Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery 'forced to confess on TV'

• Celebrities sign letter demanding release of Ashtiani

A widow sentenced to death by stoning for adultery in Iran has been appeared on state television, apparently forced to confess to her crimes.
In a bizarre documentary including a reconstruction, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was made to demonstrate the killing of her husband.
Iranian officials hoped the television programme would silence critics across the world, but has instead increased international outrage at the case.

Sentenced to death: Mother-if-two Ashtiani, 43, was convicted in 2006 of having an 'illicit relationship' with two men following the murder of her husband in 2005. She was later convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning

Ms Ashtiani, 43, was convicted in 2006 of having an 'illicit relationship' with two men following the murder of her husband in 2005 and was sentenced at that time to 99 lashes.
She was later convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning.

 

International celebrities including Robert Redford, Robert De Niro, and Sting have called on Iran to release her in an open letter.
In the letter published in The Times on Monday, more than 80 actors, artists, musicians, academics and politicians stated that 'Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has suffered enough'.
Other signatories include actor Colin Firth, artist Damien Hirst, Nobel literature laureates Wole Soyinka and V.S. Naipaul, British opposition leader Ed Miliband and former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner.
They say Ms Ashtiani has already spent five years in prison and received 99 lashes.
They called on Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to release her along with her son and lawyer, who are also imprisoned.

(Clockwise from left) Robert De Niro, Sting, Colin Firth and Robert Redford are among the 80 celebrities who have signed the open letter demanding authorities in Iran release Mrs Ashtiani, her son and her lawyer

The letter

His Excellency Grand Ayatollah Say yid Ali Hoseyni Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has suffered enough. Forced by international pressure to suspend her execution by stoning for alleged adultery, the Iranian government is now attempting to resurrect the charge that she murdered her husband - a charge for which she has already been tried.
She has already spent five years in prison, and suffered 99 lashes, while the man who was convicted of her husband's murder, and with whom she allegedly had an affair, is now free, having been pardoned by Ms Ashtiani's children.
We, the undersigned, call on the government of Iran to release immediately Ms Ashtiani, her son Sajad Ghaderzade, and her lawyer, Javid Houtan Kian, from incarceration.

Iran also says she has confessed to complicity in her husband's murder, while the man who was convicted for the murder is now free.
Hopes earlier rose that she was about to be released. This came about after the release of photographs by Iranian state-run Press TV showing her in the garden of her home with her son during the documentary.
Thousands of joyful messages appeared on the Twitter website after the International Committee Against Stoning, based in Germany, said 'sources in Iran' had word of her freedom.
However Press TV later confirmed the images were from the documentary in which she was filmed 'confessing' to killing her husband.
Supporters of Ms Ashtiani insist her appearance was coerced, like previous televised 'confessions'.
Adultery is the only crime which carries that penalty under Iran's Islamic sharia law.
Her sentence was suspended earlier this year but she still faces possible execution by hanging for complicity in the murder of her husband.
The European Union has called the sentence 'barbaric', the Vatican pleaded for clemency and Brazil, which has tried to intervene in Iran's stand-off with the West over its nuclear programme, offered Ms Ashtiani asylum.

Hopes rose last week that Ms Ashtiani was about to be released when pictures, including this one, were released of her in her home. It later emerged she had been taken there to appear in a documentary 'confessing' to murder. She was then taken back to prison

The case has put pressure on Iran at a time when the country's leadership is trying to shift the focus after crushing dissent over the disputed 2009 election which was won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In an interview with U.S. TV in September President Ahmadinejad denied Ashtiani was ever sentenced to stoning, contradicting other Iranian officials.
Iranian media do not refer to her stoning sentence for adultery, focusing instead on the murder charge.
While Iranian officials say Ms Ashtiani's case is purely a matter for the judiciary, it has become an international political cause and the head of Iran's Council of Human Rights said last month there was 'a good chance that her life could be saved'.
Stoning was widely imposed in the years following the 1979 Islamic revolution, and even though Iran's judiciary still regularly hands down such sentences, they are often converted to other punishments.
The last known stoning was carried out in 2007.

Call for freedom: Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul (left) and Damien Hirst, said to be Britain's richest living artist, have called for the immediate release of Ms Ashtiani

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