News

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning, was told on Saturday that she was to be hanged at dawn on Sunday, but the sentence was not carried out, it emerged tonight.
Mohammadi Ashtiani wrote her will and embraced her cellmates in Tabriz prison just before the call to morning prayer, when she expected to be led to the gallows, her son Sajad told the Guardian.
"Pressure from the international community has so far stopped them from carrying out the sentence but they're killing her every day by any means possible," he said.
The mock execution came days after prison authorities denied family and legal visits to Mohammadi Ashtiani. Her children were told she was unwilling to meet them while she was told, also falsely, that no one had come to visit her.
Sajad, 22, heard the latest evidence of psychological pressure on his mother when he spoke to her by phone yesterday. "They are furious with the international outcry over my mother's case so they are taking revenge on her," he said. "The more the pressure comes from outside Iran, the more they mistreat her."