Woman in Iran sentenced to 100 public lashes for extra-marital affair

  An Iranian woman serving a 15-year prison sentence for the alleged murder of her husband will now receive 100 public lashes for her assumed involvement in an extra-marital affair, according to an Iranian news outlet. The woman, known only as “ST” in the news report translated by The Foreign Desk, was sentenced April 27 to public flogging in Golpayegan, a city to the south west of Tehran in the Isfahan province, for her extra-marital affair with the man who allegedly helped her kill her husband in July 2012, the hardline Serat News outlet reported. According to the report, the unnamed man was sentenced to death. Nearly 700 Iranians have been executed between January and July 2015, according to Amnesty International, shining light onto the abysmal state of human rights in Iran. Although the recent nuclear deal with Iran did not make any mention of human rights, many in the West were hopeful that normalizing relations with Iran’s rogue, hardline government would also result in behavioral changes. “Women and girls remain inadequately protected against sexual and other violence, including early and forced marriage. The authorities failed to adopt laws criminalizing these and other abuses, such as marital rape and domestic violence,” Amnesty International reported. In Iranian courts, the testimony of a Muslim woman is only equal to half of that of a Muslim man’s, and similarly, her life is only worth half of her male counterpart’s life. There are no laws against domestic violence, making abuse against women quite common. In 2010, Foreign Desk Editor-in-Chief and Middle East expert Lisa Daftari reported on the case of Sakineh Ashtiani, a 43-year-old Iranian mother who was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. The practice of stoning in Iran did not begin until 1983 when the newly self-appointed Islamic government ratified the penal code making stringent amendments.