An International Movement to Save Sakine Mohammadi Ashtiani From Death By Stoning in Iran Has Been Launched
She reportedly confessed to the crime of adultery after suffering 99 lashes and now, Sakine Mohammadi Ashtiani, a mother of two living in Iran, could be buried up to her chest and stoned to death.
Mina Ahadi, head of the International Committee Against Stoning and the Death Penalty, says that only an international movement to raise awareness can save the woman now as her sentence has already been handed down.
She was convicted of adultery in 2006 in the northern city of Tabriz, and although she confessed after being whipped, her lawyer told CNN that she then retracted that confession and denied any adulterous act. The ruling was upheld in 2007 by Iran's supreme court.
Amnesty International has now become involved, placing a call to the Iranian government to halt the execution.
"The organization is also urging the authorities to review and repeal death penalty laws, to disclose full details of all death sentences and executions and to join the growing international trend towards abolition,"
Washington has condemned the ruling, and although she has been in prison for a number of years now, her case is gaining more international attention and those fighting on her behalf hope that means she will soon be released from prison and set free of all charges.
On July 1, Stop Stoning Now released a letter saying that the verdict against Sakine Mohammadi Ashtiani should be discarded, and that stoning is a 'savage and merciless form of execution'.
We strongly condemn the Islamic Republic for its barbaric implementation of stoning, execution and torture and its enforcement of Qesas laws. We call upon all international institutions as well as the United Nation and the European Union to strongly condemn the Islamic Republic and demand that Sakine Mohammadi Ashtiani’s stoning verdict be overturned, as well as the verdicts of all others condemned to stoning and execution.
They also call for Iran's leaders to be prosecuted and punished in an international court for allowing tens of thousands of people to be stoned to death and executed.
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