A false confession: A woman says she committed adultery to save her husband and brother

By Mohammad Mostafaie

As part of our special series, “Before the Iranian Judiciary,” Mohammad Mostafaie, an attorney and a human rights activist, discusses one of his cases—that of an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning.

Stoning is one of the most atrocious examples of human rights crimes in Iran. Every year, a number of women are stoned to death in our country.

Malek Ghorbani, a client of mine, was an illiterate rural woman who lived in a small village near Orumiyeh, in Azerbaijan province in northwestern Iran.

One of her neighbors, a notorious figure of ill repute in the village, broke into her home one night with the intention of raping her. He knew her husband and brother were away. She was home alone with her two small daughters.

Her husband and brother returned unexpectedly and fought off the intruder. While trying to escape, the man was stabbed repeatedly with a knife by the husband and the brother.

In order to save her husband and brother, she falsely claimed that she had had relations with the man. She had no clue what the punishment for adultery was. She told the police and the court repeatedly that she had an illicit relationship with this man.

The court exonerated the husband and the brother, but sentenced her to death by stoning. She didn’t have a lawyer and the court proceedings were anything but fair.

After the verdict, I heard about this woman's case and I accepted her as my client. The case finally ended up before the Supreme Court, where the stoning sentence was commuted to lashings.

Stoning is a savage and violent form of punishment. It has been banned for centuries in much of the world. It should also be immediately abolished in our country.

Another area where the law needs to change, and I believe the existing statutes are unacceptable, is in the area of Ghesas (punishment in kind).

In general, our criminal code is unfair and inadequate. There is an urgent need to rewrite and reform it. We are in dire need of an overhaul.