TEHRAN: Iran has amended its internationally condemned law on stoning convicted adulterers to death to allow judges to impose a different form of execution.
The controversial practice, in which stones are thrown at the partially buried offender, has provoked outcries from human rights organisations, international bodies and Western countries urging Iran to abandon it.
An article of Iran’s Islamic new penal code, published earlier this week, states that, “if the possibility of carrying out the (stoning) verdict does not exist,” the sentencing judge may order another form of execution pending final approval by the judiciary chief.
The article does not explain what is meant by the possibility of stoning not existing. Mina Ahadi of the rights group International Committee Against Stoning said the revision proved “international pressure and condemnations” had been effective.
She condemned the revised article as “still being medieval and barbaric,” adding that “we believe stoning should be omitted and no other punishment should replace it”. Under Iran’s interpretation of Islamic Shariah law in force since its 1979 revolution, adultery is punished by the stoning of convicted adulterers.
Women are buried up to their shoulders, but men only up to their waists. They are spared if they manage to free themselves before dying. Murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking are also punishable by death in Iran, which has one of the highest annual execution counts in the world, alongside China, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
In Iran, executions are normally carried out by hanging. According to Ahadi’s group, at least 150 people may have been stoned in Iran since 1980. She said that 12 offenders in Iranian prisons are now facing stoning sentences. According to local media, MPs had removed stoning altogether from the bill that they adopted. AFP
