Norway summons Iranian ambassador to protest death sentences

AFP: Norway on Monday summoned the Iranian ambassador to Oslo to protest death sentences against a woman convicted of adultery and a man convicted of a murder committed when he was a minor, the foreign ministry said.

OSLO, July 5, 2010 (AFP) – Norway on Monday summoned the Iranian ambassador to Oslo to protest death sentences against a woman convicted of adultery and a man convicted of a murder committed when he was a minor, the foreign ministry said.

The ministry said the government’s decision to summon Seyed Hossein Rezvani was also meant to highlight the case of a jailed dissident.

“I summoned the ambassador to give him a clear message on Norway’s view on three cases,” Espen Barth Eide, a state secretary at the foreign ministry, told AFP.

Eide said Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, who has been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, had “already been punished for the same conviction before.”

The 43-year-old mother of two had reportedly been convicted of having an “illicit relationship outside marriage” in May 2006 and was punished with 99 lashes.

“It is an international principle that a person should not be punished for the same crime more than once,” Eide insisted.

The two other cases he brought up with the Iranian ambassador were those of Mohammad Reza Haddadi, who was sentenced to hang for a murder he committed when he was a minor, and of Majid Tavakoli, a student leader jailed after protests against the regime last year.