Human Rights Campaigners Keep up the Fight for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani

There was a press conference outside Washington today held by the International Committees against Stoning and Execution and Mission Free Iran on the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. She is the 43-year-old mother of two in Iran who has been sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery.

Documents said to be from her lawyer Houtan Kian were shown in which he accuses the Islamic Republic regime of delaying a decision on this case “indefinitely and peculiarity.”

According to Mission Free Iran, the Iranian judiciary is working on a new set of charges against Ashtiani for a relationship with the international media.

A spokesperson for Mission Free Iran tells Fox News that Ashtiani’s case is part of a broader campaign to terrorize the Iranian population into submission.

Maria Rohaly of Mission Free Iran said, "Without the horrors of the act of stoning, the horrifying spectacle of hangings and mass executions and the terror of prisons in Iran where people are tortured to death, the Islamic Republic would cease to exist."

Also, though, according to the Committee Against Stoning, Ashtiani was cleared of responsibility for the murder of her late husband, the Iranian regime is now trying to portray her as a murderer. Human rights groups see this as a counter-campaign to the western attention to Ashtiani’s case, in order to make a death sentence seem more justified.

It is not clear what if any involvement Ashtiani may have had in planning her husband’s murder. The Committee Against Stoning says she had nothing to do with his murder at the hands of another man or men. And the bottom line is Ashtiani’s stoning sentence is for adultery.

Mina Ahadi of the International Committee Against Stoning said, "the Islamic Republic of Iran puts these women in a jute bag and brings them out and stones them to death. We want to give a face to these women. They are human beings."

Ashtiani was seen on Iranian TV last week, her voice, dubbed by a translator, which said she been involved in her husband’s murder.

The Committee Against Stoning claims Ashtiani was promised her freedom if she confessed on television, and that she was tortured in jail.

Mission Free Iran is calling on the UN to speak about firmly against the practice of stoning. They also call on the UN to remove Iran from the Women’s Commission and the WHO. Mission Free Iran also believes Iran’s President should be kept out of the UN General Assembly this September because of Iran’s human rights record.


(2010-08-26/foxnews.com)