Sakineh Mohamamadi Ashtiani

IRAN: WOMAN FACING DEATH BY STONING IS 'LASHED 99 MORE TIMES'

September 4, 2010: an Iranian widow sentenced to death by stoning for adultery has been lashed 99 times for ''spreading corruption and indecency'' after a newspaper published an alleged picture of her without a headscarf, her son said.
Sakineh Mohammad Ashtiani, 43, was convicted of "adultery while being married" and given the death penalty after a trial over her husband's murder in 2006.
The widow's son Sajad, 22, has campaigned for her to be released and after the plight caused international uproar her execution was halted in July.
But supporters' hopes have been dashed after Sajad said that his mother has been whipped 99 times after an apparent picture of her without traditional head-dress appeared in The Times last week.
The newspaper quickly withdrew the picture claiming it was of a different Iranian woman living in Sweeden but Sajad now fears that his mother could be hanged.
He said the photograph was an excuse to punish his mother and that the hardline Iranian government's real purpose was to silence the international campaign to save her.
'If it wasn’t the picture they would have found another excuse to try and silence her supporters outside Iran', he said.
The Times said that it had been sent the photo “in good faith” by Mohammad Mostafaei, who was Sakineh’s lawyer in Tehran until he was forced to flee Iran at the end of July for publicising her plight.
There was no immediate independent confirmation of her son Sajad’s claim that the latest whipping sentence against his mother had been imposed or carried out.
Sakineh's ordeal began when she was lashed 99 times in 2006 after being convicted of having an ‘illicit relations” with two men following her husband’s death.
Sajad, then just 17, chose to witness the flogging because he did not want his mother to suffer the terrifying and humiliating punishment alone. (Sources: Daily Mail, 05/09/2010)