Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old Iranian and the mother of two children, was convicted of adultery--a conviction based on a forced confession that Sakineh later retracted--in May 2006 and sentenced to death by stoning.
Since her conviction, Sakineh has spent four years as an inmate in Iran's notorious Tabriz Prison, never knowing if today will be the day where her jailers take her from her cell, to a hole in the earth, bury her chest high and then pelt her with stones until she bleeds to death.
Like Sakineh, I too am a mother and I was born in Iran. Zahra, the character I played in the movie "The Stoning of Soraya M," endured the unendurable cruelty of watching her niece being stoned to death, a fate similar to the reality awaiting Sakineh and 35 other Iranian women in 2010. Article 104 of the Iranian Penal Code is very specific about how this barbaric act of punishment is to be administered. It says that each stone used should "not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes; nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones." For the Iranian regime, justice means the deliberate, slow, painful and ritualized murder of its very own citizens.
Sakineh's children, Sajjad, 22, and Fasride, 17, are fighting bravely to save their mother's life. The online petition they launched (http://freesakineh.org), as part of a global awareness campaign has gathered over 100,000 signatures and the support of western governments and media. Both the U.S. and British governments have condemned the verdict. Surprisingly, this outside pressure has had a positive effect. On July 10th, Iran's High Council for Human Rights said that Sakineh's case would be reviewed.
However, Sakineh's temporary reprieve from stoning doesn't mean she won't be killed. The Iranian regime has in the past, changed the method of execution from stoning to hanging and it has executed prisoners without informing their families and without public notice.
The Iranian government has imposed the most extensive form of media censorship concerning Sakineh's case, but her children, at great risk to their own safety, are determined to speak truth to power. They have written: "We stretch our hands to the people of the world, no matter where you are in the world, save our mother." Now, all of us who care about justice, must join Sajjad and Fasride, who, unlike their government, stand on the right side of justice, compassion and history itself.
We demand freedom for Sakineh Ashtiani and for all those imprisoned in Iran because their confessions to crimes they never committed were obtained by torture and coercion. Most importantly, we demand that the Iranian government abolish stoning. The time has come for Iranians, Muslims, indeed all people who truly believe in human dignity to insist that this shameful and barbaric act be ended now and forevermore.
Bernard-Henri Lévy: Interview: Sakineh's Attorney Speaks From Exile
Dr. David Liepert: The Stoning of Women: Quranic Prescription or Barefaced Misogyny?
Punishing people for things that no reasonable person could call crime is also clearly wrong. Using stoning for publicity is a good thing, but there is a more important message beneath.
You are trying to use the thin-end-of-the-wedge to legitimize this horrible gruesome punishment that looms over her.
I just don't understand. I watched during the election disruptions and the consistent 'martyr' complex was impossible to understand. And the 'acceptance' of the brutality by such feral thugs.
"Allowing" this proves something extremely dark and utterly disturbing about the mideastern and islamic mindset. Sorry ~ got to call it out as it is.
You are too late. If you had kept up with the news, you would know that stoning was banned more than 2 years ago by HIGHER courts. All death sentences in Iran are subject to AUTOMATIC review and an appeal process by higher courts. Two years ago, higher courts banned stoning, which is why it has not occurred in Iran for two years now. LOWER courts still pass the stoning sentence symbolically, afterall Iran is an IR.
All this attention to this death sentence is for nothing since Stoning was already banned. And bloggers should stop self-congratulating themselves for forcing this sentence to be reviewed by the higher courts. It would have been review AUTOMATICALLY, by constitution's requirements on all death sentences regardless of how they are to be carried out.
LET'S KEEP UP WITH THE NEWS FOLKS.
I don't necessarily dissagree with your well thought out point. But my criticism has to do with the fact that before this article they bashed Iran for "wanting" to stone a woman who would have never been stoned. Then, when the higher court did as predicted, the same people claimed victory when all along there was no threat of stoning. None!!
Had they criticized Iran for failing to make the whole thing illegal after the higher courts outlawed it two years ago, I would have jumped to protest too. But that's not the type of journalism that was exercised. Had they prosented a full picture of the situation, I doubt anyone would have been outraged. And the so-called "humanright watch," the one that tolerates guantanamo, would not be self congratulating for something that the courts were going to throw out anyways.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE13/004/2009/en/10aceacc-e31c-11dd-808b-bfd8d459a3de/mde130042009eng.html
"In 2002, the Head of the Judiciary issued a directive ordering a moratorium on stonings. This has not been adhered to, as at least five people have been stoned to death since then, including the two in December. However, Ali Reza Jamshidi’s recent statement clarified that, as a directive which has not been passed into law, the call for a moratorium has no legal weight and judges are free to ignore it."
Why would they let her go unpunished? Aside from their belief in the truth of the conviction and the appropriateness of the punishment, they probably would not want to set a bad precedent by letting a domestic capital criminal off the hook because of foreign pressure.
Open Letter to the Bar Association of Iran by Shadi Sadr: Do not ignore the policy of hostage taking and revenge
http://persian2english.com/?p=13238
Mr. Mostafaei is a man of principle and courage.
http://iranhr.net/spip.php?article1784
By Mohammad Mostafaei
http://persian2english.com/?p=13261