Iran Focus: London, Mar. 11 – A man was ‘secretly’ stoned to death in a prison in the northern Iranian city of Rasht, the main opposition coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said on Wednesday, citing ‘reliable sources’.
Iran Focus
London, Mar. 11 – A man was ‘secretly’ stoned to death in a prison in the northern Iranian city of Rasht, the main opposition coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said on Wednesday, citing ‘reliable sources’.
The NCRI identified the man as Vali Azad, 30. It said that the stoning sentence was carried out in a remote part of the yard of Lakan Prison in the presence of a few prison officials. The report did not specify exactly when the sentence was carried out.
A local judge, identified only by his last name Kashani, presiding over the 11th branch of the revolutionary court in the northern province of Gilan had handed down the sentence, it said.
The authorities have refused to turn over the corpse to Azad’s relatives, it added.
The NCRI revealed in late December that the authorities had stoned to death prisoners in the north-eastern city of Mashhad days earlier. In January Iran's Judiciary confirmed that two men convicted of adultery in Mashhad were stoned to death in December, while a third convicted man escaped while the punishment was being carried out.
Amnesty International on Monday urged Iran to suspend stoning sentences pending for eight women. The human rights organisation said that "as many as eight women are at imminent risk of being stoned to death for adultery in Iran".
Under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, adultery by a married woman is punishable by stoning. The law is very specific about the manner of execution and types of stones which should be used. Article 102 states that men will be buried up to their waists and women up to their breasts for the purpose of execution by stoning. Article 104 states, with reference to the penalty for adultery, that the stones used should “not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes, nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones”.
