The harrowing case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani -- a mother of two sentenced to stoning by an Iranian court for adultery -- has rightly drawn the world's attention to Iran's draconian penal code, which reserves its cruelest punishments for women. The practice of stoning, in particular, is so abhorrent that even political allies like Brazil have been roused into action. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva offered Ashtiani asylum over the weekend in a direct appeal to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran has yet to respond formally, and a foreign leader can have no direct bearing on a domestic legal proceeding. But the Brazilian intervention sends a powerful message to the Islamic Republic: its human rights record can never be divorced from its nuclear diplomacy.
Before the 1979 Islamic revolution, back in the years when I worked as a judge in Iran, consensual sexual relations between adults did not figure in the country's criminal code. The revolution enacted a version of Islamic law which is extraordinarily harsh even by the standards of the Islamic world, making extra-marital sex a crime punishable by law. Under its penal code, the punishment for a single man or woman guilty of sex outside marriage became 100 lashes; under Article 86, the punishment for a married person became death by stoning.
On the face of things, stoning is not a gendered punishment, for the law stipulates that adulterous men face the same brutal end. But because Iranian law permits polygamy, it effectively offers men an escape route: they are able to claim that their adulterous relationship was in fact a temporary marriage (Iranian law recognises "marriages" of even a few hours duration between men and single women). Men typically exploit this escape clause, and are rarely sentenced to stoning. But married woman accused of adultery have access to no such reprieve.
The barbarity of stoning aside, Iran's legal codes are studded with inconsistencies and vagaries that make due process virtually impossible. The penal code notes that if a man or woman is denied sexual access to a spouse due to travel or other prolonged separation, 100 lashes suffice as punishment for adultery, but it does not specify the duration of acceptable separation. Stoning can also be reduced to lashes when a married woman has sex with a minor (Iranian law considers the age of maturation for girls nine, and for boys 15). In real terms, this means that a married woman who commits adultery with a 40-year-old man must be sentenced to stoning, but if she commits the same act with a 15-year-old -- effectively taking sexual advantage of a minor -- she is accorded a legal break.
Criminal prosecution for adultery, and the handing down of a stoning verdict, does not even require a personal plaintiff; if it can be proven that a man or woman has committed adultery, even if the betrayed spouse offers his or her forgiveness, the transgressor must be stoned. Article 105 of the penal code enables a judge to sentence an adulterer to stoning based purely on his "knowledge"; as such, it is possible for a judge to sentence a woman simply based on her husband's complaint.
These glaring lapses are only the most obvious reason why Iran must reconsider the practice, which most Islamic countries long ago discarded in their efforts to harmonise Islam with modern norms. Stoning has long been criticised by a number of http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/opinion/05iht-edabdo.htmlIslamic jurists, most notably the Ayatollah Yousef Saanei. These jurists believe that such punishment was meted out in the early days of Islam's seventh century advent in the desert of Saudi Arabia, in accordance with the customs of the time. They note that the Koran makes no mention of stoning, and believe that lighter punishments, such as imprisonment or fine, can be considered.
Lawyers, human rights defenders, and jurists have condemned the practice of stoning ever since it entered Iran's criminal justice system. Unfortunately, Iran has been indifferent. Perhaps now, facing the chastisement of a powerful ally like Brazil, Tehran will be forced to consider whether its adherence to such practices ultimately serves its national interests.
To avoid international outcry, the government refrains from announcing stoning verdicts publicly. It is only slowly and by word of mouth, through information relayed by families and lawyers, that cases make their way to the media. As such, we cannot even know precisely how many Iranians have been killed by such punishment in the past three decades. A year and a half ago, the Iranian media reported that a man was executed in the city of Qazvin by stoning. Now Ashtiani faces a similar fate -- and perhaps others, too.
Originally posted at The Guardian
Bernard-Henri Lévy: Interview: Sakineh's Attorney Speaks From Exile
Dr. David Liepert: The Stoning of Women: Quranic Prescription or Barefaced Misogyny?
Madame Ebadi says:
" it is possible for a judge to sentence a woman simply based on her husband's complaint."
What an ignorance? What a crime? Judges, Islamic republic, fanatics speaking in the name of Islam and ignorant of the Koran. The Koran says about a lady accused by her husband that if she swares that the accusation is not true then that's it, meaning no punishment whatsoever!
Iran is in the focus of war lords who would like to use its poor human rights record and the pretext used before against Iraq, to justify even more human sufferings on the Iranians through another criminal war in the sad Middle East, testing site for the weapons of war criminals who care the less about human sufferings.
Madame Ebadi,
I am not an admirer of the government of your country. However, I do not accept the suffering of your people and the war planned against it. The propaganda war is already on, I think that people of good intentions should not let themselves be exploited by those who are pushing for the war. Do you really believe that war criminals would care about the sufferings of one lady. They have weapons to erase millions…..
End death penalty in your country then you will be allowed to critizise iran in good faith , but now it is just hypocrisy.
Which state is this? Texas?
How can that be, when each mullah/imam is independent, and equal to the others?
Oh, no. There's no hierarchy of clergy in Islam, no way.
Yeah, right. I might have been born at night, but it wasn't last night!
Therefore, she knows well "Sharia"; which combines both Quran + Hadis [Everyday "wordings" & "workings" of Mohammed].
The Islamic Law postulates "Death by Stoning" for "adulturous" women. And, a whole lot more "barbarious" and "unenlightened", meaning "uncivilized", injunctions are binding upon followers of Islam. Thus, Iranians are but faithfully following the Law of Islam.
Why blame the "messenger"? He only carries the "message"!
It is The Teachings of Quran and Mohammed that need re-examination. But whosoever "questions" both shall surely be labelled "Kafir".
There is no way out.
Unless, of course, one leaves Islam of one's own volition. But, then, one who dares do so - "following" faithfully Mohammed's Instructions - is to be killed!
The "hu-hallah" by Muslim Apologetics is pretentious.
It is false.
I have nothing against the honorable lady. I'm sure she deserves cudos for her humanitarian work. But, unfortunately, she, like her "unfortunate" co-religionists, is an Islamist Apologetic. Should one sing her praises for that?
Stoning of Women is An Unpardonable Sin.
Who advocate it deserve all the "Hell-Fire" they rthemselves recommend for our mothers, sisters and daughters of Islamic Background.
Please tell me where, in my afrore-said comment , have I uttered an untruth?
All I have pointed out is the REALITY AS IS in Quran/Hadis/Sharia.
She knows well what is written in The Islamic Book(s). So do I. For I too have read them well.
No intelligent person, after reading such "fine" works, should apologize for the same. She should not. No Muslim should.
They should move "forwards" and "upwards".
To Sufism perhaps!
.
Although there have been deaths by stoning for adultery...here we Americas and Westerners have a different policy for adultery. It, is called domestic violence (DV).
.
DV keeps many American women and girls in fear of physical as well as sexual abuse. Further, statistics will show how many thousands of women have been murdered and/or mutilated by their partners.
.
Abuse does not stop end there...it also exists with GLBTG couples. In addition, one of the most violent is not your 'common criminal', but our brothers and sisters in blue.
.
If we are going to judge 'islamic' culture...we too must look the truth in the eye lest...."How can you see the splinter in my eye...with the log in yours"
.
If we are to approach this...let us approach it for what it is 'Domestice Violence'...and let us not be seduced by religious extremists trying to demonize religion...that includes one christian religion against another.
.
e.g., Catholics have been demonized as the 'child molesters'...while other religions are getting a free pass (A do not investigate us pass). For when looking at the 'other Christians', you will find a wealth of 'hidden abuse'....'unreported abuse'....but, abuse that exists nonetheless.
.
Really? So what happened before this particular case, when Lula had no problem supporting Iran's nuclear policy? Iran's human rights record was clean?
Exit Fantasyland and enter reality:
Lula could care less.
But reading the rest of Iran's penal code here, I'm amazed you have the cojones to admit you're a judge. Reminds me of Hitler's Germany.
No one is ever "safe" under the law. People need to defend themselves. They have always needed to defend themselves and they always will. The only people you can trust to be on your side are friends, family, and well paid mercenaries.
And don't forget drone-attack missile-strikes that are very popular with war-making Americans now. They kill, maim and torture with pain by wounding, maiming and dismembering, almost always uninvolved persons who just happen to be within a radius the explosion throws debris. Very often the debris are stones, blown apart chunks of concrete, shrapnel, etc. thrown by the explosion.
How is it less barbaric to kill and maim innocent persons who have been charged with nothing by stoning them the stones thrown by explosive technology? How is it less barbaric to condemn unknown innocents to death by "executive decision", with no law or process of law, of any kind, reactionary or other? No charges made, no trials held, but only pure lawless use of force against civilian population?
Who are the barbarians, wereeverywhere? Who are the real barbarians?
Is it the unfairness of the legal system that allows the man to escape the death penalty while the woman can not? Is it because we believe adultery is a moral problem and not a crime in itself? Or is it the method of execution that we find repugnant. After all, we use electrocution, hanging, the firing squad, poisonous gas and lethal injections to excute our criminals so that makes us civilized. We haven't burned anybody at the stake since the 19th century.
Man kills man out of necessity or revenge, not because it is morally right. It is never morally right. More than two-thirds of the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice. The United States is not one of them.
As the U.S. system provably discriminates on which murderers it kills in a variety of ways in what way does this differ from the Iranian discrimination on the basis of gender?
The whys and wherefores have already been extensively debated so let me just say as a personal opinion that I am in favor of abolishing the death penalty altogether. That's what I was trying to get across. Thank you for your comment.
sure miss The Shah, The Marcos, Bautista of Cuba,PolPot, Pinochet, etc...
back in the day, they knew how to live lasvishly and torture and execute QUIETLY...
don't mean to be so flippant actually, this is one time i do hope someone intervenes to help this poor woman...
I wouldnt hang my hat at the Brazilian table so fast.
fanned