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Iranian cleric rules on death by stoning
by Ali Akbar Dareini
AP (29.12.2002) HRWF Int. (03.01.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A senior Iranian cleric has ruled that death by stoning is not the only possible punishment for adultery, opening the way for women lawmakers who have campaigned against the practice to propose a bill banning stoning.
"In certain circumstances, death by stoning can be replaced by other methods of punishment," Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi said in a written fatwa, or religious ruling, obtained Sunday by The Associated Press.
The ruling did not elaborate and Shirazi was not immediately available for comment.
Shirazi is a highly influential cleric in the city of Qom Iran's religious center. Abiding by the ruling of senior clerics is considered a religious obligation for the country's Shiite-dominated Muslim population.
Earlier this month, Iran's 11 women lawmakers asked Shirazi's blessing before submitting a bill to the 290-seat legislature to abolish stoning.
Though Shirazi did not directly cite the lawmakers or ban stoning, his ruling gives the lawmakers a green light to submit their bill.
"This is a victory for reformist lawmakers who seek to end discrimination against women," reformist lawmaker Fatemeh Rake'i told the AP.
"Our Islamic laws need to be updated and meet demands of the modern time."
If the bill is endorsed by the legislature, which is dominated by lawmakers in favor of reform, it has to be approved by the conservative Guardian Council, a legislative oversight body controlled by hard-liners.
Ayatollah Hussein Mousavi Tabrizi, another senior cleric in Qom, about 80 miles south of the capital Tehran, said stopping stoning was a response to the "demands of modern age."
"Any punishment, including stoning, that defames Islam or depicts a bad picture of the religion in the world is harmful to Islam and it is fully Islamic to stop it," he told the AP.
Although it was widely imposed in the early years after the 1979 Islamic revolution, stoning now is rarely applied.
No official figures are available, but based on newspaper reports, at least two stoning sentences were carried out in 2001. The sentence was handed down several times in 2002 but it was unclear if any executions were carried out.
European Union officials who visited Iran earlier this month to discuss human rights said Iranian officials "signaled their intention" to put a moratorium on stoning.
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Iran parliament demands lifting of death sentence against reformist scholar
by Ali Akbar Dareni
AP (10.11.2002) / HRWF Int. (29.10.2002) Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Nearly two-thirds of Iran's reform-minded parliament on Sunday called for lifting a death sentence handed down to a reformist scholar convicted of insulting Islam and questioning hard-line clerics.
Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi said the death sentence against university professor Hashem Aghajari by a hard-line court was a "disgusting" verdict and urged it not be carried out. Other lawmakers said it portrayed Iran as a "dictatorial, anti-human rights and anti-freedom country."
Responding to Karroubi's plea, 181 members of the 290-seat parliament signed a letter urging the lifting of the death sentence.
Aghajari's lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, said Thursday that his client was convicted of insulting Prophet Muhammad and questioning the hard-line clergy's interpretation of Islam in a speech he made in June in the western city of Hamedan.
With protests growing against the death sentence, two lawmakers from Hamedan province resigned to protest the verdict. It was not clear whether the house would accept the resignations of Hossein Loqmanian and Mohammad Reza Alihosseini Karroubi, addressing an open session of the parliament that was broadcast live on state-run Tehran radio, called on the hard-line judiciary chief to interfere.
"As a cleric, I denounce this disgusting verdict. ... I call on the head of the judiciary to solve this problem before we pay a heavier price for it," he said.
The speaker, whose speech was interrupted several times by applause from the house members, said no senior clerics agreed with the ruling. He addressed Aghajari's family saying the charges against the scholar were "irrelevant" and they should expect him to return home. Karroubi gave no further details.
Leading reformist legislator Mohsen Armin said the sentence portrays Islam as a religion of violence, and Iran's Islamic establishment as "a dictatorial, anti-human rights and anti-freedom."
Armin, a member of Aghajari's party, the pro-reform Islamic Revolution Mujahideen Organization, said the party won't request a pardon from the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"Such ruling could never be enforced and Aghajari should be released immediately," he said.
Meanwhile, Iran's most senior dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, said that nothing could harm Islam's image more than the sentence against Aghajari.
Montazeri has been under house arrest since 1997 for questioning the legitimacy of clerical rule. "A minority group resorts to oppressive methods in the name of Islam to remain in power against the wishes of the nation," he said in a statement, a copy of which was made available to The Associated Press on Sunday.
On Saturday, government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh deplored the court decision as hundreds of students held a peaceful demonstration gathering in front of Tehran University dormitory to protest the sentence.
Aghajari, a history professor at Tarbiat-e-Modarres University in Tehran, was ordered detained in August during a closed hearing in Hamedan, western Iran. He remains in custody in Hamedan and was informed of the verdict on Wednesday.
In his speech in June, Aghajari said that clerics' teachings on Islam were considered sacred simply because they were part of history and that each new generation should be able to interpret the faith on its own.
The comments enraged hard-liners, who organized street demonstrations in several Iranian cities and urged the courts to prosecute Aghajari, whose party supports Khatami's program of social and political reforms.
In another development, the parliament approved the outlines of a bill that would give President Mohammad Khatami powers to stop the judiciary and other unelected institutions from violating the constitution.
The bill has to be approved by the conservative Guardian Council to become a law. The Council is expected to reject the bill and send it to the Expediency Council another conservative body arbitrating between the Guardian Council and the parliament for a final decision.
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Canada Accepts Iranian Christians' Application
Stranded Convert Family Rated Eligible for Asylum
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (30.08.2002)/ HRWF International Secretariat (03.09.2002) Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Iranian Christian Mahmoud Erfani received notice through a post office in central Turkey yesterday that Canadian immigration authorities in Ankara have accepted his family's application for permanent residency in Canada.
In a letter dated August 23, Canadian visa officer Judy Aubut declared that following the family's July 30 interview in Ankara, "... after carefully assessing all factors relative to your application, including the additional information you provided at that time, I am satisfied that you are a member of the country of asylum class."
"I am therefore accepting your application," Aubut wrote. The visa officer specified that the family's eligibility for application was based on Section 147 of Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Erfani's first application to the Canadian Embassy in Ankara had been rejected in April by a Turkish visa officer, who stated the family did "not satisfy the definition of Convention refugee or member of the country asylum class."
For his appeal interview last month, Erfani produced new evidence regarding Iranian government persecution of some of his relatives after he fled the country. In addition, a court indictment from the Turkish city Nevsehir confirmed that the Erfani family had been harassed there last April by an Iranian Muslim for having left Islam to become Christians.
"We are so grateful!" Erfani told Compass by telephone from Nevsehir yesterday. Earlier this aweek, he had reported that due to the extreme summer heat, his wife had become "somewhat worse." Now in a wheelchair, Mrs. Erfani was diagnosed eight years ago with advancing multiple sclerosis.
Erfani and his wife, Atefeh, had become baptized Christians 21 years ago in the fanatically religious Iranian city of Mashhad, where since the Islamic revolution a convert pastor has been executed and several other converts jailed for apostasy. In the spring of 1999, the family was evicted from their home on a former church compound and subjected to growing hostility by agents of the secret police and paramilitary Muslim vigilantes of the Islamic regime.
After fleeing with their three daughters across the Iranian border to Turkey in July 1999, the couple was turned down three times by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), who declared them ineligible for official refugee status. Officials examining their case noted that Erfani was unable to provide any documents to "prove" his claims of overt and ongoing religious persecution.
Canada, however, remains one of the few Western governments willing to accept immigrants who have not been able to obtain formal UNHCR refugee status.
The Erfani family has been pledged full sponsorship by an Anglican church in Toronto who has pursued their immigration case since June 2001. After the family's rejection this past April by the Canadian Embassy in Ankara, their plight was also taken up by Paul E. Forseth, a member of the Canadian House of Commons.
Erfani said that he also received yesterday detailed instructions on the required medical examinations required by Canadian immigration for all five members of his family, including a doctor's preliminary exam, laboratory tests and chest X-rays.
According to established government policy, the final formal acceptance of the Erfani family by Canadian Immigration cannot be issue until these medical procedures have been completed.
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Iranian Christian Family Faces Quandry in Turkey
Canadian Embassy Refuses Immigration Status
By Barbara Baker
Compass Direct (02.05.2002)/ HRWF (03.05.2002) Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.net - The Canadian Embassy in Ankara turned down an Iranian Christian family's immigration application last week, closing the last known option for religious asylum for former Muslims Mahmoud and Atefeh Erfani and their three daughters.
After nearly three years as refugees in central Turkey, the Erfani family faces eventual deportation by Turkish authorities back to Iran, where Muslims who convert to Christianity can be executed for apostasy.
The Canadian government's refusal came nine months after its embassy in Turkey pledged in writing to examine the family's application for immigration. The August 6 document had specified that the family could be processed to leave for Canada within eight months "if all our requirements are met." At that point, three previous applications filed for U.N. refugee status had all been denied.
After waiting more than nine months for their first immigration interview with Canadian authorities, the Erfani family was summoned to Ankara for an April 18 interview.
Erfani told Compass by telephone from Nevsehir that his formal appointment at the Canadian Embassy consisted of a one-hour interview. "They did not speak with my wife or daughters," he said, "and they did not give us any medical or other tests."
Erfani's wife, whose health is deteriorating from advancing multiple sclerosis diagnosed eight years ago, is now in a wheelchair. But with considerable effort, she was able to accompany her husband and daughters to Ankara by bus from Nevsehir, where the family has been temporarily settled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) since their arrival in Turkey.
Just five days later, the Canadian Embassy issued a letter declaring that based on "a careful consideration" of his April 18 interview, Erfani did "not satisfy the definition of Convention refugee nor member of the country of asylum class."
"Consequently, I have refused your application for permanent residence in Canada," Canadian Embassy Visa Officer Umit Ozguz wrote in the April 23 letter, which Erfani received on April 26.
The embassy letter gave no specific reason for the refusal. Church sources in Canada, however, said they believed Mrs. Erfani's health problems were most likely the determining factor.
According to definitions cited in the refusal letter, a "Convention refugee" is any person who "by reason of well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group or political opinion" has left his country and "by reason of that fear, is unwilling to return to that country."
In the second category, the "asylum class" was defined under Canadian policy as someone who "has been and continues to be seriously and personally affected by a massive violation of human rights" with "no possibility, within a reasonable period, of a durable solution."
Although converted and baptized 21 years ago, Erfani and his wife had faced deepening hostility and harassment from police authorities in Mashhad during their last 12 months in Iran, which finally frightened them into fleeing the country.
Known as a center of Shiite fanaticism, Mashhad authorities executed a convert Christian pastor for apostasy in 1990. Then the city's two Protestant churches were forced to close, and three convert Christian couples were arrested, threatened, and formally charged with apostasy. All three families managed to escape from Iran and obtain religious asylum in Europe and North America.
In the meantime, the convert pastor in Tehran who baptized the Erfanis, as well as the local Presbyterian elder who first brought Erfani to local church services, were granted religious asylum in Europe.
Although Erfani himself was subjected to a series of terrifying abductions by local secret police during the last half of 1998, he had no documents to "prove" officially that he was being persecuted for his faith by the Iranian government. After his family was forcibly evicted from their home on the former Presbyterian church compound in March 1999, he moved them to Tehran.
But a few weeks later, when Erfani learned other Christian believers were being arrested and questioned about his own whereabouts, he secretly packed up his family and fled across the Turkish border.
Erfani confirmed this week that Turkish police authorities in Nevsehir have consistently treated him well. In consideration of his wife's poor health, he said, they have only required him to report once a week to sign in at police headquarters. Although he said they had not been able to afford many of her needed medications, they have scraped by on what a Presbyterian church source called "meager monthly support" from abroad.
In February 2001, after the Erfanis were refused UNHCR refugee status for the second time, the Turkish Interior Ministry had issued an order for their deportation. Although the notice was temporarily stayed by the Canadian Embassy's letter last August, the family's Turkish residence permits expired on March 28.
Erfani said he had turned the permits over to the Nevsehir police authorities the day they expired, along with the Canadian Embassy's August letter.
"I have nothing in my hands now," Erfani said. "I am afraid that we could be sent back to Iran," he admitted.
"Just pray that God's will be done for our family," Erfani asked, "and that we will be filled with the Holy Spirit, to bear all these problems with God's peace."
According to a representative of an Anglican church in Toronto which pledged full sponsorship for the stranded family, the Erfani family's case is now closed with Canadian immigration. Even "if there is new evidence presented," the representative told Compass, "there is no way to reopen the case."
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