Author:
Publication: BBC News
Date: July 9, 2010
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/10565103.stm
The authorities in Iran have announced that
a woman convicted of adultery will not be stoned to death.
But it is not clear whether they have lifted
the death sentence against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who has been in prison
in Tabriz since 2006.
The 43-year-old had already been punished
with flogging for an "illicit relationship" outside marriage when
another court tried her for adultery.
There has been an international campaign to
prevent her being stoned.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said stoning
was a "medieval punishment" and that its continued use showed Iran's
disregard for human rights.
"If the punishment is carried out, it
will disgust and appal the watching world," he told a news conference
in London on Thursday.
Under Iran's strict interpretation of Islamic
law, sex before marriage is punishable by 100 lashes, but married offenders
are sentenced to death by stoning. The stones used must be large enough to
cause the condemned pain, but not sufficient to kill immediately.
Ms Ashtiani's lawyer and human rights activists
had warned that her execution was imminent, after appeals for clemency were
rejected.
In May 2006, a criminal court in East Azerbaijan
province found Ms Ashtiani guilty of having had an "illicit relationship"
with two men following the death of her husband. She was given 99 lashes.
But that September, during the trial of a
man accused of murdering her husband, another court reopened an adultery case
based on events that allegedly took place before her husband died.
Despite retracting a confession that she said
she had been forced to make under duress, Ms Ashtiani was found guilty.
