IRAN has retreated in the face of rising international outrage and announced that a woman convicted of alleged adultery would be spared execution by stoning.
The Islamic republic’s London embassy issued a terse statement stating that “according to information from the relevant judicial authorities in Iran [Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani] will not be executed by stoning”.
However, the statement did not say whether Ms Ashtiani, 43, who has already received 99 lashes for her alleged crime, would be spared, or executed by hanging instead. The embassy did not return calls.
Mohammed Mostafaei, Ms Ashtiani’s lawyer, told The Times: “This is a positive development but nothing is clear yet. There have been cases in Iran of stonings being changed to hangings. We have to wait and see what happens.”
Ahmad Fatemi, of the International Committee against Stoning and Execution, which has sought her release, said: “It’s a tactical retreat…They never expected this kind of pressure, so they want to buy time.”
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, described stoning as a “medieval punishment that has no place in the modern world”, adding: “If the punishment is carried out it will disgust and appal the watching world.”
More than 80 British and foreign luminaries signed an open letter, published in The Times today, expressing “horror and dismay” at Ms Ashtiani’s case and urging the Iranian Government to overturn her unjust sentence.
Signatories included Condoleezza Rice, the former US Secretary of State, three former foreign secretaries, the President of the European Parliament, leading human rights activists, actors such as Robert De Niro, Robert Redford and Colin Firth, the authors A.S.Byatt and Fay Weldon, the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy and the explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.
Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish Foreign Minister, promised to take up Ms Ashriani’s case, telling The Times: “We are trying to work and consult on these issues with our neighbour Iran.” Turkey is one of the few countries with any influence over Iran.
The US State Department said that it was deeply troubled by reports of the proposed stoning execution, which it called “a form of legalised death by torture”. The governments of Canada and Norway have summoned their Iranian ambassadors to protest.
“The global reaction to this barbaric punishment says everything,” David Miliband, the former Foreign Secretary, said. “People will not tolerate grossly inhumane acts of cruelty and barbarism, and the world is united in calling on the Iranian Government to put a stop to it.”
Ms Ashtiani, a mother of two who was unable to divorce her abusive husband, was arrested in Tabriz in 2005, convicted of having an “illicit relationship” in 2006, and lashed. Her case was reopened to investigate whether she murdered her husband. She was found guilty of adultery instead and sentenced to death by three of five judges. The Iranian Supreme Court upheld the ruling and Mr Mostafaei has warned that she faces execution at any moment.
He said: “I am so grateful to The Times for raising awareness of this atrocity. We were all so happy to hear that we had friends in Britain willing to stand up for this woman and human rights in Iran. Let us pray that a woman’s life may be saved.”
The Iranian embassy statement claimed that stoning was rarely used in Iran and was not in a new Islamic penal code being considered in parliament. According to Amnesty International, five people were stoned to death between 2006 and 2008. An Amnesty spokesman said: “If she is simply executed by another means then the abuse will be just as grave. It remains to be seen whether stoning is removed from the Iranian penal code, as the embassy states.”
Be the first to comment