The World Movement has learned from Steering Committee member (Brazil) Jacqueline Pitanguy, that on August 4, the National Council for Women’s Rights of Brazil, of which Ms. Pitanguy is a member, issued a letter to Mr. Mohsen Shaterzadeh, Ambassador of Iran to Brazil, opposing the planned execution of Ms. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.  Ms. Ashtiani, a 43 year-old mother of two, is being detained by Iranian authorities despite recently being offered asylum by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Previously punished with flogging for having an “illicit relationship,” Ms. Ashtiani faces imminent death by stoning after a second court convicted her of adultery during marriage. 

 

According to Human Rights Watch, on May 15, 2006, a criminal court in East Azerbaijan province in Iran found Ms. Ashtiani guilty of having an illicit relationship with two men following the death of her husband.  She was sentenced to flogging and was given 99 lashes.  The following September, during the murder trial of a man accused of killing her husband, another court reopened an adultery case against her that resulted in a conviction.  During the trial, Ms. Ashtiani retracted a confession she had made during a pretrial interrogation, alleging that she had been forced to make the confession under duress, and she has continued to deny the adultery charge. The Supreme Court confirmed Ashtiani’s death sentence on May 27, 2007.  She has now exhausted the legal appeals process and the judiciary has denied her repeated requests for clemency. A final decision regarding her execution is to be made this week.

 

To read the letter from the National Council for Women’s Rights of Brazil, go to: www.cepia.org.br/en/LetterCNDM-Sakineh_Ashtiani.pdf

 

For more information from Human Rights Watch, go to: www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/07/07/iran-prevent-woman-s-execution-adultery