Iran: Man stoned to death Tehran, 10 July (AKI) - Jafar Kiani has been stoned to death in Takestan, in Iran's north-western province of Qavzin, at the order of a local Islamic judge. The death sentence by stoning against Kiani and his partner Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, with whom he had cohabited out of wedlock for 13 years, has been suspended after a widespread international campaign by human rights activists on behalf of the couple convicted of adultery.
The execution, which took place despite the reported opposition of the Islamic Republic's central judicial authorities, has stunned Iranian activists who champion a moratorium on capital punishment by stoning. Activists now fear that Ebrahimi, who has an 11-year-old child by Kiani, will also be stoned. The Islamic Penal Code of Iran allows for the punishment of death by stoning for crimes of adultery. In December 2002, Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi Shahrudi, the head of Iran's judiciary, ordered a ban on stoning. Despite this, lapidation continues, and it is disproportionately applied to women, despite campaigning by Iranian women's rights activists, human rights groups have denounced. http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1095027621 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
