NCRI – The state-run daily, Etemad Meli, acknowledged on Sunday the stoning of three men in Iran during the second half of December 2008.
The Iranian Resistance had previously exposed the occurrence of this brutal crime on December 31, 2008. The three men were charged with adultery and stoned in the Behesht- Reza cemetery in the holy city of Mashhad. One of them, identified as Mahmoud, an Afghan citizen, was able to pull himself out of the hole he was confined in while he was severely injured, but the other two, one identified as Houshang Khodadeh while the second remains unidentified, died after being hit and injured by stones hurled at them. This incident was the most recent case of carrying out the sentence, after the stoning of Jafar Kiani in June 2007, and the stoning of Mahboubeh M. and Abbas H. in May 2006.
During the past three years, the mullahs’ judiciary has continually claimed that although stoning has not been eliminated from the regime’s laws, according to an order issued by Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the head of the regime’s judiciary, stoning will not be carried out in practice. However, at least six instances of stoning during the last three years demonstrate that as long as the mullahs continue to rule in Iran such claims by the regime are worthless in reality.
After the media interviews with lawyers of several women sentenced to stoning in July 2008, Alireza Jamshidi, the mullahs’ judiciary spokesman announced in August that the stoning sentences of four women (Leila Q., Azar and Zohreh Kabiri, and Shamameh (Malek) Ghorbani) have been reduced to flogging and imprisonment. But, two of the women, Azar and Zohreh Kabiri, are still in prison and are awaiting another trial scheduled for Monday, January 12, 2009.
Moreover, currently, at least 10 others face a certain threat of being stoned to death in various Iranian prisons:
1. Kobra Najjar, in Rajai Shahr prison of Karaj city
2. Iran A., in Sepidar prison of Ahwaz city
3. Kheirieh V., in Sepidar prison of Ahwaz city
4. Ashraf Kalhori, in Evin prison of Tehran
5. Abdollah Farivar, in the prison of Sari
6. Gilan Mohammadi, in Central prison of Isfahan
7. Gholamali Eskandari, in Central prison of Isfahan
8. Afsaneh R., in Adel Abad prison of Shiraz
9. M. Kh, female, in Vakil Abad prison of Mashhad
10. Unidentified, female, in Vakil Abad prison of Mashhad
The Islamic Punishment bill that is currently being reviewed in the mullahs’ Majlis (Parliament) still considers adultery as a crime punishable by stoning. The bill’s only difference with the current laws is that it says, “In those cases in which carrying out the sentence of stoning is considered wrong, with the suggestion of the prosecutor and approval of the head of judiciary, if the motive of the divine punishment is proven in view of Sharia, then the sentence of stoning would be changed to killing, and otherwise it would be changed to one hundred lashes.”
The passing of the Islamic Punishment bill in the mullahs’ Majlis can lead to the continuation of the increasing trend of carrying out sentences of stoning. This is due to the fact that the criterion in the Islamic Punishment Act for reducing the sentence of stoning to other forms of punishment is “wrongness” or in other words unfavorable public opinion and social norms toward the sentence. This means that if public opinion is not made aware of stoning and thus does not have a chance to protest to it, then stoning with regards to tried individuals would proceed without any obstacles.
The mullah regime’s attempts to keep secret the carrying out of brutal stoning sentences are only intended for external consumption, with regime officials, especially Shahroudi, declaring each time that they oppose implementing sentences like stoning, hanging ,execution of youth and public hangings. These statements are made as this criminal mullah (Shahroudi) must sign and approve all such sentences as the head of the judiciary.