Iranian Politician Defends Death By Stoning ‘As Good Islamic Law’
Iranian conservative politician and former diplomat Javad Larijani has defended stoning for adultery, saying it is a good Islamic law protecting “family values.”
Iranian conservative politician and former diplomat Javad Larijani has defended stoning for adultery, saying it is a good Islamic law protecting “family values.”
Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment where people throw stones at a person until the subject dies from blunt trauma. It is attested as a form of punishment for unlawful sexual intercourse.
In an interview with Fars website of the Revolutionary Guard Saturday, Iran’s former Secretary of High Council for Human Rights claimed some good laws have been passed by the Islamic Republic to protect women's rights.
He said stoning is one of the good Islamic laws and has been a very nice deterrent so far.
“When we say our women should enter the community, we should have provided them with a very safe work and social environment,” added Larijani stressing that “Stoning is a very important restraining law to protect the marriage contract of families.”
Stoning is not mentioned as a form of capital punishment in the canonical text of the Quran. However, Islamic scholars have traditionally postulated that there is a Quranic verse about it.
Death by stoning came into force in Iran after the 1979 revolution, but the judiciary placed a moratorium in 2002 and it was replaced by the death penalty more than a decade ago.
Victims are put in a ditch filled with sand. The stoning then begins, with rocks relentlessly pummeling the victims until they die.
A doctor recruited to oversee the execution will pause the stoning periodically to check whether the victim is dead. If not, the battering continues.
Lahouti also criticized the Iranian government for not communicating with the world in the right way. Referring to the ideological divide between Iran and the international community, He said: "We should communicate with the world while preserving our values." Lahouti added in his interview with Nameh News website that "In an interconnected world, we cannot remain isolated."
Without mentioning the ongoing protests in Iran, Lahouti said: "The current political atmosphere has convinced some Iranian officials that the system of governance should be changed." He added that this s in fact what the Iranian nation is demanding.
Explaining what he means by changing the system of governance, Lahouti said: "First of all, we need to break the international consensus against Iran by communicating with the world. The second point is that we need to reform our economic structure." He explained that the government currently controls 80 percent of the economy, and this means it does not trust the people.
"The same distrust also exists in the political space. The government does not seek the people's views in matters such as accepting the terms of the FATF while the parliament and the Guardian Council are still undecided about that. The same is also true about the JCPOA."
The Financial Action Task Force is an inter-government financial watchdog that has blacklisted Iran, demanding legal reforms to prevent money laundering and financing of terrorism.
Tehran has dragged its feet since 2017 on passing compatible legislation.
Meanwhile, the secretary general of the reformist Jomhouriat party Rasoul Montajabnia warned the government by saying: "You cannot silence the people by using force against them." Referring to harsh treatment of jailed protesters in Iran, he said, "No one can be convinced by use of force." He reiterated: "By use of force you might be able to silence the people, but you cannot convince them and the fire under the ashes will flare up once again on the smallest pretext."
Montajabnia quoted Iranian officials that hundreds of protesters have been killed and thousands wounded so far, and a lot of damage done to public assets. However, he continued, "The hardest blows were dealt to the prestige and image of the Iranian political system and the Islamic revolution while at the same time, a vast divide was created between officials and the people, particularly the Iranian youth."
"People's religious beliefs also received a hard blow, and the resulting suspicion of the government's intentions can be hardly compensated for," the reformist figure said.
Referring to the country's current all-conservative political establishment, Montajabnia charged that "A particular gang has taken over the political system by pushing everyone else aside and dividing the people into outsiders and insiders."
A report on Khabar Online website also referred to this divide and asked Expediency Council Ahmad Tavakoli about prospects. Tavakoli issued a "red warning" to the government about this divide and said that the poor might take over the streets.
Khabar Online also quoted Iranian economist Mohammad Khoshchehreh as saying that the current situation is the outcome of the regime's miscalculation in its attempt to concentrate power with conservatives. He said: "Some Iranian politicians believe that people can be controlled better when they are poor. When they are better off they begin to question the government. Now a majority of Iranians have become poor. Part of the middle class has disappeared. Only one fourth of Iranians can afford buying milk. These are serious threats that cannot be ignored."
He added that generally, the pattern of economic growth and development in Iran has become problematic and the system cannot go any further before these problems are solved.
Alireza Akbari, who holds dual Iranian-British citizenship and is sentenced to death on charges of spying for the UK, says in the audio file his forced confessions are a result of 3,500 hours of torture.
According to the audio file obtained by Iran International, Akbari says he only confessed because the authorities had promised to release him.
"After more than 3,500 hours of torture, psychedelic drugs, and physiological and psychological pressure, they took away my will. They drove me to the brink of madness. They instilled in me what they wanted and forced me to make false confessions at gunpoint and threats of death," he said.
The regime’s state media reported January 11 that Akbari will be executed for allegedly spying for MI6. In a statement published by Iran's Intelligence Ministry, Akbari was described as "one of the most important infiltrators of the country's sensitive and strategic centers". There are unconfirmed reports that Akbari, who was kept in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran since 2019, has already been executed. Iran’s state media denied the rumors on Friday.
The agents promised him freedom in exchange for forced confessions and said that if he resists, they will send him to the dungeons of Evin, where he would be whipped, Akbari claimed.
He added that the intelligence ministry imposed its desired verdict on the judge, noting that "The prosecutor's office ordered my release with the minimum amount of bail, but the Intelligence Ministry prevented it. The Supreme Court overturned the (execution) sentence, but the Intelligence Ministry threatened the judge and reinstated the verdict."
"I was under temporary detention for more than three years with an illegal sentence, and the judge in the case who intended to annul the sentence suddenly died," he said.
He alleged in this audio file that there is no evidence against him while the Ministry of Intelligence claims he took information from Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and passed it on to Britain. "The Ministry of Intelligence claims that I met Shamkhani in 2018 or 2019 and I gave him a bottle of perfume and a shirt and Mr. Shamkhani gave me secret information about the country, and I passed it to foreigners.”
Akbari says that he told the judge if this allegation is true, why doesn't he summon Shamkhani and former president Hassan Rouhani, to which he replied, "I don't have the power to summon them, but I will destroy you."
Akbari had been deputy defense minister under the reformist President Mohammad Khatami, from 1997 to 2005. He was an advocate of the Iran nuclear deal known as the JCPOA that was eventually signed in 2015 with world powers.
He was also close to Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, who is now rumored to be replaced because his former aide received the death penalty as a “British spy”. A source close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has provided documents to Iran International showing that the death sentence for Akbari is aimed at weakening Shamkhani’s position in the clerical regime. It seems that President Ebrahim Raisi, Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib and Interior Minister Ahmed Vahidi are exerting pressure to remove Shamkhani from the post.
UK foreign secretary James Cleverly Thursday called on Tehran not to execute Akbari. In a tweet, James Cleverly said the Islamic Republic “must halt the execution of British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari and immediately release him.” He further called the move a “politically motivated act by a barbaric regime that has total disregard for human life.”
On Friday, he again tweeted about Akbari, saying that “The Iranian regime should be in no doubt. We are watching the case of Alireza Akbari closely. Iran must not follow through with their brutal threat of execution.”
"Our priority is securing his immediate release and we have reiterated our request for urgent consular access," a UK Foreign Office spokesperson said.
