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| 'Photographs apparently showing Sakineh at home with her son appeared in the media.' |
A report Friday on the Web site of Iran’s state-run English language news channel Press TV (or see story below) said reports of the release of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, were false and were part of a “vast publicity campaign by Western media.”
On Thursday night, foreign news reports citing a group supporting her based in Germany said that Iran’s authorities had released Ms. Ashtiani, along with her son and her lawyer .
“We have got news from Iran that they are free,” Mina Ahadi, spokeswoman for the International Campaign Against Stoning, was quoted as saying.
The unconfirmed report prompted foreign governments to welcome the news with Maureen Harper, the wife of the Canadian prime minister, and Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini both issuing statements.
The news report also ran images showing Ashtiani standing in the doorway of her home in a village in Iran’s northwestern Azarbaijan region and speaking with her son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, in an informal setting, prompting further speculation that she had been released.
The photographs have subsequently been revealed to be stills from a new documentary program, due to be aired on Press TV, which will show Ms. Ashtiani guiding a camera crew around the home where she and an accomplice allegedly plotted to murder her husband in 2006. She was originally sentenced to death by stoning for adultery but that sentenced was suspended and authorities have reframed the charges against her as murder.
“Press TV has arranged with Iran’s judicial authorities to follow Ashtiani to her house to produce a visual recount of the crime at the murder scene,” Friday’s report on the channel’s Web site said.
Iran’s latest attempt to counter the international media campaign against Ms. Ashtiani’s execution is its first to directly address foreign audiences on the issue. On two previous occasions, Iranian state broadcasting has aired confessions by Ms. Ashtiani as well as denunciations by her of human rights campaigners who have joined her cause.
“They are taking my side unnecessarily, I do not consider them legitimate at all,” Ms. Ashtiani said in comments aired on domestic television in November which her lawyers have said were made under pressure during detention.
Two German nationals who entered Iran intending to interview Ms. Ashtiani’s son remain in detention more than two months after being arrested by Iranian security officers in October. The two, said to be a reporter and a photographer working for Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper, have been charged with spying after confessing to having entered Iran without proper journalistic accreditation, Iranian judicial officials say.
Source: The New York Times, December 10, 2010
Iran TV denies condemned woman free
Press TV denies reports that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced to death by stoning, has been freed by regime.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman whose sentence of death by stoning sparked global outrage, has not been been freed from jail, Iran's English language Press TV has said.
A German campaign group said on Thursday that Ashtiani had been released after photographs apparently showing her at home with her son appeared in the media.
But state-run Press TV said on Friday (or see story below) that Ashtinai had been taken to the house to carry out a reconstruction of the alleged murder of her husband, and was not free.
"Contrary to a vast publicity campaign by Western media that confessed murderer Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has been released, a broadcast production team with the Iran-based Press TV has arranged with Iran's judicial authorities to follow Ashtiani to her house to produce a visual recount of the crime at the murder scene," Press TV said on its website.
The channel said it would air the programme, which includes interviews with people involved in case, at 2035GMT on Friday.
Campaigners wrongfooted
The news will come as a blow to campaigners who were celebrating Ashtiani's release. When photographs of her at home emerged on Thursday, campaigners hailed them as evidence of a "historic" victory.
Patty Debonitas, a spokesperson for the International Committee Against Stoning (ICAS), one of the main groups which campaigned on behalf of Ashtiani, told Al Jazeera that the campaign had been a success.
"It's a historical success because the international outcry worked," Debonitas said on Thursday. But it appears that the group was wrongfooted by the photographs.
Ghanbar Naderi, an Iranian journalist said that the fact that Ashtiani was allowed out of prison at all could be seen as a positive development.
"She has been released temporarily to retell her story and reenact the events that led to the murder of her husband," he said. She hasn't been released for good - she only helped a documentary crew to make a documentary about her case. This might be good news, because she might be released."
Ashitani has been sentenced to death twice. The first court decision to hang her for the murder of her husband was commuted to a 10-year jail sentence by an appeals court in 2007.
But she was later condemned to die by stoning for adultery, a sentence which was upheld by another appeals court.
The European Union called has called Ashtiani's sentence "barbaric," while the Brazilian government offered her asylum.
Source: Al Jazeera, December 10, 2010
Iranian TV: 'Ashtiani recounts murder on Press TV'
An Iranian woman convicted of murder and adultery has accompanied a team of TV production group to her house to recount details of killing her husband at the crime scene.
Contrary to a vast publicity campaign by Western media that confessed murderer Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has been released, a team of broadcast production team with the Iran-based Press TV has arranged with Iran's judicial authorities to follow Ashtiani to her house to produce a visual recount of the crime at the murder scene.
Press TV's "Iran Today" program, will shed light on the highways and byways of the murder account with multiple interviews with people and individuals involved in the case.
Sajjad Asgharzadeh, Sakineh's son, and her lwayer Hootan Kian are among the individuals that have spoken to the production team.
Earlier on Thursday, some western media outlets claimed that Ashtiani has been released from prison.
Iran has cited political motives behind the Western propaganda effort regarding the legal ruling against Mohammadi-Ashtiani, arguing that the publicity scheme is part of a Western campaign to undermine the Islamic Republic establishment.
Ashtiani has been found guilty of murdering her husband, Ibrahim Asgharzadeh, in collusion with another man, Isa Taheri, whom she had an affair with before the murder.
Press TV's "Iran Today" program on Ashtiani's case is scheduled to go on air on Friday December 10 at 20:35 GMT and will be aired again on Saturday December 11 at 01:35 GMT, 06:35 GMT and 14:35 GMT.
Reports of latest Ashtiani TV 'confession' in Iran condemned
Amnesty International today condemned reports that Iran's state-controlled Press TV will tonight broadcast a new "confession" by an Iranian woman who faces possible execution by stoning or hanging.
"If reports are accurate that tonight's broadcast will contain another televised 'confession' from Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, its potential impact on her case should not be underestimated," said Philip Luther, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.
"If the authorities are seeking to use this 'confession' to try to construct a new case against her, for a crime that she's already been tried and sentenced for, we would condemn this in the strongest terms."
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was sentenced to a 10-year prison term in 2006 for the murder of her husband, which her lawyer has said was subsequently reduced to 5 years for "complicity" in the murder.
She was also sentenced to death by stoning for "adultery while married". Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is held in Tabriz Prison, East Azerbaijan province, awaiting the outcome of a judicial review of her stoning sentence.
According to media reports a production team from Press TV collected Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani from prison, along with her son Sajjad Qaderzadeh, who is also currently detained, and took them to her former home to produce a "visual recount of the crime at the murder scene", apparently for a "documentary".
International standards for fair trial guarantee the right not to be forced to incriminate oneself or to confess guilt.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani's current lawyer Javid Houtan Kiyan, arrested and detained along with Sajjad Qaderzadeh for campaigning for her life to be spared, is also understood to have been interviewed by Press TV for the programme.
"It appears that the Iranian authorities are using the Iranian media as a tool to portray her as a dangerous criminal who deserves to be executed. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani must not be executed by any means, and if she continues to be held solely on the grounds of consensual sexual relations, the Iranian authorities must release her," said Philip Luther.
"At the same time, the international community, which has rightly expressed serious concerns about this case, must also step up the attention it gives to the other ongoing and very serious human rights violations in Iran. As Student Day was celebrated in Iran on Tuesday this week, student activists Milad Assadi, Behareh Hedayat, Majid Tavakkoli, Majid Dorri and Zia Nabavi were all serving lengthy prison sentences imposed solely for their peaceful activism. They and hundreds of other prisoners of conscience in Iran must be released immediately and unconditionally."
Source: Associated Press, December 10, 2010
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