More women sentenced to stoning to death for "adultery"

But this time it's not just a dubious allegation it's double jeopardy.

Iran has surpassed itself with this one. Zohreh Kabiri-niat and her sister Azar have been tried for adultery. The substance of the allegations is that Zohreh's (seemingly quite paranoid) husband installed a hidden surveillance device in their home after believing his wife to be behaving improperly after he forced her to leave her job as a teacher. He claims he was unhappy because his wife wasn't treating him well, she says she wasn't treating him well because of his jealousy and mistreatment of her.

The camera showed men entering the house sometimes at time when the husband was there and sometimes not. The camera showed no sexual intimacy between either Zohreh or Azar or a third sister and the men. Azars husband, who was also present on some of these occassions has never made a complaint about her behaviour. However both sets of occassions have been treated as adultery. Zohreh and Azar were tried and sentences to 99 lashes. This sentence was carried out.

Zohreh and Azar were then retried and sentenced to death by stoning. There has been a moratorium on stoning since 2002 despite which the sentence has still been passed by courts and, sometimes, carried out. Amnesty Internationalt is currently help organise action asking for the sentence of stoning to be commuted to the punishment already served.

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