The Plight of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani

Today the Iran government magnanimously said they won't stone a woman to death.

They haven't said they won't execute this 43-year old woman. They haven't said they regrect having her flogged, 99 lashes while her then teenaged son watched. They see no problem with convicting her to death in 2007 for a consensual sex act, namely adultery. They just said that it wasn't true that they planned to bury her up to her neck in the ground and stone her to death this weekend.

Don't get me wrong, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani  is not a saint.  The reports that repeatedly refer to her as a widow remind me somewhat of the old joke about thea man who killed his parents and then turned to the judge and said: "take pity on a poor orphan".

She was in a marriage that was, by all accounts, abusive. A man she knew killed her husband and she was deemed to be an accomplice, and they are both serving ten years. But that is not where the death sentence came in.  But she was sentenced to death because three of the five judges deemed that she had committed adultery.

A woman does not need to be perfect to deserve being saved from the horrible fate of being killed by stones carefully measured to ensure they will not kill her too quickly--not because of her involvement in a murder, but because of who she allegedly (in the absence of any real evidence) chose to have sex with.

For each person who comments on this post I will donate $1 to Amnesty Internation, up to a maximum of $50.

Amount raised so far: $5

AM Crenshaw is matching my donations dollar for dollar!

Please also visit:

• Save Sakineh [A Writer's House]
• Nausea. [Sharon Maas]

What you can do:
Send an email
Donate to Amnesty International

See also:
Document - Iran: Fears for prisoners on death row in Iran
Iran stonings are a legal nightmare