stoning

It was the uproar over Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani that finally brought a real suspension to stonings. And it was with regard to her sentence that the East Azerbaijan official said he lacked the facilities for stoning.

The stonings in Syria last month were not widely publicized at the time, but in the following days three photographs appeared online which appeared to document the grisly spectacle and were consistent with other AP reporting.

Amnesty International has documented 77 stonings since the Islamic revolution in 1979, but they say the true figure is likely to be higher.

Azar has already been subjected to two mock stonings. They buried her and then changed their mind.

"The graphicness is based on bootleg videos of actual stonings, which were terrible and almost impossible to watch," he told me.

"There have been cases in Iran of stonings being changed to hangings.

Seven stonings were officially reported last year, but there are believed to be dozens more.

The Guardian said the Islamic Republic is immune to world opinion on many topics, but "is embarrassed by the international attention stonings attract." Indeed, the regime has shuffled nervously in part because stonings are controversial even within the clergy and the Iranian community.

But in the war against stonings, the film drops like a boulder."

On Sunday, The reformist daily Etemad-e Melli ran statement from a group of lawyers and women's rights activists that said the stonings were carried out at Behesht-e Reza cemetery in Khorasan Rezavi province between December 21 and 26.

Some officials said the 2002 Judiciary order halted stonings; others said it suspended stonings "for awhile." The text of the directive has never been announced.

The European Union's presidency condemned the planned stonings. "The European Union urges Iran to put an immediate stop to these executions and to commute the death sentences by stoning that have just been passed," the EU's French presidency said in a statement.

Khatami's adviser on women's issues Zahra Shojaei has defended the practice of stoning women to death for the crime of adultery, saying the punishment is correct under Islamic sharia law and protects the institution of the family.

The Majlis recently voted to drop stoning from the penal code entirely, but the Council of Guardians has now required it to be put back in.

The first stoning to death of a woman since 1997 was done in May.