And Amnesty said this week that eight men and three women were awaiting the carrying out of sentences of stoning and since at least six people had been put to death in this manner. The brief statement from the Iranian embassy in London announcing that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani would not be executed by stoning said that "this kind of punishment has rarely been implemented" in Iran. It also said stoning was not in a draft Islamic penal code currently under consideration in the Iranian parliament.
Iran has long argued that the death penalty is essential in maintaining public security. It also says it is only carried out after exhaustive judicial proceedings, a claim that has been challenged by human rights groups. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party, requires those states that maintain the death penalty to restrict it to "the most serious crimes". Critics of the way Iran has been using capital punishment say that it has acted in clear violation of the covenant.
From time to time there have been reports of stonings from other countries, such as Somalia and Afghanistan. A case in Somalia in October attracted much attention. A girl was stoned to death before a large crowd at a football stadium. The suggestion - particularly from her lawyer - that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani appeared to be on the verge of being stoned to death saw Iran accused internationally this week of allowing a "medieval" practice which has no place in the modern world.
It brought a response from the Iranian authorities indicating that they do not relish a confrontation on this issue, even if the next steps are not yet clear. Iran woman escapes stoning death. Iran 'adulterer' facing stoning. Quakes blamed on 'immodest women'. Iran executes two men by stoning. Stoning remained law in the updated penal code, she says, but in the first draft of a revision, it wasn't there. It's not clear who will win the battle over the code working its way through the system now, she says, but it does include a potentially face-saving way to keep stoning on the books without having to carry it out.
She thinks it's no accident that people are being stoned these days, amid political unrest in Iran. But there continue to be stonings, she says, because "like anywhere else, you have hardliners. You have radicals. Share this on:. Most Popular. Fine art from an iPhone? Arifa Bibi's uncle, cousins and others hurled stones and bricks at her until she died, according to media reports. She was buried in a desert far from her village. It's unlikely anyone was arrested.
Her case is not unique. Stoning is legal or practised in at least 15 countries or regions. And campaigners fear this barbaric form of execution may be on the rise, particularly in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. Women's rights activists have launched an international campaign for a ban on stoning, which is mostly inflicted on women accused of adultery. They are using Twitter and other social media to put pressure on the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, to denounce the practice.
She said activists will also push the UN to adopt a resolution on stoning similar to the one passed last year on eradicating female genital mutilation — another form of violence against women often justified on religious and cultural grounds.
Stoning is not legal in most Muslim countries and there is no mention of it in the Koran. But supporters argue that it is legitimised by the Hadith — the acts and sayings of the Prophet Mohamed. Stoning is set out as a specific punishment for adultery under several interpretations of sharia or Islamic law.
In some instances, even a woman saying she has been raped can be considered an admission to the crime of zina sex outside marriage. In one case cited by Shameem, a year-old Somali girl, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, was buried up to her neck and stoned by 50 men in front of 1, people at a stadium in Kismayu in Her father told Amnesty International she had been raped by three men but was accused of adultery when she tried to report the rape to the al-Shabaab militia in control of the city.
Iran has the world's highest rate of execution by stoning. No one knows how many people have been stoned but at least 11 people are in prison under sentence of stoning, according to an Iranian human rights lawyer, Shadi Sadr. Sadr, who has represented five people sentenced to stoning, said Iran carried out stonings in secret in prisons, in the desert or very early in the morning in cemeteries.
The Islamic Republic pretends that they don't care about their reputation, but they do care a lot," added Sadr, who lives in exile in Britain. In , the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery, caused international outcry.
The authorities have suspended her sentence but she remains in prison. Officials withdrew stoning from a new draft penal code last year, but have since reinserted it.
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