Man Stoned to Death in Iran

These people are absolute savages. Great idea letting them have nukes.

Adulterer stoned to death: Iran

TEHRAN - Iran said today that a man convicted of adultery had been stoned to death in a village in northwestern Iran, the first time it has confirmed such an execution in five years.

"This case has been recently executed in the village that was mentioned," judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi told reporters about the stoning of Jafar Kiani in the village of Aghche Kand near Takestan, in Qazvin province.

"The verdict was implemented because it was definitive," Jamshidi said, implying it was approved by the supreme court, which must uphold all execution orders.

Under Iran’s Islamic law, adultery is still theoretically punishable by stoning although in late 2002 judiciary head Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi had issued a directive suspending the practice.

Under the punishment of stoning, a male convict is buried up to his waist with his hands tied behind his back, while a female offender is buried up to her neck with her hands also buried.

The spectators and officials attending the public execution start throwing stones and rocks at the convict, who is theoretically released if he is able to free himself.

In June, the Fars news agency reported that Qazvin’s justice chief had halted the stoning of a man and a woman in the province, believed to be the same man who has now been executed.

Rights activists seeking to stop the practice said Kiani had been arrested 11 years ago while living with Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, the woman who has also been sentenced to stoning.

Both were reportedly married to others at the time.

"The verdict on the woman has not been carried out. It is still halted," Jamshidi said of Ebrahimi who is being held in prison in Qazvin city with her two children.

The judiciary had up until now vehemently denied any stonings since 2002, although rights activists and press reports have on occasion claimed that such punishments have been carried out.

"The judiciary’s policy about stoning has not changed. It exists in our law. The judiciary head can order to stop it, sometimes it is carried out and the judge is independent," Jamshidi insisted.

Shahrudi’s directive to halt stoning came at a time when the European Union was making such a moratorium and other human rights reforms a condition for opening landmark trade negotiations with Iran.

A group of women’s rights activists headed by feminist lawyer Shadi Sadr have been campaigning to have the sentence wholly removed from the statute books.

The stoning brings to at least 110 the number of executions carried out in the Islamic republic so far this year, most of them by hanging and often in public.