At least that’s what the head of the East Azerbaijan Justice Department, Malek-Majdar Sharifi, implied. He said it may be necessary to just hang Ashtiani.
To some, this sounded like a trial balloon. A year ago, the world erupted in fury when Ashtiani’s children took the unusual step of publicizing her sentence of stoning. The uproar was one of the loudest the Islamic Republic had ever faced. It backed down and put the stoning execution on hold.
Later Judiciary officials said she had been convicted of murdering her husband and would be hanged for murder rather than stoned for adultery. But that simply wasn’t true and Sharifi didn’t play that game.
The Fars news agency quoted him as saying Ashtiani faces two sentences—“one regarding adultery for which she was sentenced to stoning, and the other for being an accomplice to the murder of her husband, for which she received a 10-year prison term.”
But then he added that he had informed Tehran that “we do not have facilities for stoning her.” The only “facilities” required are stones and an open area.
Sharifi said that Judiciary Chairman Sadeq Larijani replied, “Since the main purpose is execution, then, if there are no facilities for stoning according to Sharia, it could be changed to hanging.”
But Sharifi said he was told Larijani wanted to “wait to get the views of other religious scholars and then a formal decision will be made.”
To many, this announcement sounded like a trial balloon to see if the world was concerned about the proposed execution of Ashtiani for adultery or was just agitated by the sentence of stoning. If there is no uproar over the possibility of hanging, the regime may feel free to go ahead with it.
The announcement by Sharifi, however, was made Sunday—Christmas Day—so it got very little attention around the world.
The delay in the stoning has angered many hardliners in Iran. The Judiciary finds itself between a rock and a hard place as Westerners scream against stoning and Iranian hardliners scream against non-stoning.
Sharifi spoke up about the issue only in response to a question. Meeting with a group of students, one asked him about Ashtiani: “Why don’t you carry out the sentence? Are you afraid of psychological and media hype of the foreigners once the sentence is carried out?”