Protests took place in London, including one in Trafalgar Square, as a part of an international day of protest against the sentence of execution passed on Iranian woman Sakine Mahamadi Ashtiani, falsely accused of adultery. London, UK. 24/07/2010
The International Committee Against Stoning held events in many cities around the world including Frankfurt, Oslo, Amsterdam, Bremen, Gothenburg, Malmo, Toronto, Berlin, Tbilisi, Sydney, Ottawa, Venice, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm and London today to publicise this case that has shocked the world. In England there were protests in Birmingham, Chichester, Egham and Richmond as well as London.
Public pressure has already led to Iranian authorities to put the stoning of Sakine Mahamadi Ashtiani at least on hold, and it now seems more likely that they intend to carry out the death sentence by hanging, still there a slow strangulation by the noose.
She was sentenced by a Shariah court on the basis of a 'confession' extracted under duress and which she has since retracted, and her son and daughter have led a campaign against the sentence, making appeals for international action to persuade the Iranian authorities to commute her sentence. She has already been held in prison for five years and punished with 99 lashes.
Stoning is carried out by burying the victim up to her shoulders and hurling stones at her. Public repulsion for such a barbaric practice means that stoning is no longer carried out in public but inside a prison with the stones thrown by prison guards. The law clearly specifies that the stones should be large enough to inflict damage and pain, but not so large as to kill her instantly so that the stoning may continue for perhaps 30 minutes until death occurs.
Disgusting and barbaric as the sentence on Sakine Mahamadi Ashtiani is, she is by no means an isolated case. Perhaps even more reprehensible is that of Azar Bagheri, forcibly married at 14 and charged with adultery and sentenced to stoning within a year of her marriage. At 15 she was too young under the law for the sentence to be carried out and she is still imprison, waiting for her stoning when she is 18. Already they have taken her out into the yard and carried out two mock stonings, burying her up to the neck but stopping before throwing the stones. German human rights activist Mina Ahadi who has reported her case has also had phone calls from the family of a third woman in the same Tabriz prison under sentence of stoning, Marian Ghorbanzadeh, age 25.
According to The Guardian, Ahadi says the she knows of 12 other women sentenced to death by stoning currently held in Iranian prisons and estimates that there are some 40 or 50 others.
A steady stream of people came to look at the demonstration on the north terrace of Trafalgar Square, and some joined in and stood holding placards for a few minutes along with the protesters. I had to wait for a few minutes in a queue to sign the petition against stoning.
Several people, including Maryam Namazie spoke at the event, calling for an end to these barbaric punishments and to the outdated law behind them.
