Iranian Mother of Two Sentenced to Stoning Death for Adultery Conviction – Sentence Could be Carried out at any Time

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East Desk
 

Photo: Selekineh, / Photo Courtesy of The Daily News
Photo: Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the forty three-year-old mother of two who has been sentenced to death by stoning. (Photo Courtesy of The Daily Mail)

TABRIZ, IranA forty three-year-old Iranian woman faces a sentence of death by stoning unless an international campaign, launched by her children, is successful in persuading Iranian authorities to overturn her conviction or commute her sentence.

In May 2006 Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was convicted of conducting an “illicit relationship outside marriage.” This conviction resulted in a sentence of ninety-nine lashes, which was carried out in 2006.

Sakineh’s case was later reopened when a court in Tabriz suspected her of murdering her husband. Although she was acquitted of the murder charges, the court reopened and reviewed the adultery case, and handed down the stoning sentence on the basis of a “judge’s knowledge.” This legal loophole in Iran allows judges to hand down subjective rulings where they do no have sufficient conclusive evidence.

Sakineh’s children, son Sajad, twenty-two, and daughter Farideh, seventeen, assert that their mother has been unjustly accused, and has already received punishment for a crime which she did not commit. Sajad said:

“She’s innocent, she’s been there for five years doing nothing . . . Imagining her, bound inside a deep hole in the ground, stoned to death, has been a nightmare for me and my sister all these years.”

When Sakineh received ninety-nine lashes in 2006, Sajad was present in the punishment room. “They lashed her just in front of my eyes, this has been carved in my mind since then.”

Sakineh was forced to confess after the lashings. She later retracted her confession, and has claimed no wrongdoing.

The sentence, which emanates from Iranian sharia law, calls for women to be buried up to their neck, and men to be buried up to their waist. Those attending the execution are then called upon to throw stones at the convicted person. The stones used in the execution are selected to be large enough to cause the convicted person pain, but not so large that she would be killed immediately. If the convicted person manages to wrestle free, her death sentence will then be commuted.

 Sakineh’s lawyer, Mohammed Mostafaei, who is an acclaimed Iranian lawyer, wrote a public letter regarding her conviction shortly after her stoning sentence was announced a few months ago. He said:

“This is an absolutely illegal sentence . . . Two of five judges who investigated Sakineh’s case in Tabriz prison concluded that there’s no forensic evidence of adultery.  He added: “According to the law, death sentence and especially stoning, needs explicit evidences and witnesses while in her case, surprisingly, the judge’s knowledge was considered enough.”

Mostafaei also believes that a language barrier prevented Sakineh from fully understanding the court proceedings, as she is of Azerbaijani descent and speaks Turkish, while court proceedings in Iran are conducted in Farsi.

Sakineh’s children have received aid from human rights activist Mina Ahadi, who is based in Germany. Ahadi helped to launch the international campaign to free Sakineh last week. She said that shortly after the campaign was launched, she received phone calls from the families of two other women who are also being held in Tabriz prison. These two women, Azar Bagheri, aged nineteen, and Marian Ghorbanzadeh, aged twenty five, have also been sentenced to death by stoning under adultery convictions.

Ahadi told The Guardian: “Azar was arrested when she was just fifteen.  They couldn’t punish her before she became eighteen years old according to the law, so they waited until now . . . and want to stone her to death.  Ahadi also reports that Azar has been subjected to mock stoning in preparation for the real execution, with partial burial in the ground.

Ahadi stated that she is currently aware of twelve other women in Iran who are sentenced to death by stoning, but estimates that the figure is closer to forty or fifty.

As for Sakineh’s sentence, Ahadi said, “Legally it’s all over … it’s a done deal. Sakineh can be stoned at any minute … That is why we have decided to start a very broad, international public movement. Only that can help.”

She added, “Stoning to death is not simply just a judicial punishment, it’s a political means in the hand of the Iranian regime to threaten people. It has more function than just a simple punishment for them.”

Stoning sentences were widely carried out after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. However, in recent years, Iran has sought to reduce the number of stoning sentences due to the international embarrassment involved, and most people are now executed by hanging.  Nonetheless, stoning sentences are still handed down each year – overwhelmingly to women.

Iranian activists have repeatedly spoken out against stoning saying that it is not prescribed in the Koran.

According to Amnesty International, Iran executed 388 people last year, which is more than any other country except China.  Over 100 people have already been executed in Iran this year. 

For more information, please see:

CNN Human rights activist tries to stop death by stoning for Iranian woman – 6 July 2010

 UPI – Children fight for woman facing stoning – 3 July 2010

The Daily Mail – ‘Help us save our mother’: Pleas from the children of ‘adulterous’ Iranian woman who faces death by stoning – 2 July 2010

The Guardian – Campaign for Iranian woman facing death by stoning – 2 July 2010

Author: Impunity Watch Archive