Women's Rights in the Middle East

As if reading a dark fairytale, we cringe at the thought of death by stoning. For many, this idea is so far removed from our realities that it seems almost unbelievable to discuss the topic, which for many, requires no discussion at all.

photo credit Google Images

Yet for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, she has become the main character in her own modern day “Grimm” story, being a woman sentenced to die by that very method. 

In 2006, Ashtiani was convicted of committing adultery with the man who killed her husband. For this crime she received 99 lashings and was sentenced to death by stoning, a process where, for women, you are buried up to your chest and stones are thrown until the individual dies.

During her trial, Ashtiani, who speaks Azeri, a language spoken in northwestern Iran, could not understand her persecutors because the entire trial was conducted in Farsi.  It is also alleged that she was forced to make a confession under duress after being tortured in prison.

Protesters in Rome. Photo Credit Google Images

After global uproar, on July 8, 2010 Iran decided to review her case and refrain from stoning Ashtiani. But recently, news broke that Ashtiani was also being charged for the murder of her husband, a crime punishable by hanging.

Protests have been held around the world in countries such as Portugal, Sweden, and Norway to free Ashtiani. France, especially, has taken an enormous interest in the affairs of Ashtiani with French First Lady Carla Bruni writing Ashtiani a letter of hope for justice, says digitaljournal.com.

“Please know from within your cell that my husband will plead ceaselessly for your release and that France will not abandon you,” said Bruni. “I just can’t see what good could come out of this macabre ceremony, whatever the judicial reasons put forward to justify it. Shed your blood and deprive children of their mother, why? Because you have lived, because you have loved, because you’re a woman and because you’re Iranian? Everything within me refuses to accept this.”

Ashtiani, her lawyer, and her lawyer’s family have been persecuted by the Iranian government to the extent that Norway has granted Ashtiani’s lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, asylum after he fled to Turkey, and Ignacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, granted Ashtiani herself asylum in his country although Iranian officials rejected the offer.

Photo Credit Google Images

According to website for The Australian, the Foreign Ministry in Tehran is upset at the United States and Europe for undermining the Iranian legal system.

“They [the U.S. and Europe] have become so shameless that they have turned the case of Ms Ashtiani, who has committed crime and treason, into a human rights case against our nation," said Ramin Mehmanparast, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. "She has become a symbol for Western feminists who are impudently demanding her release and using this ordinary case as a pressure lever against our nation.”

http://www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/iran/background---ashtiani-and-jalalian/page.do?id=1691089

http://www.iranfocus.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21837:an-adulteress-could-in-theory-be-stoned-iran-prosecutor-says&catid=6:women&Itemid=28

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg0_acZrTQo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWl7SdI4yt4

http://notonemoreexecution.org/2010/09/05/italy-rises-to-sakineh%E2%80%99s-defence/