In Iran, the punishment for adultery is death by stoning. When the stoning involves a woman, she is buried in the ground up to her neck and hit with stones big enough to cause pain, but not large enough to kill her, so to make the punishment as slow and painful as possible.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 42-year-old mother of two, was convicted of adultery in 2006. Her confession came after 99 lashes with a whip and she later withdrew it. Her trial was held in a language she couldn’t understand. There were no witnesses to her crime, which the court charged her with through “judicial knowledge.” Basically, the judge felt like she was guilty so she was.
Ashtiani’s case has drawn worldwide attention, and humanitarian groups are furiously working to save her as her sentence could be carried out at any time. Today, Twitter lit up with the #Ashtiani tag as some begged the UN to get involved, while others reminded us that besides Ashtiani there are hundreds of other political prisoners facing stoning deaths as well in Iran.
Ashtiani’s own children, Sajad, 22, and Farideh, 17, helped launch the international campaign to prevent their mother’s stoning. “She’s innocent, she’s been there for five years for doing nothing,” Sajad told the Guardian. “Imagining her, bound inside a deep hole in the ground, stoned to death, has been a nightmare for me and my sister for all these years.”
The more international pressure put on Iran, the more likely it is that Ashtiani will be spared. Magda Pecsenye has listed several ways that people can help at her blog Ask Moxie, including contacting your representatives and using social media to spread the word.
I hope that Ashtiani can be saved, and I hope that the attention brought to her case will help other prisoners facing the same fate.
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