Iran on 31 May amended its law on stoning convicted adulterers to death to allow judges to impose a different form of execution. The practice, in which stones are thrown at the partially buried offender, has provoked outcries from human rights organisations, international bodies and Western countries urging Iran to abandon it. An article of Iran’s Islamic new penal code states that, “if the possibility of carrying out the (stoning) verdict does not exist,” the sentencing judge may order another form of execution pending final approval by the judiciary chief.
According to local media, MPs had removed stoning altogether from the bill that they adopted. But the Guardians Council of scholars and jurists, which must approve all legislation before it enters into force, reinserted it, with the new amendment.