Sakineh Ashtiani, mother of 2, might be stoned this weekend for possibly cheating on her husband…. Yes, you heard right, I did say stoned to death. This poor woman was thrown in jail in 2006, followed by 99 lashes.
The Iranian penal code says, “stones are large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the victim immediately.” Article 102 of the Penal Code states that men should be buried up to their waists and women up to their breasts for the purpose of execution by stoning. Article 104 states, with reference to the penalty for adultery, that the stones 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.” -Newsweek
This is the product of Sharia Law.
What else does Sharia law say? “In a Sharia court, a woman’s testimony has only half the value of a man’s testimony. A woman who accuses a man of rape must produce four male witnesses. The system in Iran practises gender apartheid.”
I don’t understand how a man or woman in the history of time could ever be stoned to death for adultery, let alone in the year 2010.
This doesn’t seem real to me.
Stoning someone to death… are you for real Iran? Way to go back to the Ice Age, but hey, I don’t think people would consciously stone someone to death even during that time !
P.S. The sick part is that it has not been proven that she really did cheat on her husband. What would Iran say about Tiger Woods, John Edwards, or Jesse James? PROBABLY nothing!
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SHARIA LAW: THEY’LL STONE MUM TO DEATH
BY ANNA PUKAS
BY THE time you read this, it may already be too late and Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani may be already dead.
It is possible that this 43-year-old woman, the mother of two almost grown-up children has already been taken from her filthy cell in the local jail in Tabriz, a town in northern Iran, wrapped from head to toe in a close-fitting white shroud and buried up to her chest.
She may have gazed in terror at the piles of stones collected for the express purpose of killing her – stones carefully selected to be big enough to wound but not to kill quickly.
It could be that her body lies bloody and broken in some unmarked spot and that her children, a son and a daughter, weep for a mother put to death in horrific fashion.
all this may have happened already or it could happen at any moment over the next few days. What is certain is that Sakineh Ashtiani has been convicted of adultery by a Sharia court and sentenced to be executed by stoning and that the legal process in Iran has been exhausted.
Sakineh and her children must now pin their hopes on pressure from outside their country. And it is also evident that international outrage against the conduct of the Iranian authorities is widespread and growing.
The European Union has protested. Foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton yesterday condemned the sentence as “particularly cruel”. There have been demonstrations outside the Iranian embassy in London and the embassy of Pakistan in Washington DC, which looks after Iranian interests in the US.
Amnesty International has contacted the Iranian government directly to appeal for clemency. A letter signed by 16 prominent legal academics, including seven professors of law, condemning stoning as “barbaric” and asking for mercy for Sakineh was published yesterday.
On the internet there are forums, blogs, petitions and a Facebook page devoted to registering protest and appeals for Sakineh’s life to be spared. Most poignantly her son Sajad, 22, and daughter Farideh, 17, have published an open letter begging for pressure to be brought to bear upon the Iranian authorities.
It is a heartbreaking document: “Today we seek help from people all over the world,” they write. “Today, when all the paths have reached a dead end and our mother’s lawyer said that she is in grave danger, we come to you. The colour of your skin or the country or city you live in is not important. We go to everyone who has experienced the pain of losing a loved one.
Help us save our mother. Write letters and ask officials to release her. Tell them that no one has filed a complaint against her and that she has done nothing wrong. Our mother should not die. Is there anyone who hears our pleas for help?”
That stoning, a punishment redolent of biblical times, should still be considered acceptable in the 21st century in a country with a rich and ancient culture of which it is rightly proud, is abomination enough. Even more abhorrent is the blatant lack of justice in Sakineh’s case.
Sakineh’s alleged crime is adultery. She was arrested in 2005 and sentenced the following year to 99 lashes. Her son, then 17, witnessed his mother being flogged. “The authorities asked if I wanted to wait outside. I said no. I could not leave my mother all alone,” said Sajad.
But Sakineh was then re-arrested on suspicion of having murdered her husband with her alleged lover. Although she was acquitted, the court in Tabriz re-examined her adultery case. Ignoring the fact that she had been punished for that crime, the panel of judges sentenced her to death based on “judge’s knowledge” – a legal concept which is almost impossible to define, let alone understand, in a Western context.
“Judge’s knowledge can mean anything,” says Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, an Iranian-born scientist and human rights activist based in Oslo. “It can mean the judge is using his intuition or simply that he doesn’t like you. Basically, it means judges can do whatever they like.There is no logic to their reasoning, nor does there need to be.”
Amiry-Moghaddam cites the 2004 case of a 13-year-old girl raped by her 15-year-old brother. “Sharia law permits the withdrawal of the charge if the defendant confesses voluntarily. In this case, the boy admitted having sex with his sister.
The judges repealed the death sentence on the boy but not the girl. She was stoned to death. So the verdict is that he did not have illegal sex with his sister but she did with him. Where is the logic there?”
Sakineh was originally convicted of adultery on the basis of a supposed confession, which she has since retracted, claiming it was obtained under duress. The “confession”, like the trial proceedings, was in Farsi, the official language of Iran. But Sakineh’s ethnic origin is Azeri and she does not speak Farsi well, if at all.
“She is not a person with many resources,” says Amiry-Moghaddam, 38, who left Iran in the mid-Eighties, soon after the revolution which brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power. “She could not afford to hire a good lawyer. She is not rich, not highly educated and not well-connected. This all makes her a good victim.
“Sharia law is the means by which the Iranian regime instils fear in the people. The vessels of oppression are the poor, the ethnic minorities, the weak.” And, of course, women.
“In a Sharia court, a woman’s testimony has only half the value of a man’s testimony. A woman who accuses a man of rape must produce four male witnesses. The system in Iran practises gender apartheid.”
Death by stoning is slow and painful but even in death there is inequality. Anyone who manages to drag him or herself out of the ground during the stoning earns the right to have his or her life spared. However, while men are buried up to the waist, women are buried up to the chest.
Horrible as it was to witness his mother being flogged, Sajad Ashtiani believed that at least her ordeal was over. “I was thinking, OK, they hit her, now it’s finished. She’s free to go. They should have punished her only once. She paid for this crime five years ago.”
Sajad is granted one 15-minute visit a week with his mother. He says his only hope now is to obtain a letter of pardon from Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khameini and to mobilise international support.
As Britain recalls the events of five summers ago – yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the London Tube and bus bombings – those pleas should resonate even more deeply.
For it is the stated aim of those who carried out those bombings to turn Britain into an Islamic state governed by the same Sharia law which has condemned Sakineh to such an abominably cruel death. And not only the bombers but all those who aided them, who gave them training and expertise in their deadly craft, who poured into their ears and minds the poison which set them on their murderous course.
Could they succeed? Not impossible, says Amiry-Moghaddam. “Iran is a pretty advanced country. There is little support for the extremists. Even the less-educated rural people think Sharia penal law is barbaric and belongs to a time when there was no real civilisation. But unfortunately it is also true that it is the extremists who shout the loudest and who are heard. So yes, we should all beware.”
Disturbingly, the more moderate Islamic countries appear to be keeping a silence over the Ashtiani affair and over the more barbaric aspects of Sharia law in general. This too, must change, says Amiry-Moghaddam.
“In these cases, there must be a broad coalition between the West and the moderate Islamic nations.
“The international outcry over Sakineh’s case can definitely help her because there comes a point where it is more damaging for Iran not to heed international opinion. It comes down to the absolute basics of protecting human rights. Protect those and you protect everyone. Neglect them or lose them and the whole world is in peril.”
To register your protest, write to the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Princes Gate, London SW7 1PT.
