Jafar Kiani’s skull was the target of stones thrown by Judge As’hawbi and local security service men in Aghche-kand village near Takistan, Ghazvin, on Thursday, July 5, 2007. And that was when the public came to believe the reality of stoning: wrapping a human being in a burial shroud and putting him in a pit as he is desperately begging for his life, and then pelting him with stones until his skull is crushed.This could soon happen to Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, Jafar Kiani’s partner, too, unless we act now!
The Stop Stoning Forever (SSF) campaign broke the news of scheduled stoning of Jafar Kiani and Mokarrameh Ebrahimi on June 19th, and the public reaction led to the order of stoning being stayed. After the stoning was carried out, the judiciary spokesman stated during a news briefing that the judge in Takistan had acted independently and according to the law when he carried out the sentence despite the higher authorities order to stay the stoning.The SSF campaign was launched in 2006 with the goal of abolishing the law of stoning as a legal form of punishment for adultery. The campaign lawyers volunteered to defend more than a dozen prisoners sentenced to stoning whom they had identified in different prisons. The campaign also revealed that Mahboubeh H. and Abbas H. had been stoned secretly and under a heavy security guard in Mashhad in May 2006. The judicial authorities, however, kept denying that stoning was practiced.
After the stoning of Jafar Kiani was carried out in a remote village, the judiciary officials now state that they are bound by the law* to practice stoning. As stoning is becoming less of a covert action and a shame to the judiciary officials, the SSF campaign is concerned that Mokarrameh Ebrahimi might be stoned next in a town square.
We are asking the public to help save Mokarrameh from stoning. She is in imminent danger because as long as stoning is legal, there will always be a judge that will act independently disregarding the order to ban stoning, and a crowd who will throw stones, and a denial statement by the judiciary spokesman regarding either the practice or its atrocity.
The stoning sentence of Mokarrameh could be carried out any day, and so could the sentence of ten other people. And since there is no law to impede stoning, we are reaching out to the public.