An Iranian woman faces being stoned to death for having an affair with a married man.

Mother- of- two Mokarrameh Ebrahimi has spent the last 11 years in jail for adultery with Jafar Kiani.

Authorities in Tehran confirmed yesterday that Kiani had been executed last week. Now human rights groups fear 43-year-old Ebrahimi will suffer the same brutal fate.
Stoning was widely used after the 1979 Islamic revolution propelled hard line clerics into power, but in

2002 they were replaced with other means of punishment. Despite this, human rights groups say a man and a woman were stoned to death in 2006 in north-east Iran, after being convicted of adultery and murdering the woman’s husband.

The stoning of Jafa Kiani brings to at least 110 the number of executions - by public hanging - carried in Iran this year.

The death penalty is automatically imposed for murder, rape, armed robbery, blasphemy, serious drug trafficking, repeated sodomy, adultery, prostitution, treason and espionage.

Of the 24 juvenile offenders executed in Iran since 1990, 11 were still children by the time they died. Others were held in prison until their 18th birthday before being hanged.

In May, the European Union criticised Tehran’s human rights record and expressed concern about the use of the death penalty in the Islamic state.

Iran says it is acting on the basis of Islamic sharia law.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 11:56 am and is filed under adultery, Iranian wife. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.