Iran appears to be quietly changing the sentences of Iranians awaiting death by stoning to hanging after an international outcry over the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two.
Mariam Ghorbanzadeh, 25, who was six months pregnant and miscarried after being beaten up in Tabriz prison this week, was initially sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, but her sentence has been changed to hanging in a rapid judicial review.
The decision is thought to have been driven by the Iranian authorities’ desire to avoid further international condemnation over the barbaric punishment.
According to Iranian law, officials could not carry out her sentence while she was pregnant.
“My fear is that Iran executes Mariam and those others whose cases have not attracted media attention,” said her lawyer, Houtan Kian, who represents Mohammadi Ashtiani and two other women kept in Tabriz prison convicted of adultery.
Another of Kian’s clients, Azar Bagheri, 19, was imprisoned at the age of 15 after her husband accused her of having an extramarital relationship. Bagheri was on death row for adultery, but her sentence was commuted to 100 lashes after Mohammadi Ashtiani’s story came to light. Although Bagheri’s death penalty was handed down four years ago, the sentence could not be carried out until she was 18 years old.
“All these women are convicted for adultery, but Iran is trying to change their sentences after Sakineh’s case has embarrassed them,” Kian said.
On Wednesday night, Iran put Mohammadi Ashtiani on a state-run TV program, in which she appeared to confess to adultery and murder and said she would sue her first lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, who has fled Iran after succeeding in highlighting her case and bringing it to international attention.
Mostafaei, who crossed the border into Turkey border illegally, was arrested on immigration charges but later released and taken to Norway after EU diplomats intervened. Norway has since offered him asylum.
Mohammadi Ashtiani’s appearance on TV, with a blurred face, shaky voice and holding a piece of paper in her hand, prompted an immediate reaction from Kian, who condemned the televised “confession” and said she was tortured for two days before agreeing to give the interview. Amnesty International called it “a complete mockery of the judiciary system in Iran.”
Kian dismissed Iran’s accusations that Sakineh had murdered or was an accomplice to the murder, of her husband. He said the murderer — who Iran’s judiciary admitted four years ago had actually killed her husband — was freed when Sakineh’s children pardoned him. The program also showed two of her relatives saying that Sakineh was a murderer.
Last week, Mohammadi Ashtiani said she was convicted of adultery and was acquitted of murder.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS