Sisters to be stoned to death in Iran for adultery

According to news reports, Azar and Zohreh Kabiri, sisters aged 27 and 28 respectively are to be stoned to death for the crime of having extra-marital affairs. Both have children.

The women were previously convicted and sentenced to 99 lashes each. However, after the sentence was carried out, they were tried again and sentenced to death by stoning.

Just last month, Amnesty International issued a report calling for the abolition of stoning as a form of execution. The method of execution has been used throughout history but is considered so barbaric that it is rarely practiced outside a handful of countries.

The method involves burying men up to their waist and women up to their breasts. They are then pelted with stones – specified to be large enough to inflict pain but not big enough to kill outright – until they die. Stoning to death is a "horrific practice, designed to increase the suffering" of those condemned, the UK-based rights group says in the report.

Stoning is the favored form of execution in Iran for cases involving adultery. A disproportionate number of these cases impact on women and a majority of those stoned are women.

According to The Australian:

TWO Iranian sisters convicted of adultery face being stoned to death after the supreme court upheld the death sentences against them, the Etemad newspaper reported.

The two sisters were found guilty of adultery – a capital crime in Islamic Iran – after the husband of one of the pair presented video evidence showing them in the company of other men while he was away.

"Branch 23 of the supreme court has confirmed the stoning sentence," said their lawyer, Jabbar Solati.

The penal court of Tehran province had already sentenced the two sisters identified only as Zohreh, 27, and Azar (no age given) to stoning, the daily said.

Mr Solati explained that the two sisters had initially been tried for "illegal relations" and received 99 lashes. However in a second trial they were convicted of "adultery".

The pair admitted they were in the video presented by the husband but argued there was no adultery as no scene on the video showed them engaged in a sexual act with the other men.

"There is no legal evidence whereby the judge could reach the knowledge for issuing a stoning sentence," Mr Solati said, adding that he had appealed to the state prosecutor.

"The two sisters have been tried twice for one crime," Mr Solati protested.

Under Iran's Islamic law, adultery is theoretically punishable by stoning although in late 2002 judiciary head Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi issued a writ suspending such executions.

However in July 2007, Jafar Kiani was stoned to death for adultery in a village in the northwestern province of Qazvin in a rare execution by stoning that provoked a wave of international outrage.

Capital offences in Iran include murder, rape, armed robbery, serious drug trafficking and adultery. Iran currently makes more use of the death penalty – almost always by hanging – than any other country apart from China.