8 Women Sentenced to Death by Stoning in Iran

Amnesty International
, which has been fighting to end death by stoning in Iran, reports that 8 Iranian women have been sentenced to be stoned to death after being convicted of adultery and are in imminent danger of death.  This is particularly reprehensible considering Sunday was International Women’s Day.

The majority of those sentenced to death by stoning in Iran are women because they are not treated equally under the law in their country. The age of legal responsibility for women is lower than that of men and a woman’s testimony is only worth half as much as man’s. According to Amnesty International, women are also more likely to sign confessions for crimes they did not commit because the illiteracy rate for women is higher. Women are also more vulnerable to unfair arrests, trials, and convictions.

According to Amnesty International:

“Iran’s Penal Code prescribes execution by stoning. It even dictates that the stones are large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the victim immediately. Article 102 of the Penal Code states that men should be buried up to their waists and women up to their breasts for the purpose of execution by stoning. Article 104 states, with reference to the penalty for adultery, that the stones used should “not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes; nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones”.

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