Iran denies Iranian woman will be executed by stoning
An Iranian woman convicted of adultery was reported to be executed by stoning. This news is being denied by Iran’s government though her death sentence may still be carried out by some other method.
Based on the Islamic republic’s first public statement on the case of Sakineh Mohammedie Ashtiani, 42, the Iranian Embassy in London, England, said Thursday that "this mission denies the false news aired in this respect and … according to information from the relevant judicial authorities in Iran, she will not be executed by stoning punishment.
"It is notable that this kind of punishment has rarely been implemented in Iran and various means and remedies must be probed and exhausted to finally come up with such a punishment," the embassy said.
However, Ashtiani nevertheless faces the possibility of execution for her 2006 adultery conviction, said Drewery Dyke of Amnesty International in London.
"We have noted in the past that those who have been sentenced to stonings have gone on to be hanged," he said. "That remains a concern."
According to Dyke, Amnesty first heard that Ashtiani had been sentenced to death by stoning from her lawyer, Mohommad Mostafaei.
Dyke added he accepted Iran’s statement that seems to back off from the punishment that some governments have condemned as barbaric, but added, "It raises far more questions than it answers."
Ashtiani’s son, who appealed Wednesday to Iran’s courts to spare his mother’s life, said he won’t accept any decision short of his mother’s freedom. Through human rights activist Mina Ahadi, Sajjad Mohammedie Ashtiani said he would be satisfied only when Iran’s judiciary officially drops the charges against her.
"Legally, it’s all over," said Ahadi, who heads the International Committee Against Stoning and the Death Penalty, earlier this week.
Ashtiani’s son made an open letter to government officials which contains that there was neither evidence nor legal grounds for his mother’s conviction and sentence. He said the family has traveled six times from their home in Tabriz to Tehran to speak with Iranian officials, but in useless.
"So I have no option but reaching out to them this way," he said earlier in the week.
He asked, why has an accused been twice prosecuted on the same charge when Islamic criminal law allows prosecution only once?
Sajjad Ashtiani told CNN that he visits his mother every Monday in jail, never knowing whether that meeting will be their last.
His mother was convicted of adultery in 2006 and was forced to confess after being subjected to 99 lashes, according to human rights lawyer Mostafaei. She later retracted that confession and has denied wrongdoing.
Her conviction was not based on evidence but on the determination of three out of five judges, Mostafaei said. She has asked forgiveness from the court but the judges denied to grant clemency.
Iran’s supreme court upheld the conviction in 2007.
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department on Thursday obtained reports of the alleged stoning. Spokesman Mark Toner said, "We’re deeply troubled by press reports of the planned execution by Iranian authorities of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani by stoning.
"Stoning as a means of execution is tantamount to torture. It’s barbaric and an abhorrent act," he said.
"We call on the Iranian authorities to live up to their due process commitments under the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and we condemn in the strongest terms the use of the practice of stoning anywhere it occurs as a form of legalized death by torture."
What others are also reading:
- Marian Rivera vehemently denies 'alcohol' issue
- Woman hit by PNR train in Manila
- FHM Sexiest Woman voting poll ends on June 15
- Chinese man executed for stabbing 29 children
