PLEASE USE YOUR VOICE AGAIN
In July of this year you were one of 385,000 people from around the world who signed on to Freesakineh.org in an effort to stop the Iranian regime from stoning Mohammedi Ashtiani to death. Thanks to your efforts Sakineh is still alive. But yesterday news came, following a secret call from the prison where she is held that an execution order has been delivererd to her. Her situation is truly precarious.
Please again use your voice. Sign the petition below so that we can let the Iranian regime know that we have not lost our resolve.
Know too that almost every single person in Iran who has worked on behalf of Sakineh has either been imprisoned or forced to flee the country. Most sadly, her son Sajaad who has devoted his life to saving his mother is now also in jail – guilty only of trying to bring justice to his mother. Our petition to the Ayatollah Khameini asks for both to be immediately released.
We must be bold and steadfast. We must make our voices heard. We made a difference this summer. We can again.
Sign petition: http://freesakineh.org/
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani (Persian: سکینه محمدی آشتیانی, Azerbaijani: Səkinə Məhəmmədi-Aştiani, born 1967) is an Iranian Azeri woman convicted of adultery, and since 2007 has been under sentence of death by stoning under Islamic Sharia law. An international campaign to overturn her sentence was started by her son and daughter, and it brought widespread attention to her case in 2010, when prominent media sources reported that she was sentenced to be executed by stoning. Iranian authorities initially denied that this method of execution would be used, but publicly and temporarily suspended a sentence of death by stoning in September 2010. She was also accused by the Islamic Republic of having conspired with the murderer of her husband. The international publicity generated by Sakineh Ashtiani's case led to multiple diplomatic incidents between the Iranian government and other nations. The German-based International Committee Against Stoning has announced that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is due to be hanged on Wednesday 3 November 2010. There were also reports that due to the reactions in the international community the execution had been "stayed", some of whom have called the planned decision "barbaric". She was first tried on May 15, 2006, by a court in Tabriz, pleading guilty under torture to the crime of an "illicit relationship" with two men; she has since recanted the confession that she made under duress. The adultery was alleged to have occurred after the death of her husband, and no names have ever been documented for the two men. She was sentenced to whipping of 99 lashes, which was carried out in the presence of her son, Sajad Ghaderzadeh, when he was 17 years old.
In September 2006, her case was again brought up when a separate court was prosecuting one of the two men for involvement in the death of Mohammadi Ashtiani's husband. She was illegally retried for the same alleged crime of adultery, convicted of adultery while still married, and sentenced to death by stoning. Notably, Ms. Ashtiani does not speak Persian, but instead only Azeri, and when her stoning sentence was handed down, she did not understand the sentence. Contrary to all documentation on Ms. Ashtiani's ca Malek Ejdar Sharifi, head of East Azerbaijan Province's judiciary said, "She was sentenced to capital punishment... for committing murder, manslaughter and adultery." The Iranian supreme court confirmed her death sentence on May 27, 2007.
The Press Section of the Iranian Embassy in London, which has no judicial authority, issued the following statement on July 8, 2010: "Considering the statements made by the Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt on an Iranian national, Mrs Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, and her execution, hereby this mission denies the false news aired in this respect and notifies the Ministry that according to information from the relevant judicial authorities in Iran, she will not be executed by stoning punishment." The media and other observers, however, chose only to report the last 8 words of the relevant text from the statement, leading most to believe that Ms. Ashtiani's stoning sentence had been lifted. In fact the press release denied that Ms. Ashtiani had ever been under stoning sentence - a denial that was countered the following day by the Head of the Human Rights Council of the Islamic Republic Judiciary, and which has since been exposed as a falsehood by provision of court documents reflecting the stoning sentence. The stoning sentence of Sakineh Ashtiani has never been lifted, and as of September 26, 2010, she remains at risk of execution by stoning or other method at any moment.
Reporters in Iran have been banned from reporting on the case. One of her lawyers, Mohammed Mostafaei, had to go into hiding in the country on July 26, 2010. His wife and brother-in-law were arrested in Iran and his wife's father was told that they would be released as soon as Mostafaei turns himself in. Mostafaei sought asylum internationally, first in Turkey, and then Norway, where he was reunited with his family on September 2, 2010.
On August 4, 2010, the Iranian authorities told Mohammadi Ashtiani's lawyer, Houtan Kian, that Ashtiani still faces death by hanging. On the same day, Tehran's High Court rejected a reopening of the trial and instead considered the Tabriz prosecutor's demand to execute Ashtiani. Her case was subsequently transferred to the deputy prosecutor-general Saeed Mortazavi. Ashtiani's son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, was told that the file on his father's murder case has been lost. Sajjad stated that "they are lying about the charges against my mother. She was acquitted of murdering my father but now the government is building up their own story against her." The house of Ashtiani's lawyer Houtan Kian was ransacked by plain-clothes officials, and his documents, including one which shows that Sakineh was acquitted of her husband's murder, were confiscated. Since then, they have been unable to find a copy of the sentence.
On August 12, 2010, Ashtiani was televised from Tabriz prison on an Iranian state-run television program which showed her confessing to adultery and involvement in a murder. Her lawyer said she was tortured for two days prior to the interview. On August 28, Mohammadi Ashtiani was told that she was to be hanged at dawn the next day. Ashtiani wrote her will and embraced her cellmates just before the call to morning prayer, when she expected to be led to the gallows, but the sentence was not carried out.
Also on August 28, 2010, British newspaper The Times published a photograph of an unveiled woman, identified as Mohammadi Ashtiani; the photograph had been provided to the Times by her former lawyer Mohammed Mostafaei. On September 2, 2010, Mohammadi Ashtiani's son and current lawyer reported that she had been additionally convicted of "spreading corruption and indecency" for appearing unveiled and sentenced to 99 lashes. However, The Times subsequently reported that the photograph was not of Mohmmadi Ashtiani, but of Susan Hejrat, an Iranian activist living in Sweden. Nevertheless, Ms. Ashtiani was subjected to another round of 99 lashes, predicated on the mistaken photograph. Mohammadi Ashtiani was again shown on Iranian television on September 15, 2010, where she stated that she had not been tortured and had not been whipped as a result of The Times photograph.
Suspension of the stoning sentence
On September 8, 2010, Ramin Mehmanparast, a spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, confirmed that the government had suspended the stoning sentence pending a review of her husband's murder case. The Islamic Republic has worked to change the basis on which Ms. Ashtiani was sentenced to die from simply adultery to murder, assuming that the public would not protest the execution of a murderer. This is while Ms. Ashtiani has already been acquitted for her husband's murder; another man was found guilty and convicted, but he is now free because Ashtiani's children forgave their father's killer.
Mehmanparast further stated, in contradiction to numerous court documents, that she was guilty of both adultery and murder and that her case was undeserving of the international attention it had drawn. He said that releasing "murderers" should not be made into a human rights issue and called on countries criticising Iran to release all their murderers as well.[ This statement by Mehmanparast reflects the propaganda push by the regime to reframe Ms. Ashtiani as a murderer rather someone who had been convicted to die by stoning because of adultery.
According to the human rights organisation Iran Human Rights, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is still in danger of stoning or hanging. Iran Human Rights also expressed its concerns about Mr. Mehmanparast’s statement about "Sakineh’s murder charge being investigated for the final verdict". Commenting on this statement, the spokesperson of Iran Human Rights, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said: "The fact that the authorities are mentioning "murder charges" now, could mean that Mrs. Ashtiani is in danger of being sentenced to death for murder". Mrs. Ashitiani's hanging may be called off, according to France's Foreign Minister, who cited a telephone call to his Iranian counterpart for his announcement. It has been stated by a human rights group that Ashtiani has been sentenced to be hanged on 2010-11-03 on the supposed charge of murder.
Her eldest son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, is reported to have been imprisioned and severely tortured.
International campaign
Mohammadi Ashtiani's two children began a campaign to overturn their mother's conviction. In June 2010, they wrote a letter to the world asking for help to save their mother, which was then first published on June 26, 2010, by the International Committee against Stoning and Mission Free Iran. The letter brought widespread attention to her case in 2010 as a result of grassroots campaigning through social networking sites that led to the letter's being passed along to mainstream mass media.
During July 2010, protests occurred in Rome, London and Washington, D.C., among other cities. Calls to stop her execution came from leading human rights groups Avaaz, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as from several high-profile celebrities. A petition was created in support of her release, and has been signed by several additional prominent activists.
On July 31, 2010, the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said he would ask the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to send Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani to Brazil, where she could receive asylum.[33] According to the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, the Brazilian ambassador in Tehran was directly instructed to communicate their asylum proposal to the Iranian government. Iranian officials responded by suggesting that Lula had "not received enough information about the case." U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mentioned Ashtiani in a declaration on August 10, 2010, urging Iran to respect the fundamental freedoms of its citizens.
In late August 2010, the Iranian newspaper Kayhan called Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, First Lady of France, a "prostitute" who "deserved death" after she condemned the stoning sentence against Ashtiani. Iranian officials have condemned this statement.[39] Ahmadinejad has condemned as a "crime" attacks against Carla Bruni by a newspaper which called her a "prostitute".[40]
A resolution by the European Parliament on September 8, 2010, stated "a sentence of death by stoning can never be justified." The vote passed by a margin of 658–1, the vote against being made in error and later rectified. On September 29, 2010, EveryOne Group, a human rights organisation based in Italy, appealed to the Iranian Authorities for an act of compassion towards Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment