Death by stoning - Sentences are utterly barbaric

IN his first State of the Union address to the European parliament, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso yesterday spoke for the great, great majority of Europeans when he described the sentence imposed on an Iranian woman convicted of adultery as “barbaric beyond words”.

The sentence to stone Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old widow, to death because she was convicted of having sex with two men after her husband’s death is under review because of sustained international pressure, but it is not at all certain that the woman will not be executed by another means.

She, despite protesting her innocence, has spent more than five years in prison and been subjected to 99 lashes that were administered as her 17-year-old son was forced to look on.