Sakineh Mohamamadi Ashtiani

IRAN: AMBASSADOR IN ITALY- ‘STONING WILL SOON BE ABOLISHED’

September 29, 2010: the Iranian ambassador in Italy said that the parliament in Tehran will shortly approve a new penal code that does not contain stoning as a punishment for adultery.
'In parliament there is a majority in favour and we are in a good position to definitively approve the law', Seyed Mohammad Ali Hossaini, the Iranian ambassador to Rome, explained in an interview with ANSA. Meanwhile, the international mobilisation to save the life of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani continues. The Iranian woman was accused of adultery and complicity in the murder of her husband.
The reform of the penal code was already approved by the Iranian Parliament's Justice Commission and is now up for the plenary vote. To be successfully adopted it must be passed by the Council of Guardians and the Iranian Constitutional Court, to which the reform was already sent for scrutiny.
It has no relation however to the case of Sakineh, according to the Iranian diplomat. Mainly because the Islamic Republic 'does not allow the influence' of the 'media and political pressures' of western countries that have 'exploited' the event 'for political ends' while remaining silent over the execution in the United States of Teresa Lewis, the American woman sentenced to death for the same crime as Sakineh. And also because, Ali Hossaini reminded, in 2002 the judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi Shahrudi, issued an ordinance in which he invited magistrates to suspend the execution by stoning of those guilty of adultery.
It wasn't however a binding disposition, and since then human rights organisations have denounced at least a dozen cases of people being stoned, of which three were acknowleged by the same judicial authority.
It is of note that in November 2006, the then Justice Minister Jamal Karimi-Rad assured that Iran did not carry out stonings, however this type of execution has used after this.
The Iranian ambassador continued by contradicting himself, saying that the judicial procedure of 'Miss Ashtiani', the woman who has already being convicted, continues and nothing has been set. (Sources: ANSA, 29/09/2010)