CBC News has just reported that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani will not be stoned to death. The Iran courts have decided to hang her instead.
The International Committee Against Stoning posted a press release on its website this evening:
The authorities in Tehran have given the go ahead to Tabriz prison for the execution of Iran stoning case Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. It has been reported that she is to be executed this Wednesday 3 November.
Amnesty International USA is still trying to appeal that decision, and have furnished some background information on Ashtiani. If you have not followed the story, Ashtiani was arrested in 2005 on alleged murder charges. She is a 43-year old mother of 2 and a member of Iran's Azerbaijani (Azeri) minority. She was accused of having illicit affairs with 2 men and received 99 lashes. She was convicted in 2006 of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning.
She retracted a confession made under duress, and was nevertheless convicted by means 'outside' the Iran penal code which relied on the knowledge of the judge, a provision in Iranian law that allows judges to make their own subjective and possibly arbitrary determination regarding guilt even in the absence of clear or conclusive evidence.
Mina Ahadi, who head the anti-stoning group told the New York Times said that her contacts in Iran had obtained a letter from a Tehran court ordering the execution of Ms. Ashtiani and though she had not seen the letter, she was informed of its contents. Ms. Ahadi is living in exile in Germany, having fled Iran post-revolution 1979 after Islamists won control and executed her husband. Ahadi said that Wednesday is a common day for executions in Iran.
On October 10th, both Ashtiani's lawyer and her son were arrested. Thus far, the Canadian, United States and French governments have condemned the decision.
The accompanying video shows Maryam Namazie making the case against religion and the descrimination and suffering it has brought to the world. She does focus on Islam's Shariah law, and gets into the stoning culture and Iran's regime. She calls it 'a moral imperative' to speak and intervene on behalf of humanity.
Comments
The Islam cult should be banned worldwide for it's backward, barbaric and evil practices. This is just one example of their barbarity.
This is what Sharia Law is.
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