Shocker: Iranians Release Woman Who Faced Stoning

Such moderation from the conservative Iranians.

I can already hear the calls for dialogue with the mullahs now that they've entered the 15th century.

Iran has freed a woman convicted of adultery who faced being stoned to death like her male partner whose execution last year caused international outrage, her lawyer said on Tuesday.

Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, who had spent a total of 11 years behind bars, was released from a prison in the city of Qazvin Monday night on the orders of Iranian judiciary's amnesty commission, lawyer Shadi Sadr told AFP.

She was freed along with the son she had conceived with her partner Jafar Kiani, whose stoning in July 2007 was carried out by the local authorities in apparent defiance of the central judiciary.

Under Iran's Islamic law, adultery is still theoretically punishable by stoning, which involves the public hurling stones at the convict buried up to his waist.

But a 2002 directive by judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi imposed a moratorium on such executions. Kiani's stoning in a village in the northwestern Qazvin province was the first such execution to be confirmed in years.

"It was a rare ruling," Sadr said of the surprise release.

"She still could not believe she was pardoned," Sadr said, adding that Ebrahimi had now returned with her four-year-old son Ali to her family in northern Iran.

The ISNA news agency, quoting judiciary sources, said Ebrahimi had been pardoned by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself at the suggestion of Shahroudi.

Ebrahimi had been arrested on suspicion of adultery 11 years ago with her partner Kiani. The couple had reportedly been married to others while living together.

Thanks to Hot Air for the link.