While Iran’s nuclear programme may grab most of Iran’s international headlines, we must not forget the human rights abuses which go on within its borders. One such case of this has come to light lately with the sentencing of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani to death by stoning for adultery and the subsequent global reaction which saved her from this fate.

Ashtiani had already been imprisoned for five years along with receiving 99 lashes for the crime of adultery when; after her husband’s death and on the the submission of new ‘evidence’, this was upgraded to death by stoning in September 2006...

Sakineh's lawyer said the recent reverse of the stoning sentence was because Iran "is afraid of Iranian public reaction and international attention" to the stoning cases. Which, if true, suggests that Iran feels there is a clear and tangible opposition to the practice of stoning on a global and national scale.

Jamal Karimirad, an Iranian official, said last month that "Stoning has been dropped from the penal code for a long time, and in the Islamic republic, we do not see such punishments being carried out", further adding that if stoning sentences were passed by lower courts, they were over-ruled by higher courts and "no such verdicts have been carried out.” There are still, however, 15 people awaiting execution by stoning and those who are convicted in future may escape stoning but could be executed by other means.

"...men convicted of adultery should be buried up to their waists and women up to their chests for stoning; if the person can escape before they die then the execution stops."

Stoning is still legal in Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emigrates, and happens unofficially also in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and some other countries. Stoning is not prescribed as a punishment for any crime in the Quran, and Islamic scholars are divided as to whether it is a legal punishment for adultery.

While some refute it, others uphold it and say that criticism of stoning is an example of the West imposing its own values on other societies. Certainly, Iran’s pratice of stoning does not follow Western values such as gender equality - according to Iran’s Islamic penal code Article 102, men convicted of adultery should be buried up to their waists and women up to their chests for stoning; if the person can escape before they die then the execution stops. Sharia law states that four (male) witnesses must swear to have seen the penetrative act for an adulterer to be convicted. Some argue that the evidential threshold is deliberately impossibly high so that no one can actually be sentenced to death by stoning.

Yet people continue to be sentenced, including many women who do not have equal access to justice due to deeply-rooted social and judicial sexism, in particular the fact that, under Iran’s penal code, a man’s testimony is worth twice that of a woman’s.

In the case of stoning in Iran the international declaration of human rights (to which Iran is a signatory) is quite clearly not being followed. In particular Article 2 (the right to life) and Article 14 (the right to a fair trial).

Sign up here - www.avaaz.org/en/stop_stoning?hp to give voice to the anti-stoning movement.

Words: Tim Heard
Photo: Flickr user * Bruce