In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the woman whose sentence of death by stoning triggered an international outcry has accused the Iranian authorities of lying about the charges against her to pave the way to execute her in secret.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery but it was commuted to hanging after an international outcry. Her initial sentence was for "having an illicit relationship outside marriage" but Iranian officials have claimed that she was also found guilty of murdering her husband and should still face death by stoning.
In the interview, which took place through an intermediary who cannot be named for security reasons, she said: "They're lying. They are embarrassed by the international attention on my case and they are desperately trying to distract attention and confuse the media so that they can kill me in secret."
Yesterday, Mossadegh Kahnemoui, a senior Iranian judicial official, told the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination: "This lady, in addition to double adultery, is also found guilty of conspiracy to murder her husband."
Mohammadi Ashtiani said: "I was found guilty of adultery and was acquitted of murder, but the man who actually killed my husband was identified and imprisoned but he is not sentenced to death."
The accused, who has not been named, is not facing execution because Mohammadi Ashtiani's son pardoned him, but she was sentenced to death after a local prosecutor in Tabriz accused her of adultery.
"The answer is quite simple, it's because I'm a woman, it's because they think they can do anything to women in this country. It's because for them adultery is worse than murder - but not all kinds of adultery: an adulterous man might not even be imprisoned but an adulterous women is the end of the world for them. It's because I'm in a country where its women do not have the right to divorce their husbands and are deprived of their basic rights."
Mohammadi Ashtiani also revealed that at the moment the sentence was passed she did not understand the Arabic word used as the legal term for stoning.
"When the judge handed down my sentence, I even didn't realise I'm supposed to be stoned to death because I didn't know what 'rajam' means. They asked me to sign my sentence which I did, then I went back to the prison and my cellmates told me that I was going to be stoned to death and I instantly fainted."
Mohammadi Ashtiani fears that the exile of her original lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, has made her more vulnerable. "They wanted to get rid of my lawyer so that they can easily accuse me of whatever they want without having him to speak out. If it was not for his attempts, I would have been stoned to death by now."
Mostafaei volunteered to represent her for free and succeeded in bringing her case to world attention but fled to Turkey when Iranian authorities issued an arrest warrant for him. His wife is being held without charge in Tehran's notorious Evin prison.
Mostafaei, who was arrested on immigration charges in Istanbul, was released today and is on his way to Norway.
Describing life inside Tabriz prison, Mohammadi Ashtiani said she has been subject to constant mistreatment by prison guards. "Their words, the way they see me - an adulterous woman who should be stoned to death - is just like being stoned to death every day."
She thanked campaigners for highlighting her case and said international pressure was her only hope for release. "For all these years, they [the officials] have tried to put something in my mind, to convince me that I'm an adulterous woman, an irresponsible mother, a criminal but with the international support, once again I'm finding myself, my innocent self."
She pleaded: "Don't let them stone me in front of my son."
Twelve women and three men have also been sentenced to death by stoning in Iran.
This post originally appeared on The Guardian
Bernard-Henri Lévy: Interview: Sakineh's Attorney Speaks From Exile
Dr. David Liepert: The Stoning of Women: Quranic Prescription or Barefaced Misogyny?
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to von Humboldt, 1813
but I degress, I need to get with it if I am to continue to post on the HP....
let me find some Christians to bash
I have no use for either of these groups of authoritarian psychopaths.
All previous stories have left that very important detail out.
As for the Guardian interview.....If she is in jail right now, and the Guardian has no press offices in Iran, then how exactly do they claim to have done this interview? Did they just completely make it up?
But like I said. I am proud of them for finally at least including the major facts of the case.
If you were to go and read many of the accounts they purposely leave it out.
As for the interview. Yeah it sounds like BS to me. It wouldn't be the first time even this year that the Guardian has printed outright falsehoods when dealing with Iran. I just don't see how they actually did an interview with her, especially if you believe her lawyer's claims that the prison guards are treating her badly. Sorry it really doesn't add up. More Likely they made up the interview. Her answers are essentially stock ones anyway, they probably just interviewed her lawyer
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE13/077/2010/en/74790acb-477a-4993-bb67-059bd26abd1e/mde130772010en.html
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was convicted in May 2006 of having an “illicit relationship” with two men and received 99 lashes as her sentence. Despite this, she was then also convicted of “adultery while being married", which she has denied, and sentenced to death by stoning.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, is held on death row in Tabriz Prison, north-west Iran, and could still face execution. Around 7 July, following international protests, officials in Tabriz asked the head of Iran’s judiciary to agree that her sentence of stoning to death be converted to execution by hanging.
Read the story, even the british press are now acknowledging that Iran claims her to be an accessory to murder, not just an adulterer
The narrative now is that those charges are made up, implying guilt on the adultery charge but not on the murder charge
I have no idea whether she is guilty of either of these things. I will say that my faith in the fairness of the Iranian courts is exactly equal to my faith in the accuracy of the british and american press when it comes to stories on Iran
But when it comes to it's internal politics, although it's not as repressive as SA (where stoning is a common practice) it's justice system is of a typical dictatorship. With torture and state murderings being common practice. The situation of this lady is profoundly unjust and I do hope she gets asylum in Brazil.
Verse 24:2 (Quran) speaks of MILD flogging, aiming at disgracing the offenders rather than torturing. The number of those to witness has been deliberately left unspecified, thus indicating that while the mild punishment must be given publicly, it need not be made a ‘public spectacle’.Iran has been discussing reinterpretation of these laws. But the West feels that adultery is not a social crime where as Islam feels it is a big social crime, hence the conflict of clash of civilization.
.
The trial is about 'murder' and not about adultery...how would your opinion differ?
.
Would you also execute Americans found guilty of murder?
.
I must add, I wonder at the lawyer, who left his wife to suffer god-only-knows what fate in Iran when he escaped to the West. When he was decrying the mistreatment of his client, didn't he think what this might mean for his wife?
The aggrieved husband/wife(adultery) has to decide to break off their marriage , but what should a decent Govt do in order to save good family relations and peace in the families? This is the issue.
The issue is the kind of punishment to be given as there are punishments even for minor theft/shoplifting/sex exposure/cheating/drug trafficking/drunk and driving etc,
Iran has its own laws based on its culture ( at times based on the tribal culture in some parts of Iran) on adultery and it is not the responsibility of Western nations to tell Iran to change the laws.
How many in the USA and Europe tell Singapore that death penalty for possessing 10 grams of heroine is a brutal and an unacceptable law.
But arguing that a man or woman committing adultery should never be punished whatever the religious scriptures say, is simple cultural arrogance. My sympathies are with Sakinah but she and her illicit male companion have broken the religious law. It is also for the Shariyah judge to decide the sort of punishment to be given to suit the circumstances. Great latitude is allowed to the judge in the choice of punishments.
This shows another form of rigid fundamentalism as that of religious fundamentalism. People in Europe or North America do not live any longer in a Christian society or atheist modern secular liberal society based upon a single ethnical or national culture.
In such a society we can not give absolute freedom of expression because that would up set the social harmony.
We can even drop the term blasphemy from the law books and replace it with a new offence based on incitement to religious hatred which many instigate: asking non-whites to leave the country where they were born and brought up.
This is why so many folks support sanctions against Iran, and why your kind of backward ignorance must be wiped from the face of the earth.
No one really cares about your particular sense of morality, because it's distorted and dirty.
This is ridiculous, first of all why "Iranian authorities" feel compelled to manufacture evidence against her?
What is the root of "Iranian authorities" hostilities toward her?
Second, how to you know that she was sentenced to stoning when, "Iranian authorities" are all the time denying this?
Third, if "Iranian authorities" are so hostile to you, and are so evil, how did you had opportunity to interview her?
According to the English that I speak, I agree with you as you wrote this:
Since I doubt it's bogus, I believe it to be true.
Get it?
Fanned and Faved Enock.