Escape to Norway: Iranian Anti-Stoning Lawyer Continues Fight from Exile

• Print
• E-Mail
• Feedback

The sentence was in fact reduced, at least for Nasser, who the children also forgave. Instead of being put to death by hanging, the punishment for murder, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Sakineh was also sentenced to 10 years, even though she had only been convicted of being an accessory to murder.

In light of the murder plot, zealous judges pushed for a reevaluation of the extramarital relationship. Now they accused Sakineh of "zena" -- extramarital sex. The three conservative clerics on the five-member panel had demanded that verdict, says Mostafaei. The children insist that their mother is "innocent."

It is unclear how often Iranian criminals are stoned to death, their upper bodies and heads covered with a white cloth. The reformist former president, Mohammad Khatami, who was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's predecessor, officially suspended execution of the sentence in 2002. Nevertheless, there is evidence that seven stoning sentences for adultery have been carried out in recent years -- of six men and one woman.

The government, which has executed at least 402 people within the last year, reportedly has several dozen women on death row. The women, like Ashtiani, can expect to be stoned to death. Only a few of these cases are known. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the co-founder of the organization Iran Human Rights and one of the few people that Mostafaei knows in Oslo, can name 14 people.

Act of Friendship

Ashtiani's case would probably not have attracted international attention if her passport photo hadn't been sent to human rights activists -- by her son, according to Mostafaei. As a result, his client became an icon of the anti-stoning movement and Mostafaei himself a victim of the Iranian legal system. After being summoned for questioning several times, he fled to the city of Khoy in northwestern Iran, where smugglers took him to the area near the border with Turkey in an SUV. From there, he hurried across the mountains on foot, under the cover of darkness.

Human smugglers in Iran usually charge up to $3,000 (about €2,340) for their services. Since the protests against the contested reelection of President Ahmadinejad in June 2009, hundreds of critics of the Iranian government and members of the opposition have used smugglers. In his case, says Mostafaei, the smugglers helped him in an "act of friendship." Only one man, a Turkish farmer, wanted money -- $70 -- for taking him to the city of Van on his horse.

While Mostafaei's associates in Tehran were still speculating over whether intelligence agents had arrested him, he had already arrived in Istanbul. From there, he planned to fly to Oslo, where he had once spent "three nice days" with his wife.

Mostafaei was not able to board a flight to Scandinavia, however. Instead, he was arrested, charged with illegal entry and imprisoned in a police holding cell at the Istanbul airport, where he spent almost a week fearing that he would be extradited to Iran. The police interrogators told him that an Iranian delegation had come to Istanbul, apparently to take him back to Tehran. Although regime critics from Iran had not been deported until then, they are not welcome in Turkey, because Ankara fears that they will harm its current good relations with Tehran.

It was only when a Turkish newspaper published a report about Mostafaei's arrest, after he had been held in Istanbul for four days, that diplomatic pressure from Europe began. The United States also reportedly supported his cause, even indicating that he could be granted political asylum there. But Mostafaei chose to fly to Oslo instead, using a visa he had obtained at the Norwegian Embassy in Tehran months earlier.

'I Love Iran'

Mostafaei doesn't want to apply for asylum, because he plans to return home one day. "I love Iran," he says, sounding homesick already, although the government in Tehran gives him little hope. His client was paraded on state television as an underhanded murderer of her husband, with no mention of the adultery for which she is to be stoned to death. Now she blames her attorney for having made her case public and thus bringing "shame" on her family. Human rights activists like Amiry-Moghaddam are convinced Ashtiani's statement was "forced." Was it a prelude to her execution?

Mostafaei's allies expect him to remain in Norway for a long time to come. Now it's time for him to pack for his next destination, a small apartment in the city of Drammen. The town is only half an hour's train ride from Oslo where -- as he plans to do at the beginning of this week -- he can report to the rest of the world on the barbaric punishment his former client could face.

Mostafaei hasn't given up his fight for Ashtiani yet.

• Back
• 1
• | 2

• Part 1: Iranian Anti-Stoning Lawyer Continues Fight from Exile
• Part 2: Several Dozen Women on Death Row