I have reported previously on Naznin Mahabad Fatehi here and here The Save Nazanin site reports that following her death sentence being overturned she will face a new trial starting early this month. Here’s hoping that the original death sentence will not be upheld.
Meanwhile today's Independent carried a report on Ashraf Kalhori a woman who has sentenced to death by stoning for adultery and conspiring to kill her husband. The chief of Iran's, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, declared a moratorium on stoning in December 2002, but it remains on the statute books and his decision could be reversed. Last month Mrs Kalhori was told by a special verdicts court that she would be executed within 15 days but after protests from her lawyer and international rights groups, Ayatollah Shahroudi is reviewing her case.
Shadi Sadr, the lawyer representing Mrs Kalhori, says she is optimistic. "We are campaigning to make the moratorium actually enacted in law," Mrs Sadr said. "While the law remains unchanged, cases of stoning can happen anywhere in the country despite Shahroudi's order because the head of the judiciary is not above the law."
Mrs Kalhori's husband, Akbar Estiri, was killed in April 2002 after quarrelling with their neighbour, Mahmoud Mirzaei. She says that the killing was accidental but police say she was having an affair with Mr Mirzaei and encouraged the attack. The sentence of stoning is for adultery, but she was also sentenced to 15 years in prison for her alleged part in the murder. Mrs Sadr says that if the stoning verdict is upheld it should not be implemented until after her prison term.
Mr Mirzaei received 100 lashes instead of stoning for adultery because he was unmarried, but was sentenced to death for the murder. However, this cannot be carried out for another nine years, when the youngest of the Kalhori children turns 18 and can decide to take blood money instead.
Human rights groups also say that issues such as stoning can divert attention from abuses for political crimes. Last week, a student leader, Akbar Mohammedi, died while on hunger strike in prison. A liberal academic, Ramin Jahanbegloo, has been held without trial for several months. Rights groups say incidences of such cases have increased since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election because officials do not expect him to interfere. They also point to an apparent strategy for countering political opposition by relaxing social rules while cracking down on political dissent
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11 comments:
Again, I would like to reiterate my hopes that Naznin Mahabad Fatehi’s death sentence remains overturned while the case reported by you in today’s Independent serves as a grim reminder of the extremism of Iranian law in regard to adultery. It makes me wonder whether this aspect of the case was instrumental in deciding her fate in relation to her husbands death and that it is likely this is happening but not reported elsewere. That adultery should be considered a crime worthy of stoning is clearly a human rights issue, it is also so harsh, its difficult to understand in a religious sense, let alone a moral sense.
It beggars belief that such a punishment is still available for an offence that we would not consider a crime - grounds for divorce, yes, but a capial offence, certainly not.
I am grateful too mullets. The UK may have plenty of its own faults but this is not one of them.
My sentiments too, Red
I wonder what those supporting such a regime could benefit from it. Perhaps they do not understand, or just fail to want to understand. My sentiments too Jams and Redwine
i debated on whether or not to even comment. i am against organized religion of any kind- and especially the fundamentalist kind. i have always wondered why folks in the middle east have tolerated that kind of thing for so long. i guess i shouldn't have because now the fundamentalist yahoos in america want to take us back to when women were chattal again. jams- i hope you don't mind- i tagged you on my site.
Not much can be done politically, when your country has no open communication with it.
Ultimately it is up to the Iranian left to handle.
"i have always wondered why folks in the middle east have tolerated that kind of thing for so long." - Betmo, maybe they haven't, and in the case of Iran it was the last thing they wanted. This is not as much about religion as about oppresion, i.e. religion as a means of oppression: no wonder small dictators here were such good buddies with the ayatollah and other emiment monsters. For want of a nail the shoe was lost: maybe the shah had too much support, then maybe Mossadegh shouldn;t have been removed, etc: and this is the result now. (it does have other causes too, of course), and let's not forget about the benefic influence of the USSR (heavily supporting them). Simili similem - and now we can watch the conseqeunces.
Obukun, in a way they do benefit: they use this suffering for furthering other, not less oppressive ideas.
This is certainly disturbing. Stoning is an inhumane punishment/way to die. She should be punished if she is guilty of what she is accused of but stoning?
*sigh* Just another problem with the Islamo-fascist state known as Iran.
-Dave
In my view those in the West who support the Iranian regime pretty well only do so because its anti american stance. They don't give a shit about such matters as this perhaps treat them as minor issues.
As for Iran itself. had the UK and the US not destabilised Mossadgh would we see this situation now? perhaps not but we will never know. The people of Iran deserve far better than what they have had for the last 26 years, electing Ahmadinejad because he was not Rafsanjani will not get them a better deal.
"treat them as minor issues." - short memory, jams; supporting such an idioticc regime IS treateing human right issues as very minor ones. Period.
Agreed , Red
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