No.
The Iranian government have neatly side-stepped the problem with the stoning and have reached a new decision: they're going to hang Sakineh Mohammed Ashtiani instead.
(link takes you to the original entry on xrysomou's journal - information based on this tweet by David Aaronovitch, of The Times:
"The Iranians are to hang Sakineh Ashtiani. Murdering, corrupt, hypocritical, torturing bastards.")
Stoning case woman to be hanged for murder - this link takes you to The Times website, which is paylocked.
"The woman who became the centre of an international outcry after being sentenced to death by stoning for adultery is now to be hanged for murdering her husband, the Iranian regime has announced.
The new fate planned for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was announced by Iran’s national prosecutor general, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, at his weekly press conference in Tehran, according to the Tehran Times.
“According to the court’s ruling, she is convicted of murder and her death sentence has priority over her punishment (for committing adultery),” Mr Mohseni-Ejei reportedly said.
The newspaper said that the prosecutor’s remark means that Ms Ashtiani, an illiterate 43-year-old Azeri mother of two children whose husband was killed by her cousin, will not be stoned to death for committing adultery because she should first be executed for murder.
Mr Mohseni-Ejei added: “The issue should not be politicised and the judiciary will not be influenced by the propaganda campaign launched by the Western media.” He is also a spokesman for the country’s judges, a double role that emphasises the influence of the regime over the supposedly independent judiciary.
Ms Ashtiani was given 99 lashes in 2006 for having an illicit relationship after her husband’s death. Since then the case against her has intensified, and she has spent years in prison under threat of being stoned for alleged adultery with her cousin. She has been denied access to her family and her lawyer, who have been persecuted for publicising her case.
The strength of the outcry in the West has been credited with delaying sentence being carried out.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was repeatedly tackled about Ms Ashtiani’s case when he visited New York last week to address the United Nations.
Flatly contradicting his country’s judicial officials, he denied that Ms Ashtiani had ever been sentenced to death by stoning and suggested that the international outcry had been whipped up by Western media propaganda.
“There’s no stoning case here at all,” he told Larry King Live. “A person in Germany made this claim, which was untrue. Our judiciary also said it was untrue.”
The Iranian Student News Agency ISNA however reported other remarks by Mr Mohseni-Ejei in which he reaffirmed that Ms Ashtiani had indeed been sentenced to be stoned - despite Mr Ahmedinejad’s denial - but suggested that the courts had not finished considering the case.
ISNA quoted him as saying: “Stoning sentence is issued for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, but her case should pass required legal process.”
On the day of Mr Ahmadinejad’s address an open letter was released from Ms Ashtiani’s son to Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, begging him to intervene to save his mother’s life. The letter dismissed the Islamic Republic’s professed commitment to human rights as an “absolute lie” and called for an international ban on stoning.
Sajad Ghaderzade, 22, a bus driver from Tabriz, said that his mother had been acquitted of murdering her husband but sentenced to be stoned to death after being convicted, instead, of adultery.
Last night’s statement by the prosecutor general suggests that the courts have overturned their earlier judgment.
Mr Mohseni-Ejei also said that the Iranian authorities were ready to prosecute the leaders of the Iranian opposition, Mahdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, if they did not stop criticising the regime.
“The leaders of sedition have undermined the interests of the nation and system,” he said. “Undoubtedly, they will be tried if they don’t repent their actions and express their regret publicly.”
The Iranian Government said today that no final decision had yet been taken in the case.
“The judicial process has not yet finished and the final judgment will be announced after the end of the process,” said a foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast."
-by Jenny Booth
(source - paywalled)
I don't understand the thought process, I just don't. I mean, I don't understand the death penalty full-stop - surely the only useful purpose that it serves is as a deterrent, and with all due respect that's clearly not working - but this is beyond that. The mess of denial and accusation is baffling to me.
This is why I will never stop feeling that all theocracies, no matter what religion, are dangerous. Religion makes people crazy, and I say that as a committed member of my own religion. Religion deals in absolutes that we should not, as a nation, get involved in. Spiritual matters, past the obvious points of overlap such as murder and theft etc, have no place in a legal or political setting.
And I'm so sorry for this poor woman who's been caught up in it.
(link takes you to the original entry on xrysomou's journal - information based on this tweet by David Aaronovitch, of The Times:
"The Iranians are to hang Sakineh Ashtiani. Murdering, corrupt, hypocritical, torturing bastards.")
Stoning case woman to be hanged for murder - this link takes you to The Times website, which is paylocked.
"The woman who became the centre of an international outcry after being sentenced to death by stoning for adultery is now to be hanged for murdering her husband, the Iranian regime has announced.
The new fate planned for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was announced by Iran’s national prosecutor general, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, at his weekly press conference in Tehran, according to the Tehran Times.
“According to the court’s ruling, she is convicted of murder and her death sentence has priority over her punishment (for committing adultery),” Mr Mohseni-Ejei reportedly said.
The newspaper said that the prosecutor’s remark means that Ms Ashtiani, an illiterate 43-year-old Azeri mother of two children whose husband was killed by her cousin, will not be stoned to death for committing adultery because she should first be executed for murder.
Mr Mohseni-Ejei added: “The issue should not be politicised and the judiciary will not be influenced by the propaganda campaign launched by the Western media.” He is also a spokesman for the country’s judges, a double role that emphasises the influence of the regime over the supposedly independent judiciary.
Ms Ashtiani was given 99 lashes in 2006 for having an illicit relationship after her husband’s death. Since then the case against her has intensified, and she has spent years in prison under threat of being stoned for alleged adultery with her cousin. She has been denied access to her family and her lawyer, who have been persecuted for publicising her case.
The strength of the outcry in the West has been credited with delaying sentence being carried out.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was repeatedly tackled about Ms Ashtiani’s case when he visited New York last week to address the United Nations.
Flatly contradicting his country’s judicial officials, he denied that Ms Ashtiani had ever been sentenced to death by stoning and suggested that the international outcry had been whipped up by Western media propaganda.
“There’s no stoning case here at all,” he told Larry King Live. “A person in Germany made this claim, which was untrue. Our judiciary also said it was untrue.”
The Iranian Student News Agency ISNA however reported other remarks by Mr Mohseni-Ejei in which he reaffirmed that Ms Ashtiani had indeed been sentenced to be stoned - despite Mr Ahmedinejad’s denial - but suggested that the courts had not finished considering the case.
ISNA quoted him as saying: “Stoning sentence is issued for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, but her case should pass required legal process.”
On the day of Mr Ahmadinejad’s address an open letter was released from Ms Ashtiani’s son to Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, begging him to intervene to save his mother’s life. The letter dismissed the Islamic Republic’s professed commitment to human rights as an “absolute lie” and called for an international ban on stoning.
Sajad Ghaderzade, 22, a bus driver from Tabriz, said that his mother had been acquitted of murdering her husband but sentenced to be stoned to death after being convicted, instead, of adultery.
Last night’s statement by the prosecutor general suggests that the courts have overturned their earlier judgment.
Mr Mohseni-Ejei also said that the Iranian authorities were ready to prosecute the leaders of the Iranian opposition, Mahdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, if they did not stop criticising the regime.
“The leaders of sedition have undermined the interests of the nation and system,” he said. “Undoubtedly, they will be tried if they don’t repent their actions and express their regret publicly.”
The Iranian Government said today that no final decision had yet been taken in the case.
“The judicial process has not yet finished and the final judgment will be announced after the end of the process,” said a foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast."
-by Jenny Booth
(source - paywalled)
I don't understand the thought process, I just don't. I mean, I don't understand the death penalty full-stop - surely the only useful purpose that it serves is as a deterrent, and with all due respect that's clearly not working - but this is beyond that. The mess of denial and accusation is baffling to me.
This is why I will never stop feeling that all theocracies, no matter what religion, are dangerous. Religion makes people crazy, and I say that as a committed member of my own religion. Religion deals in absolutes that we should not, as a nation, get involved in. Spiritual matters, past the obvious points of overlap such as murder and theft etc, have no place in a legal or political setting.
And I'm so sorry for this poor woman who's been caught up in it.