Prof. Ramin Jahanbegloo; inset: Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.

Eventually she confessed. But when Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning, appeared on TV and said publicly that she was an accomplice to the murder of her husband and that she had betrayed him with his cousin, her face was covered with blood and her words were translated.
“It was impossible to confirm her identity,” says Ramin Jahanbegloo, an Iranian philosopher and University of Toronto professor. “This case lacks a lot of evidence.”
To be precise he says “this latest case” because Ashtiani’s story is the most recent example of a long list of Iranians — not only women — whose human rights have been violated.
Ashtiani was convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning. After international outcry the Iranian judiciary converted her sentence to execution by hanging. She is currently on death row in Tabriz Prison in north-west Iran.
“It appears that Iranian authorities had orchestrated her confession just because they want to invent a new charge of murder instead of stoning by attempting to portray Ashtiani as a murderer or at least as an accomplice to murderer rather than an adulterer,” explains Jahanbegloo. “The Iranian judiciary is perhaps seeking to blunt all the criticism from European countries and the U.S., and trying to say that they can keep the case with the death penalty.”

Iranian authorities converted Ashtiani’s sentence from stoning to hanging but they believe the death penalty is essential in maintaining public security in their country. Do you think they are afraid of Western judgment?
“There are several things that we need to underline here. First of all, this television confession has been repeatedly used by authorities in political cases or in cases like that of Ashtiani just to incriminate individuals in custody and [many of them] have lately retracted these confessions. They said they have been coerced to make [the confessions] sometimes under torture. The human right organizations said that Ashtiani was tortured or ill-treated while she was in prison. I do believe that these so-called confessions are part of a growing catalogue of other forced confessions or self- incriminating statements, which we have had not only in the past year but in the past 30 years. This is a very important part to understand. The second point has to do with whether Iran is worried about what the international community would say or not. The fact is the international community has not been very conscious of human rights violations in Iran. Most of the focus has been on Iranian nuclear issues more than anything else. I think that the international community should focus on human rights violations in Iran as a matter of urgency. It is very important to raise public awareness of human rights abuses in Iran as much as the campaign against the enrichment of uranium. If the international community fails to condemn such atrocities I think that the Iranian regime will continue to trample on the basic rights of individuals.”

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