Condemned Iranian Woman's Son and Lawyer Missing
The son of an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery is reportedly missing after two foreign nationals, believed to be German journalists, were arrested after trying to interview him.
The lawyer for the woman, 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, also has not been heard from.
Iran's chief prosecutor, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, called the two people detained "foreign tourists" and said they lacked correct media credentials, according to a statement published today on the semi-official Mehr News website.
Amnesty International / AFP / Getty Images
The son and lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery pictured here in an undated photo, are reported missing.
But an Iranian human rights activist, based in Germany, who said she arranged the interview told AOL News today that the Iranian government has also arrested the son of Ashtiani and her longtime lawyer.
The government has not confirmed the arrests or detention of Ashtiani's son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, or her lawyer, Javid Houtan Kian. But sources connected to the case said neither of them returned to their homes Sunday night, nor have they answered their phones.
Mina Ahadi, the Iranian-born head of the Frankfurt-based International Committee Against Stoning, said the arrests occurred Sunday afternoon while she was on the phone in Germany acting as translator during the interview.
The interview was taking place in the Tabriz law office of Kian, Ashtiani's longtime lawyer.
Ashtiani has been held on death row in nearby Tabriz prison since 2006 on adultery and murder charges. She was sentenced to death by stoning but has not yet been executed following international outrage over her case.
Ahadi said she had helped arrange the meeting in Iran. Both journalists are male, she said; one is a photographer. She declined to identify them for security reasons.
The interview had just started and Ahadi was helping translate the third question when the journalist suddenly sounded agitated, she said, and then hung up. She tried calling back several times, but no one at the interview ever answered their phones again.
"It was terrible, terrible," Ahadi said in a telephone interview from Frankfurt. "We were on the phone talking and then I heard a lot of noise and the phones went dead."
The journalists are reportedly associated with Germany's Bild Zeitung, a tabloid newspaper.
Sources close to the case said it was probably true that they did not have official media credentials to interview Ashtiani's son and lawyer because such credentials would probably never be granted.
Tobias Frohlich, a spokesman for the Berlin-based newspaper, wrote in a short e-mail to AOL News: "We do not know anything about any arrests of employees of our company. That's all I can say at the moment."
Maryam Namazie, an Iranian-born human rights activist based in Britain, said that Ashtiani's 17-year-old daughter went to Tabriz prison today to ask if her 22-year-old brother and her mother's lawyer were arrested.
"They wouldn't tell her anything," Namazie told AOL News. "But she told me her brother has not been home and he's not answering his telephone. No one can reach the lawyer either."
Namazie said the Iranian government has threatened Ashtiani's lawyer before. She said that officials "held him" for eight hours on Saturday and would not let him sit down during questioning.
"It was about his contact with the media," Namazie said.
Namazie pointed out that Sunday's arrest of the journalists occurred on World Day Against the Death Penalty.
"Often they do things like this on important days," she said. "These are just windows into Iran and how they consider women to be subhuman. They've been getting away with it for years now. Sakineh would be dead by now it there hadn't been this international pressure."
Ashtiani, a mother of two, was originally convicted in May 2006 after being found guilty of having had an "illicit relationship" with two men following the death of her husband.
She was given 99 lashes while her son watched.
Later that year, as a result of information that surfaced during the trial of a man accused of murdering her husband, her adultery case was re-opened.
Despite retracting a confession she said she had made under duress in August, Ashtiani was convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning.
The lawyer for the woman, 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, also has not been heard from.
Iran's chief prosecutor, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, called the two people detained "foreign tourists" and said they lacked correct media credentials, according to a statement published today on the semi-official Mehr News website.
Amnesty International / AFP / Getty Images
The son and lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery pictured here in an undated photo, are reported missing.
But an Iranian human rights activist, based in Germany, who said she arranged the interview told AOL News today that the Iranian government has also arrested the son of Ashtiani and her longtime lawyer.
The government has not confirmed the arrests or detention of Ashtiani's son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, or her lawyer, Javid Houtan Kian. But sources connected to the case said neither of them returned to their homes Sunday night, nor have they answered their phones.
Mina Ahadi, the Iranian-born head of the Frankfurt-based International Committee Against Stoning, said the arrests occurred Sunday afternoon while she was on the phone in Germany acting as translator during the interview.
The interview was taking place in the Tabriz law office of Kian, Ashtiani's longtime lawyer.
Ashtiani has been held on death row in nearby Tabriz prison since 2006 on adultery and murder charges. She was sentenced to death by stoning but has not yet been executed following international outrage over her case.
Ahadi said she had helped arrange the meeting in Iran. Both journalists are male, she said; one is a photographer. She declined to identify them for security reasons.
The interview had just started and Ahadi was helping translate the third question when the journalist suddenly sounded agitated, she said, and then hung up. She tried calling back several times, but no one at the interview ever answered their phones again.
"It was terrible, terrible," Ahadi said in a telephone interview from Frankfurt. "We were on the phone talking and then I heard a lot of noise and the phones went dead."
The journalists are reportedly associated with Germany's Bild Zeitung, a tabloid newspaper.
Sources close to the case said it was probably true that they did not have official media credentials to interview Ashtiani's son and lawyer because such credentials would probably never be granted.
Tobias Frohlich, a spokesman for the Berlin-based newspaper, wrote in a short e-mail to AOL News: "We do not know anything about any arrests of employees of our company. That's all I can say at the moment."
Maryam Namazie, an Iranian-born human rights activist based in Britain, said that Ashtiani's 17-year-old daughter went to Tabriz prison today to ask if her 22-year-old brother and her mother's lawyer were arrested.
"They wouldn't tell her anything," Namazie told AOL News. "But she told me her brother has not been home and he's not answering his telephone. No one can reach the lawyer either."
Namazie said the Iranian government has threatened Ashtiani's lawyer before. She said that officials "held him" for eight hours on Saturday and would not let him sit down during questioning.
"It was about his contact with the media," Namazie said.
Namazie pointed out that Sunday's arrest of the journalists occurred on World Day Against the Death Penalty.
"Often they do things like this on important days," she said. "These are just windows into Iran and how they consider women to be subhuman. They've been getting away with it for years now. Sakineh would be dead by now it there hadn't been this international pressure."
Ashtiani, a mother of two, was originally convicted in May 2006 after being found guilty of having had an "illicit relationship" with two men following the death of her husband.
She was given 99 lashes while her son watched.
Later that year, as a result of information that surfaced during the trial of a man accused of murdering her husband, her adultery case was re-opened.
Despite retracting a confession she said she had made under duress in August, Ashtiani was convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning.
posted by chickcomics | 7:53 PM
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