IRAN: Campaigning Must Continue to End Stoning

Facing arrest, her lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, fled to Norway via Turkey, where he was briefly detained. His wife and two relatives were held hostage in Tehran's Evin prison. They have since been released on bail. Non-government organisations campaigned forcefully on their behalf. However, few Muslim or non-Muslim leaders have spoken out against the criminalisation of adultery and its punishment by stoning.

Dr Mohammad Javad Larijani, Secretary General of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, believes the ancient custom, revived after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, is consistent with Islam. Article 104 of the Iranian Penal Code states: "The stones should not be too large so that the person dies on being hit by one or two of them; nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones." Members of the community, often family and in-laws of the accused, carry out the deed. According to Larijani, international protests are part of a destabilising political campaign orchestrated by Western nations, an argument the UN appears to accept without dispute.

Iran is not the only country where stoning is practised. Others include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and parts of Nigeria, where village courts usually deliver sentencing. Some Muslim clerics have argued the punishment is outdated and harms the image of Islam. Many Muslim nations, including Tunisia, Algeria, Indonesia and Malaysia, have banned it. Kelantan and Terengganu in Malaysia have passed stoning and other strict sharia laws but they cannot be applied as they are in conflict with the constitution.

According to sharia law, four male, or three male and two female, witnesses are required to prove adultery (the testimony of one man is worth that of two women) but sentencing is often based on capricious "judicial discretion". Judgment is invariably discriminatory, influenced by perceptions of the female as temptress and the source of fitna or strife, in Islamic society. Stoning is also reserved as retribution for homosexuality.

Although punishments for adultery are equivalent for men and women, almost all the accused are female, with married women most at risk. Legally entitled to four wives and any number of temporary ones, men have the advantage of claiming the relationship was a temporary marriage or an unofficial polygamous one.

In his Cairo speech, President Barack Obama vigorously rejected extremism and championed human rights, pledging to "support them everywhere". He offered to subsidise literacy projects and micro-financing for Muslim women but refused to acknowledge stoning or other examples of misogyny that threaten many women's lives; omissions have troubled and disappointed reformers hoping for clear moral leadership.

Many of these reformers are committed to the elimination of stoning. Shadi Sadr, an Iranian human rights lawyer who was instrumental in launching the Stop Stoning Forever campaign in October 2006, believes the custom is based on tribal patriarchy and Islamic fundamentalism. When there is news of a stoning execution, she publishes the information on the internet within hours. Since the campaign started, a number of people have been saved and others granted stays of execution. Research by Stop Stoning Forever and the Volunteer Lawyers' Network showed that women accused of adultery were often victims of forced marriage, domestic violence and prostitution coerced by drug-addicted husbands.

Lafif Lakhdar, a Tunisian male supporter of women's rights, believes the practice must be combated by international legislation. Transnational NGO, Women Living Under Muslim Laws, views the punishment as a distortion of Islam and a patriarchal pretext for oppression. In 2007, WLUML launched the Global Campaign to Stop Stoning and Killing Women, and with international collaboration, succeeded in releasing Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, who had spent 10 years in an Iranian prison awaiting execution.

Other NGOs have also initiated campaigns, particularly against Iran's state-sanctioned stoning sentences, in the belief that pressure of public opinion can prevent executions or even abolish laws. These include the International Committee Against Stoning, Avaaz, Muslims Against Stoning, the International Campaign Against Honour Killings and Amnesty International.

Stoning, or lapidation, may seem a curiosity to the West but the practice is part of more widespread abuse of women in the form of "honour killing" and domestic crimes. In Saudi Arabia, Rania Al-Baz, a television presenter, was beaten unconscious by her husband following an argument. The response to photographs of her facial injuries, circulated in the media, uncovered a culture of abuse and silent suffering. In Pakistan, 80 per cent of women are victims of domestic violence, as are 40 per cent in Turkey and 30 per cent in Indonesia. Perpetrators are rarely punished in these countries. In contrast, the laws in Tunisia provide severe penalties for spousal abuse.

More campaigning will be necessary to combat violence against women based on cultural and religious practice - one of the most critical social issues of our time. NGOs are easily sidelined in the world of politics but they can show up the morally untenable positions of political and religious leaders who remain silent about judicial decisions incompatible with international human rights standards.