Iran condemned for filmed 'confession'

Iran was criticised after saying it intended to show another filmed confession by Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman condemned to death by stoning, as part of a documentary reconstruction of her case. 

Mrs Ashtiani and her son Sajjad Asgharzadeh, who is also under arrest, were returned to their home for the programme, which was due to be broadcast in Iran on Friday night.
She is accused of adultery and participating with her lover in the 2005 killing of her husband.The announcement by state-run Press TV dashed earlier hopes that photographs of the two at home indicated they had been released.
Human rights groups attacked the decision by the judiciary to allow the programme to be made while her case remained under review.
"If reports are accurate that there will be another televised 'confession' from Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani tonight," said Clare Bracey, death penalty campaigner for Amnesty UK, "Its impact on the judicial process should not be underestimated.

"To organise a televised 'confession' midway through a judicial review of a serious case – where a woman's life hangs in the balance – makes a mockery of Iran's legal system."

Mrs Ashtiani was originally convicted of adultery in 2006 and given 99 lashes.

She was later additionally accused of playing a role in the death of her husband, and sentenced to hang for the murder and to be stoned for adultery.

The hanging was commuted to 10 years' jail after her son exercised his right to reprieve the lover who killed his father.

Following an international outcry after the stoning sentence came to light, Iran announced that it was reviewing her case.

But it also showed her confessing to the cameras that she had been involved in her husband's killing.

The reports that she had been released on Thursday night – and the vivid new photographs the television station published – led to worldwide celebrations from supporters.
A news story on Press TV's website blamed the misunderstanding on a "vast publicity campaign by Western media" and said the station merely intended to "to produce a visual recount of the crime at the murder scene".
However, the story made no mention of the adultery charge, the death sentence or how she might be executed if at all.
Last month the head of Iran's Council of Human Rights said he thought there was "a good chance that her life could be saved".
The use of stoning is currently under review, and has been excluded from a new draft justice code, although 10 people remain on death row with stoning as the specified means of execution, and the most recent such killing was of a man in March 2009, according to Amnesty International.