Death by Stoning

This week, Iran backed down from stoning to death a mother accused of adultery. But as many as 50 other women in the country may share a similar sentence.

On April 28, 2010, Iran was farcically elected - unopposed - to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Recently, in response to intense international pressure, the Iranian government backed down from carrying out a death sentence by stoning on Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, for allegedly committing adultery.

Although the Iranians maintain that stoning is legal under Iranian law, it is unclear whether Ashtiani will suffer death by other means. According to Amnesty International:

a mere change of the method of execution would not address the injustice.

Now comes news of another female awaiting a similarly barbaric fate. Yet the circumstances of Azar Bagheri’s death sentence are even more tragic, if possible.

Bagheri, now 19 years old, was only 14 when she was forced into marriage with an older man. Within a year of the wedding, she was denounced by her husband, who accused her of having an ‘illicit relationship’ with two men. She was then promptly charged and convicted of adultery by the courts and sentenced to be stoned to death.

Under the Iranian penal code, Bagheri could not be executed until she turned 18. During that time, Bagheri has been subjected to mock stonings, complete with partial burial and countless lashes. Mina Ahadi, a human rights activist and head of the International Committee Against Stoning and the Death Penalty described this as a ‘practice run’ and said:

they’re preparing her for the real one.

Ahadi says she is aware of the names of at least 12 other women who have been sentenced to death by stoning in Iran at the moment; however, she estimates there may be at least 40 to 50 other women awaiting the same fate.

Stoning is perhaps one of the most barbaric means of executing people and is specifically designed to cause a particularly slow and painful death. Iran’s penal code states that a woman shall be buried to her breasts and the stones used should:

not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes; nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones.

According to Amnesty International, the majority of those sentenced to death by stoning are women, who are regularly not treated equally with men by the Courts.

Article 5 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states that:

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

But then again, when the UN sees it fit to elect Iran to the Commission on the Status of Women, why should the Universal Declaration of Human Rights mean anything? In the meantime, Bagheri remains languishing on death row awaiting her almost certain fate unless the world speaks out loudly and unequivocally against this gross abuse of human rights by Iran.