Iran: Another Legal Tragedy?

Sakineh’s case highlights the preoccupation of the religious jurist with the personal morality of individuals in general and that of women in particular. It is a mindset that has less to do with religion and more with misogyny or a psychopathic hatred of the female gender.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced to death by stoning

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: The News | Pakistan
By Mrs. Talat Farooq | December 16, 2010

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two was sentenced to death by two different courts in the northwestern city of Tabriz in separate trials in 2006. Her sentence to hang for her alleged and unproven involvement in the murder of her husband was commuted to a 10-year jail term by an appeals court in 2007.The second death sentence by stoning on charges of adultery with the man convicted of her husband's murder, was upheld by another appeals court the same year. (Iran banned death by stoning in 2005 but it has yet to turn into law). Although she retracted her confession of ‘illicit relations’ on the grounds that it was extracted under torture she was convicted of adultery in 2006. She endured 99 lashes in front of her teenage son while the names of the two men allegedly involved with Sakineh have never been documented according to media reports.


Ashtiani's sentence to be stoned for adultery was suspended earlier this year under international pressure. Later, the first case was reopened and she was charged with murder and now faces possible execution by hanging.  The critics in the foreign media maintain that the Islamic Republic has changed the basis on which Sakineh is to be executed from death by stoning for adultery to death by hanging for murder, assuming it would make her execution more publicly palatable. Her original lawyer was forced to flee Iran after he helped Sakineh’s children bring international attention to her plight which sparked an international outcry and calls for her release.

On Friday, Iran’s English Language Press TV aired the footage of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, reenacting what it said was the murder of her husband. The black and white reconstruction filmed in hand-held camera style is complete with background music and interspersed with graphic photographs of the murder victim. In the film Sakineh speaks fluent Farsi. In real life of course Sakineh speaks only Azeri.

The report accuses Germany-based Iranian activist Mina Ahadi of seeking to undermine the Islamic republic of Iran by politicizing the case in the western media and of being involved with anti-revolutionary groups. It also shows pictures of the two German journalists jailed since October after reportedly conducting an interview with the victim’s son. Her son and second lawyer are also in jail for allegedly colluding with anti-state elements.

The Western media blames the Iranian authorities for flagrant disregard of law; the Iranians insist that they are upholding the Shariah by punishing murder. The country’s deputy foreign minister, Hassan Ghashghavi, says: “We live in an Islamic country and we act according to the Koran’s sentences. Even if 100,000 must be executed, we will carry out the Koran’s sentences.”

Stoning to death has been documented among the ancient Greeks to punish prostitutes, adulterers or murderers. It is also documented in the Jewish Tradition and prescribed in the Old Testament of the Bible for crimes such as murder, blasphemy or apostasy. Although there is no mention of stoning in the Quran, the practice resting on certain Ahadis has come to be associated with Islamic Shariah. Sakineh’s case is remarkable for once again bringing into question not only the barbarity of the punishment and but also its legitimacy as Islamic. Iranian religious scholars such as Ayatollah Nasser Shirazi, Ayatollah Yousef Saneii and Ayatollah Bojnourdi have denounced the practice as ‘un-Islamic’; others like Ayatollah Hussein Tabrizi argue that stoning should be stopped as a response to the demands of the modern age. (I am sure that if it was politically profitable the ardent supporters of Afia Siddiqi in Jammat-i-Islami would also raise their voices to help another Muslim ‘daughter’ in distress!)

Furthermore, Sakineh’s case highlights the preoccupation of the religious jurist with the personal morality of individuals in general and that of women in particular. It is a mindset that has less to do with religion and more with misogyny or a psychopathic hatred of the female gender. It is a mindset found in all human societies and cultures even the civilized ones; the early 20th century Edith Thompson case for example.

 Edith Thompson was hanged in Holloway Prison in 1923 after her conviction for participating in the murder of her husband by her lover. The trial remained controversial as autopsy on her husband did not reveal any incriminating evidence.  Edith’s letters to her lover were used as evidence in the trial; however only those letters were admitted by the British court which did not contain ‘taboo words’ that the court found unfit for public discussion. The jurors were only provided with carefully selected extracts preventing them from assessing the evidence within the full context of Edith’s extended writings. The Home Files were later marked not to be opened for 100 years, successfully throttling further examination of the case.  Many of her supporters argued that she had been hanged not for murder but for adultery. Her executioner later committed suicide, haunted, said his friends, by his part in the sordid drama.

Edith Thomson’s epitaph reads: “Sleep on, Beloved. Her death was a legal formality.”

Let us hope that in Sakineh’s case the legal formality will eventually be replaced with human compassion.


 -- The author can be reached at talatfarooq11@gmail.com





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