Imagine, for a moment, a young girl about the age of 13 forced into a marriage with a 46-year-old man. Once she is his wife, she is forced to satisfy all of her husband’s sexual demands. She falls in love, at 16, with a classmate whom she sees every day after school. They hide their intimate, sexual relationship for 10 years until they are caught.
According to Article 88 of the Islamic Penal Code, because he is not married, he will be punished with 100 lashes for committing adultery; however, Article 83 of the Islamic Penal Code outlines that she will be stoned to death for committing adultery. She will be buried in a hole up to her breasts with her hands tied behind her back. Only stones that are fitting are to be used in her execution. The stones cannot be too large that they might kill her after only one or two blows to the head, but they cannot be too small for they must cause severe damage. Her family and friends are forced to watch her tragic death.
This hypothetical story may seem horrifying, but the barbaric laws used to punish adultery are very real and are still practiced in Iran.
According to the Stop Stoning Forever campaign’s web site at www.meydaan.com/Stoning/, the secretary general of Iran’s Human Rights Committee, Dr. Mohammad Javad Larijani, declares that
“we (Iran) accept that according to national treaties we had signed, we have no right to have torture or disproportionate punishment, but we believe stoning is neither of them. This is one ruling our judge will use in the cases of adultery and as long as it exists in our law books, it will be in our judges’ capacity to use them.”
If this is how the head of the Human Rights Committee feels about stoning, these inhumane punishments are not going to subside.
Azadeh Pourzand is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio and a native of Iran. Her family has been active in fighting for human rights in Iran for decades. Her mother, Kar, a civil rights lawyer in Iran, was once held prisoner for attending a civil rights conference and later exiled from the country; her father is under house-arrest and not allowed to leave Iran.
According to Iranian government officials, the stonings are rare, and the attention brought to the stonings is a result of a propaganda campaign brought on by the “West” against Iran. But one can assume that there are stonings being conducted in small villages in the middle of nowhere in Iran, and no one knows of them in order to stop them.
Generally, the stonings occur in desolate places where people live in poverty and lack a political voice. “As an Iranian, I have never heard of the names of the villages where the stonings are taking place,” Pourzand said. Pourzand alleges that the sentences are ordered by local judges in small villages without much proof or evidence to support the claims of adultery. The most under-privileged women are targeted for one of the cruelest punishments of death known to man.
Pourzand and her mother, Kar, are currently residing in the United States where they are still involved as human rights activists. Pourzand is involved with the Stop Stoning Forever Campaign. Its object is to eradicate stoning in the Islamic Penal Code. The campaign began through the coordinated efforts of some women’s non-governmental organizations, a group of women activists and the Network of Volunteer Lawyers. The Network of Volunteer Lawyers identified 9 women and 2 men that were critical cases and decided to represent them in order to save their lives.
Anyone wishing to participate in the fight for human rights in Iran can sign a petition at http://www.meydaan.com/Stoning/ (click on the “Take Action” button). The names of those 11 people currently sentenced to death by stoning are included in the petition.
It only takes a minute, and every name counts. As of July, an international petition gathered over 14,000 signatures to save Malak Ghorbany, an Iranian who was sentenced to stoning for admitting adultery. The petition, along with a campaign led by Iranian-American lawyers, helped to grant her a stay of execution and a new trial. (To read more about Ghorbany, visit the web site at http://askew.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/1/22/2673327.html)
One may ask whether signing a petition can really help. It can. There is hope.