This is a new article about Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the young Iranian condemned to be stoned to death for alleged adultery. Except that this time, it is a last ditch appeal. And it has been signed, not only by the author of these lines, but by seventeen other writers, human rights activists, and politicians, both men and women, all of them indignant that such an abomination should exist in the 21st century: Soyinka, Patrick Modiano, Milan Kundera, Jorge Semprún, Ségolène Royal, Rachida Dati, Simone Veil, Marjane Satrapi, Juliette Binoche, Mia Farrow, Bob Geldof, Taslima Nasrin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Jody Williams, Sussan Deyhim, Yann Richard, Elisabeth Badinter.
May their voices be heard in Tehran.
-Bernard-Henri Lévy
In the prison of Tabris, in western Iran, where she has been rotting for five years, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has been waiting for the response to her request to re-examine her case --initially scheduled for August 15th.
She had already paid for her "crime" (to which she confessed, we must recall, only under torture, and which her accusers state consists of having had amorous relations outside marriage on two occasions) by being subjected to 99 lashes with a whip, administered in the presence of one of her two children.
But now, a few months ago, a new and vague accusation has resulted in her condemnation to death -- and not just any death, for she is to be stoned to death!
International public opinion, horrified at this threat hanging over Sakineh, had been waiting, as she has, for the revision of a verdict as iniquitous as it is barbarous. And then, on the evening of August 11th, there suddenly occurred one of these dramatic turns of events that have become almost common in Iran: on a popular television program, the regime broadcast the so-called "avowal" of the young woman who, wearing a black chador which covered all but her nose and one of her eyes, holding a sheet of paper in her hands as though reciting a lesson she was having trouble learning, a voice over in Farsi covering her own voice as she expressed herself in her native Azeri, confessed her supposed "complicity" in the murder of her husband.
It was easy for her current counsel, Hutan Kian, to recall that Sakineh had already been acquitted of this new accusation in 2006.
Passing over serious doubts he could not but help nurture as to the identity of the woman who appeared that evening on the television screen, hidden beneath a full veil, he affirmed that, contrary to all appearances, she had been forced to make this declaration, once again, under torture.
And finally, he recalled that these words were clearly in contradiction with those reported by The Guardian, last week, in which the same Sakineh explained that the Iranian authorities had already cleared her of this infamous accusation in 2006. They were blatantly lying in going back to a charge that had long since been dropped, with the sole intent to spread confusion in the media and prepare them for a hasty execution. He added that "justice" was stubbornly pursuing her case only "because she is a woman", living in "a country where women are deprived of their most basic rights."
Sakineh is being deprived of the most basic of rights due to the fact that she hasn't even the right to a clear judgment in this affair, expressed in a language that she can understand. ("When the judge pronounced the sentence," she told The Guardian, "I did not even realize that I was going to be stoned to death, because I didn't know the meaning of the word 'rajam'. They asked me to sign the sentence, which I did, and when I got back to prison and my cellmates informed me that I was going to be stoned, I immediately fainted.") This has been confirmed by the trepidations of her former counsel, Mohammad Mostafaei, who attracted international attention to her case and who earned, for his trouble, the threat of imprisonment. (He narrowly escaped by fleeing to Turkey, where he is waiting for a Norwegian visa -- but not without his wife, Fereshteh Halimi, being imprisoned and thus held hostage.) And it is evident, finally, in the fact that, quite apart from the horror of the act, the scabrous details of which will not be dwelt on here, death by stoning is only possible under Iranian "law" when the family of the victim demands it. (Obviously, in the instance of Sakineh and her family, this is not the case!)
But over and above these considerations we have neither the desire nor, perhaps now, really the time to go in to, it is urgent to intervene in order to prevent an execution observers of the Iranian scene have every reason to believe may be imminent.
We must urgently respond to the appeal of Sakineh's children, Fasride and Sajjad Mohammadi Ashtiani, who beg us not to close our eyes on such crude theatrics, not to let their "nightmare become reality".
On Sakineh's behalf, it is urgent to demand that the authorities renounce her execution, in any form, release her without delay, and recognize her innocence.
In Iran, every year dozens of woman are condemned to whippings, to stoning, or to other forms of punishment, all of which make one's blood run cold. Beyond the case of Sakineh, it is urgent for the UN to remind the regime of the Mullahs of the promises made, in 2002 and in 2008, regarding the abolition of such types of punishment.
A woman's life is at stake.
The freedom and dignity of thousands of others is equally involved.
And ultimately, this is about the honor of a great country, endowed with a culture as magnificent as it is immemorial, and that cannot see itself summed up, in the eyes of the world, in the bloody face, reduced to a pulp, of a woman who has been stoned.
Mercy for Sakineh. Mercy for Iran.
Bernard-Henri Lévy: Interview: Sakineh's Attorney Speaks From Exile
Dr. David Liepert: The Stoning of Women: Quranic Prescription or Barefaced Misogyny?
The woman and the man
Guilty of fornication
Flog each of them
With a hundred stripes
And let a party of believers
Witness their punishment.
Anything else is blasphemy. Muslims are to honour and follow God's injunctions and not to base their judgments on hearsay.
SO PLEASE STAY WITH THE ISSUE ITSELF! LET'S AIM AT THE MULLAHS; ONLY!
His motives are transparent; he is using this to justify a future attack on Iran. This is why he does not have a problem with stoning in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria or Somalia which have had recent stonings. There are many who are not warmongers who support Sakineh, Mr. Levy should not taint their cause.
You really think he support stoning in SA, Nigeria and others??
I believe your comment has more to do with his lastname than his actual column...
Iranian law prohibits the recruitment of those under 16, basing itself on the Koranic traditions about war. However, the state broke those rules in the Iran-Iraq War. In 1984, Iranian President Ali-Akbar Rafsanjani said, "all Iranians from 12 to 72 should volunteer for the Holy War."[27] The child soldiers wore keys around their necks to signify their coming entrance into heaven. Ettelaat, an Iranian daily, reported, "Before entering the minefields, the children wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves."[28] An unknown number of schoolchildren currently serve in the ranks of the Basij, an Iranian paramilitary force, according to CSUCS. They have reported that the state conscripts for the regular army at age 19- while accepting volunteers at age 16- and those at 17 can work for the police
However does Mr Levy have any idea about what goes on in the US justice system? Here's one example among many: http://www.famm.org/ProfilesofInjustice/StateProfiles/SheilaDevereuxOklahoma.aspx (many other examples at that site as well). Just wondering why you have no widespread international groups and petitions putting pressure on governors and the president to sign pardons or commute sentences for those harshly sentenced or wrongfully convicted?
Also as bad as stoning is, would you rather spend years incarcerated in solitary confinement? (http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/8798-solitary-confinement-in-us-prisons-making-thousands-phychotic.html)
The US has a long way to go before its own backyard is clean.
The country is ruled and run by religious fanatics.
This is an example of why the separation of church and state is so important, not just to our nation, but to our civilization.
Even worse, many of these "religious" laws are not Islam at all, but primitive tribal practices (like whipping, stoning, severing body parts for petty crimes, beheading, "honor" killing) that have been rammed down the throats of any who resisted until they have become practical law.
Most of our tribal beginnings are so far in the dim past as to defy retrieval and usage, but folks will go to great lengths to find ancient punitive ideas and practices, even going to the primitive records of other religions to find them (like non Jewish people getting their morals from Deuteronomy and Leviticus in the Torah).
Iran deserves to have a stable and decent government, as one of the older and more elegant and powerful empires of the ancient world.
And the world needs Iran to have such.
It's too bad that American and British oil companies were successful in persuading their governments to destabilize Iran, paving the way for just such a "religious" takeover.
We can see in Iraq and Afghanistan what the costs of restabilization and reconstruction are when governments, or as in the case of Afghanistan, tribal conclaves are set aside for the commercial advantage of foreign entities.
Peace, best wishes.
I must disagree that Iranians deserve anything. While their past was pretty and impressive, it was also repressive and is still repressive towards women. These attitudes are replete throughout the body politic, their religion(s), and citizenry.
In my opinion, Iranian men deserve to be put into servitude, so as to get taste of what they have dished out to women for thousands of years unending. Iranian women deserve instant and permanent reform.
And there are a fair number of American males who see women as something to dominate and own.
Even so, I take your point about Iranian men, and, given what I said just now, would add a vast number of men worldwide to your list of servitude to women.
There have been matriarchal societies. I recommend "The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light," by William Irwin Thompson, St. Martin's Press.
He has a brilliant, revealing chapter on agriculturalization wherein he describes archaeology at Catal Huyuk, in modern Turkey, where an ancient civilization's remains revealed a matriarchal society where men apparently were unaware of the process of reproduction and were kept ignorant of it by women.
He describes the discovery and great gift of agriculture as an "enantiodrama," an earthshaking development that ultimately creates its opposite in effect - in this case, the abundance brought about by agriculture established the requirement for armies to protect the surpluses, and brought about warfare - not territorial conflict, but warfare for acquisition.
Thompson addresses the relationship of men and women since Biblical times and makes explanations for our behavior that throw light on shadow and reveal much of our path then and now.
I may have been too abstract in my thinking of Iranian men.
Peace, best wishes.
It should be somewhere on the thread we went back and forth on.
Would be good for you to see it.
Peace.
I wish my country, the USA, had any moral high ground to make the accusations,
but the USA goes to war for lies and oil, and tortures people.
The only people that should get the death penalty, will never be prosecuted in the first place: war mongering torturers and war criminals like Bush and Cheney.
No state that tortures or has the death penalty,
is civilized.
Only this time you're hiding behind something bad...
-Her lawyer was harassed to the point that he was detained, his family was kidnapped by IRI, and he fled the country to seek asylum.
-Her son, who campaigned for Ashtiani's life, was detained by IRI.
-She was tortured for the crime(sic) of adultery.
-She was sentenced to be stoned for the crime of adultery
-She was trotted out on state TV to confess her crimes in a Stalinesque tribute.
http://freesakineh.org/#signatures
Try this for size http://www.rferl.org/content/Womens_Activists_Oppose_Iran_Bid_For_UN_Committee_Membership/2027891.html