Iran’s pariah regime said today that it plans to drop the death-by-stoning penalty against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman who was sentenced to death for alleged adultery. All this means is that the global anti-stoning human rights campaign to influence a change in the behavior of the mullah regime has forced Iran’s rulers to temporarily backpedal from their medieval practices in the case of Ms. Ashtiani.
According to the New York Times, “Apparently contradicting previous court documents, Zahra Elahian, head of the Majles Human Rights Committee, said that the stoning sentence against the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, had never been confirmed.“
Given Iran’s deceptive behavior with respect to its illicit nuclear weapons program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might be flirting with a cooling-off period in order to reimpose the stoning penalty at a later stage. The trial proceeding against Ms. Ashtiani was nothing short of a sham. She now faces a 10-year incarceration period.
The Islamic Republic of Iran remains vulnerable to human rights sanctions. President Barack Obama was wishy-washy and aloof about human rights when Iran’s regime viciously cracked down on its civilian population during the fraudulent 2009 Iran election.
Last September, however, the Obama administration imposed mild human rights sanctions against eight top-level Iranian government officials for inflicting unlawful detention, torture, rape, and violent beatings on Iranians who protested the doctored 2009 election results.
While the European Union claims to have cornered the market on advancing human rights, there is an eerie silence and passivity emanating from the EU about sanctioning Iran for human rights violations. The EU remains Iran’s second-largest trading partner after China. Italy and Germany have a combined €10 billion trade relationship with the Islamic Republic.
The tragic case of Ms. Ashtiani shows that if the Western democracies decide to fill its human rights rhetoric with meaning and content, they can influence a change in Iran’s incorrigibly reactionary domestic policies.