echoed by its surrogates.

I have researched ALL of such a iran "news" articles on this topic, in the last few years, and all of them have turned out to be false planted news stories originating from BBC.

Even the photographs of the stonings are fake - one of them was even taken from a movie and presented as real!

[smileystonewall]

Figures another backwards screwed up country and their anchient laws.
Stoning a person to death really what are these 3rd world countries damage.
One word Evolution learn it live it be it. There is no GOD there is no Xenu and C53 ships. Hail Bob has left the solar system with 8 passangers.

Suprised they don't offer this poor lady a suicide bomb vest.
Hey could I trade two goats and chicken for her?