Buone notizie, sembra
Iran: woman convicted
of adultery will not be
stoned to death,
embassy responds to
worldwide outrage
The world spoke out against the barbaric
sentence for an Iranian woman sentenced
to death by stoning for adultery, and it
seems Iran has listened.
"She will not be executed by stoning
punishment," the Iranian embassy said in a
statement to London's Channel 4 news
Thursday, commenting on reports that
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani would be
stoned to death for "illicit relationships"
conducted after the death of her husband.
The embassy claims that, despite
international reports, the violent
punishment was never actually on the
table. "This mission denies the false news
aired in this respect," the embassy said in
the statement.
"The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of
Iran highly recommends that news and
reports should not be taken for granted
and considered a reliable source of
information for official statements or
misjudgements."
It had read like a story straight out of the
Middle Ages: Caught committing adultery, a
woman was sentenced to a barbaric fate.
But for Ashtiani, the brutal sentence
seemed far from ancient history -- it was a
terrifying Ashtiani was found to have had "illicit
relationships" with two men after the death
of her husband, and initially sentenced to
99 lashings.
But after she was flogged in front of her
teenage son, the case was re-opened and
the judge ultimately gave her the death
penalty, sentencing her to a violent end.
Under Iran's Islamic laws, adultery is the
only capital offense that can be punished
by stoning, the AP reports. A man is usually
buried up to his waist, and a woman up to
her neck.
Those attending the execution then throw
stones at the prisoner until he or she dies.
If the convicted person is able to escape
from the hole, the death sentence is
commuted.
Ashtiani already has spent five years in
prison, and her two children were h
eartbroken and horrified by her sentence.
"Imagining her, bound inside a deep hole in
the ground, stoned to death, has been a
nightmare for me and my sister for all
these years," her son Sajad, 22, told the
Guardian.
Since news of Ashianti's sentence broke,
buman rights activists, politicians and
celebrities have voiced outrage.
Stoning is a "medieval punishment which
has no role in the modern world," British
Foreign Secretary William Hague told
the AP on Thursday. "If the punishment is
carried out, it will disgust and appall the
watching world."
Celebrities such as Colin Firth, Emma
Thompson, and Robert Redford have
added their names to a campaign pushing
for Ashianti's release, according to The
Times of London, which also quoted Sen.
John Kerry (D.-Mass) voicing his disgust.
Even Lindsay Lohan weighed in on the case,
taking to Twitter on Wednesday to post a
link to the story and asking her fans to
pass it on.
Stoning is a common sentence under Iran's
Islamic laws, but rarely comes to pass --
the punishment is typically given in name
only and later converted to a fine.
The last known stoning took place in 2008,
the AP reports, although human rights
activists believe there may have been more
because the government rarely confirms
that a stoning has been carried out.
Mina Ahadi, a prominent human rights
activist in Germany, has been working to
raise the profile on Ashtiani’s case, and
says she knows of at least 12 other Iranian
women awaiting the same fate.
"These are just the women I know,” she
told the AP. “I estimate that at least 40 to
50 other women are waiting for the same
destiny in Iran right now.”Intanto 12 altre donne, aspettano la morte per lapidazione e si a un'estimazione di 40 o 50, in attesa di morire in questa barbara manierahttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2 ... cians.html