Code of Punishment for Adultery in Iran

From the WLUML website
Adultery is a capital offense in the Islamic Republic of Iran and punishable by flogging, hanging, and stoning. The following is a translation of the articles of the Islamic Penal Code of Iran that pertain to the legal punishments for adultery. (Meydaan)

Translated by: Dr. Soheila Vahdati / Compared with the original text by: Gholam Hossein Raeesi, Attorney at Law

The Islamic Penal Code

Book II – Hodoud (Shari’a-based Punishments)

Section I – Shari’a-based Punishment for Adultery

Chapter 1- Definition and Reasons for Adultery Punishment

Article 63 – Adultery is defined as the intercourse between a man and a woman whose intercourse is inherently forbidden “haraam”, even if it is from behind, other than those cases where the person has had a doubt [i.e., mistaken identity].

Article 64 – Adultery is punished when the adulterer is mature*, sane, and acting by free will and is also aware of the offence and its punishment.

Article 65 – If a man or a woman is aware that the intercourse with the other party is forbidden, and the other party is not aware, thinking that the intercourse is legitimate, then only the party who has been aware that the intercourse is forbidden shall be sentenced to the punishment.

Article 66 – If a man or a woman who have had intercourse together claim mistake and unawareness, then in the case that the claimant deems honest, then the claim is accepted without oath and witness and the punishment is annulled.

Article 67 – If an adulterer claims that s/he has committed adultery under duress, her/his claim is accepted if the contrary is not believed to be true.

Chapter 2- Methods of Proving Adultery in Court

Article 68 – If a man or woman confesses to adultery four times before the judge, s/he will be sentenced to the adultery punishment and if they confess less than four times, then s/he will be punished by Tazeer. [Tazeer refers to the punishments that are not defined by Sharia’ and it is left to the Sharia’ Judge to specify it by sentence to imprisonment, cash fine, or flogging in which case the number of lashes must be less than Hodoud.]

Article 69 – The confession is valid when the confessor has the virtues of maturity*, sanity, willingness, and liberty.

Article 70 – The confession must be explicit or appear to be not inconsistent with the case.

Article 71 – If a person confesses to adultery and then denies it, if the adultery is to be punished by killing or stoning**, then the denial annuls the punishment of killing and stoning. Otherwise, with the denial after the confession the punishment is not annulled.

Article 72 – If a person confesses to the type of adultery that is punishable and then repents, the judge can either ask the Head of Judiciary for clemency or carry out the punishment.

Article 73 – A woman who does not have a husband, shall not be punished for becoming pregnant unless her adultery is proven by one of the methods mentioned in this law.

Article 74 – Adultery, when punishable by either flogging or stoning, can be proven by the testimony of either four just men, or three just men and two just women.

Article 75 – If adultery is punishable by flogging, then it could also be proven by the testimony of two just men and four just women.

Article 76 – The testimony by women alone or along with the testimony of a just man does not prove adultery but the witnesses will be subject to the punishment for false accusation (Qazf) as specified by the law. [Qazf: is defined as accusing a person of adultery or anal sex. It is punishable by 80 lashes. (Article 139)]

Article 77 – The testimony of the witnesses must be clear and without ambiguity and based on observation and testimony based on conjectures is not credible.

Article 78 – If the witnesses describe the specifics of the subject of testimony, there should be no discrepancy in their descriptions in terms of the time, place, and such. In case of discrepancy among witnesses’ testimonies, then not only the adultery is not proven but the witnesses will be sentenced to punishment for false accusation (Qazf).

Article 79 – The witnesses must testify one after another without any lapse of time. If some of the witnesses testify and then some other witnesses are not immediately present to testify or do not testify, then adultery is not proven. In this case, the witness will be subject to punishment for false accusation (Qazf).

Article 80 – The adultery punishment shall be executed immediately except for the cases described in the later articles.

Article 81 – If the adulterer repents prior to the testimony, then the punishment is annulled and if s/he repents after the testimony, then the punishment is not annulled.

Chapter 3 – Types of Adultery Punishment

Article 82 – The punishment for adultery in the following cases is killing and there is no difference between young and not-young and marriage-bound and not marriage-bound.
a. Adultery with “mahaarim” [“Mahaarim” of a person are the relatives by blood or marriage who are within the prohibited degree of marriage such as one’s siblings, parents, and in-laws.]
b. Adultery with step-mother which shall constitute the killing of the adulterer.
c. Adultery of a non-Muslim with a Muslim woman which will constitute the killing of the adulterer.
d. Adultery by force and duress that will constitute the killing of the forcing adulterer.

Article 83 – The punishment for adultery in the following cases is stoning.
a. Adultery of a marriage-bound man that is defined as a man who has a permanent wife and has had intercourse with her while being sane and can have intercourse with her whenever he so wishes.
b. Adultery of a marriage-bound woman with an adult man, a marriage-bound woman is a woman who has a permanent husband and the husband has had intercourse with the woman when she was sane and has had the opportunity to have intercourse with the husband, too.
c. Adultery of a marriage-bound woman with a minor constitutes flogging.

Article 84 – An old adulterer or an old adulteress who qualifies as marriage-bound shall be subject to flogging punishment prior to stoning.

Article 85 – Revocable divorce, prior to the end of the possible revoking period, does not disqualify a man or woman from being marriage-bound, but irrevocable divorce disqualifies them from being marriage-bound.

Article 86 – Adultery by a man or a woman when each has a permanent spouse but has no access to the spouse due to travel or imprisonment or similar reasonable excuses, shall not constitute stoning.

Article 87 – A married man who before penetration [into his wife] commits adultery shall be sentenced to flogging, having his head shaven, and one year of exile.

Article 88 – The adultery punishment for a man or woman who does not meet the marriage-bound conditions is one hundred lashes.

Article 89 – Repetition of adultery prior to executing the adultery punishment will not constitute repetition of the punishment if the punishments are the same, but if the punishments are of different types, like some constitute flogging and other constitute stoning, then flogging punishment shall be executed prior to stoning.

Article 90 – If a man or woman commits adultery several times and at each instance is punished, then will be killed upon the fourth instance.

Article 91 – During pregnancy and parturition bleeding the woman shall not be subjected to murder or stoning. Also after the childbirth if the infant has no guardian and there is a concern that the infant might die, the punishment will not be carried out, but if a guardian is found for the infant then the punishment shall be executed.

Article 92 – When a pregnant or breastfeeding woman is to be punished by flogging and there is concern for possible harm to the pregnancy or the breastfeeding infant, then the punishment will be delayed until the time that the punishment causes no such harm.

Article 93 – If a sick person or menstruating woman is sentenced to be murdered or stoned, the punishment shall be carried out but if sentenced to flogging then the punishment will be delayed until the sickness and menstruation is over.

Article 94 – If there is no hope for recovery of a sick person, or the Shari’a judge (hakeme shar’) deems appropriate that the punishment be executed during the sickness, then a bunch of one hundred lashes or whips will be inflicted once even if not all of them touch the body of the convict.

Article 95 – If the convict sentenced to punishment becomes insane or converts, the punishment shall not be annulled.

Article 96 – The flogging shall not be carried out in too cold or too hot weather.

Article 97 – The punishment cannot be executed in the land of the enemies of Islam.

Chapter 4 – How to Execute the Punishment

Article 98 – When a person is sentenced to multiple punishments, the order of carrying out the sentences must be such that none of them prevents another, therefore if someone is sentenced to flogging and stoning, first flogging and then stoning shall be carried out.

Article 99 – If adultery by a person, who meets the marriage-bound conditions, is proven by his/her confession, then at the time of stoning the first stone will be thrown by the Shari’a judge and then by others, and if the adultery is proven by the testimony of witnesses, then first the witnesses will throw stones, then the Shari’a judge, and then others.
Note – Absence or lack of action of the judge and witnesses in throwing the first stone shall not prevent carrying out the sentence and in any case the punishment must be executed.

Article 100 – The flogging punishment for an adulterer man shall be carried out as he is standing and wearing no clothing except to cover his genitals. Lashes must forcefully inflict his entire body except for his head, face, and genitals. An adulterer woman shall be flogged in a sitting position with her clothes bound to her body.

Article 101 – It is appropriate that the judge informs the public of the time of the punishment and it is necessary that a group of believers, not less than three people, be present when the punishment is carried out.

Article 102 – An adulterer man shall be buried in a ditch up to near his waist and an adulterer woman up to near her chest and then stoned to death.

Article 103 – In case the person sentenced to stoning escapes the ditch in which they are buried, then if the adultery is proven by testimony then they will be returned for the punishment but if it is proven by their own confession then they will not be returned.
Note – If the person sentenced to flogging escapes they shall be returned in any case.

Article 104 – The size of the stone used in stoning shall not be too large to kill the convict by one or two throws and at the same time shall not be too small to be called a stone.

Article 105 – The Shari’a Judge can act upon his own knowledge in the cases of [defending] the God’s Rights (Haghollah) and People’s Rights (Haghonnas) and carry out the punishment constituted by the God and it is necessary that he documents his knowledge. The execution of the punishment in case of God’s Rights (Haghollah) is not contingent upon anyone’s request but in case of People’s Rights (Haghonnas) is contingent on the owner of the right.

Article 106 – Adultery during the holy times such as religious festivities and Ramadan and Friday and at holy places such as mosques will constitute flogging in addition to the regular punishment.

Article 107 – The presence of the witnesses is necessary when stoning punishment is carried out but the punishment shall not be annulled due to their absence but it shall be annulled with their escape.


*Note by translator: A man is mature at the age of 15 lunar years, and a woman is mature at the age of 9 lunar years, given that the physical maturity is visible, too.

** Note by translator: Stoning in the Islamic Penal Code of Iran refers to stoning to death.

Source of the Original Code in Farsi (Persian): http://www.hoqouq.com/law/article363.html

Summary only...

A word on the word 'Abuse'

The word 'abuse' on its own has become synonymous with three forms only: physical, sexual and verbal. We talk alternatively of 'human rights abuses', but in this regard we rarely use simply the noun or verb-form. We do not talk about the abuse of an Iraqi man or say the Iraqi children are being abused by the international community; it would suggest - absurdly - that a sick individual is 'abusing' them one by one. But I believe that the power of this word, on its own, - to shock people into the realisation of the kind of harm and suffering being inflicted on the individual as a result of the decisions, prejudices, grudges or inaction of other individuals - must be harnessed (Mother Theresa famously characterised an infinite - and therefore supposedly unmanageable - number of victims of poverty in India, as 'one and one and one...'). The problem of the widespread near-acceptance of the human individual's abuse of another human individual can be observed more closely at the national level and at the - further microcosmic - level of the family.

On this blog I often refer to the 'human rights abuses' of one country or another, and in doing so I am aware that, whilst I might succeed in shocking and maybe upsetting the reader, I rarely provoke in them quite the intensity of nausea the majority would instinctively feel on hearing of a 10 month old baby girl abused and strangled by her uncle, for example (a horrific story the media have jumped on here). 'Horrific, incomprehensible, sickening, devastating' are all words that come to mind when we hear of a child being abused by an adult, and yet each day hundreds of people - one and one and one - are abused physically and emotionally by government actions or inaction - and it strikes us more often than not as lamentable and maybe sad, and perhaps even 'tragic' - that poorly abused word. And daily we participate in or at least witness abuse of another - in our family, in the street, in the supermarket - any place and group and partnership in which a hierarchical power dynamic is at work. And it is here that you have something akin to 'institutional racism' - the institutionalised abuse of the other, acceptable on the slightest pretext: impatience, stress, disappointment with service, irritation and disappointment with the 'incompetence' of the other, who stupidly has not adapted to your individual rhythm or 'ethos' or that of the organisation or that dictated by an apparently homogeneous consumer society.

Yesterday I watched a consumer - a woman in her late twenties abuse a uniformed employee of Ikea; she was trying to impress upon the checkout assistant that she was gravely offended and inconvenienced by the service she had received regarding the take-away container she was offered. I commented to Amir that the way she was flailing her arms around and shaking her head, you would think she had had her children taken away by the authorities, in which case her desire to verbally abuse and physically attack the representative of that authority would at least be understandable. Her aggressive 'telling off' of the ever courteous African employee in his demeaning primary blue and yellow Ikea uniform was abusive. But this is a right give to her by her society (Amir -ever alert to these kind of things - could have sworn he detected an Israeli accent!), and by British society.

On my first foray into the brilliant Hackney library accompanying my sister, Bee, and her tiny baby - Hetty, I found the latest issue of the small publication, Race and Class. I'm a big fan and proceeded to use Bee's last 50 pence to photocopy one article: Integrationism: the politics of anti-Muslim racism by Arun Kundnani. I was very struck by the humane tone of the article that so distinguishes it from many others on the issue. Kundnani tells us that the "new conventional wisdom [on cultural diversity] is that a national story of Britishness must be promoted in order to bind the nation together around a set of core values, to which minorities must assimilate [...] but it is argued here, there cannot be one national story of Britain. Nor can one set of 'British values' be imposed as a condition of citizenship. Instead, an integrated society can only be built out of universal values of human rights, justice and democracy - the very values the 'war on terror' tends to undermine'. Yet 'British nationality had historically been complicated both by the absence of a clear idea of what it meant to be a citizen of the British state and by the fact that it was a state made up of multiple nations (England, Scotland and wales). The English resolved these difficulties by conflating an emotional belonging to England as a nation with a contractual belonging to Britain as a state; the myth of an ancient ethnos thereby filled the space where a British constitution ought to have existed."

The consequence of teaching this myth of a integrated and homogeneous British identity with a prior and proprietorial claim on all humane values - set in righteous opposition to the inhumane and inferior values of the (formerly) colonised - is that the other: the immigrant, the Muslim, the Asian, is considered to be stupidly and childishly attached to inferior values - an attachment that must be beaten out of them. That jealously guarded 'core values' such as the right of one man to enslave another and the right of a man to choose his daughter's husband must and do evolve and mutate for the good of society, thanks to the tireless work of individuals and groups across the centuries - not to reflexively punish the 'wrong doer', who after all according to their core values are doing no wrong, but to persuade them of the inutility, the pointlessness, and the harm of what they are doing. What we are living under in England is the legacy of the Victorian empire, where 'righteous' punishment/abuse was liberally employed by everyone from the husband to the nanny to the school master to the factory foreman to the general to the plantation owner all the way to the Queen. How we love to punish in the name of superior values like discipline, loyalty and now perversely in the defence of 'freedom'. But abuse by any other name is still abuse.

Kundnani: "What is meant to be symbolised during the citizenship ceremony [for those who pass their 'citizenship test'] is not an equal exchange of one nationality for another but initiation into a superior civilisation. Such thinking sets ups a hierarchy in which different communities are ranked according to their inherent distance from British norms of civility. While that distance is perceived as greatest in the case of Muslims, all groups seen as 'alien' by virtue of their culture are caught up in it. The clearest example of this is the way that Islam has been singled out for its treatment of women. British values with regard to women are construed as exclusively 'modern' while 'Muslim values' are essentially backward [...] What is striking here is the confidence with which this 'integrationist feminism' obliterates any complexity to these issues in an effort to present British society as naturally liberal and Muslim as naturally sexist. [...] Thus, for example, the epidemic of domestic violence which infects all sectors of British society, and includes two women every week being killed by their partners, receives less media attention than the problem of 'honour killings' carried out by Muslims. It is right that the specific justifications which Muslim men use to legitimise violence is exposed. But this should not be done in such a way that combating violence against Muslim women is seen as fighting against a culture, while combating violence against women is seen as a fight for rights. [...] Additionally, integrationists have no sense that Muslim w omen have long been fighting for their rights within their own communities. [...] Renunciation of one's identity becomes a pre-requisite for emancipation ands a new kind of superiority is entrenched in the name of feminism. State coercion is then justified as a possible means for bringing about this 'emancipation'."

Feminists of Muslim origin that I work with, will defend until their dying day their right to expose individual abuses in the name of Islam or national security where they see them: they will refuse to be intimidated by the right in their country, who claim such abuses are central to their core values; or co opted by the right in other countries who will use them as a stick to beat an enemy state or culture; or silenced by 'cowardly liberals' who would prefer to ignore abuses than risk playing into the hands of conservatives. The feminist and human rights movement should not have a political or national agenda or it risks averting its eyes from politically inconvenient abuses in the name of whichever too-fragile ideology.

One of the best pieces I have read in a long time from a feminist and human rights campaigner is by Azadeh Forghani: Open Letter to Farah Diba: "Kindly Come and Do us a favour, Oh Lady." (translated from the Farsi by Niki Akhavan and Simi Shakhsari for the web site, Payvand). For those of you who don't know the background, Farah was the last wife of the last Iranian Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and now living in exile in Paris, she still wishes to be called by her old title Empress. Azadeh Forghani is one of the women’s rights activists who was arrested for peaceful protest on March 4th 2007 in front of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. It was on Women's Day, March 8th 2007 that Forghani received a message of congratulations from Farah to herself and the other women's rights activists who had been detained on March 5 following a peaceful protest. Forghani's thoughtful and intelligent response is born of awareness and experience of not only a life-time of institutionalised (in the family, the school, public spaces) abuse but a history of abuse by the state in Iran. Here is an excerpt:

"It is not permissible to use my work or those of others in creating tumult and making personalities. What we did was our duty and nothing beyond it, the price paid was negligible compared to what I have learned from Iranian history, culture, politics, economy and global issues. To the best of my ability, I have approached social issues from seven to eight different perspectives both in thought and action. Now I know the similarities and differences, real or imagined, between the true world of our women of various social classes and the world exemplified by the empress. And I have pretty much learned the reasons and motivations behind various actions.

Let’s go to the real issue at hand. As far has her freedom of expression is concerned, the empress’ symbolic gesture is her own business and has nothing to do with me. Yet our judgment about the nature and reason for her actions does have to do with us. She or anyone else is free to issue statements, and this is their right. However, the empress’ baseless, untimely, ostentatious, and senseless act which was carried out without any consideration of its consequences for us, is an offense to human morals and political honor. The shallowness and pointlessness of her act is her business, but she has offended and transgressed on the domain of our freedom to act and collaborate towards gaining our rights. I will explain.

Mrs. empress! Examine your own conscience or take as witness the objective conscience of another and tell us what relation—any at all—have you had or do you have with the women activists of June 12 and March 4? Their commonality is in their years of struggles for true freedom, eliminating oppression, liberty, and reaching to the minimum of women’s human rights. They have been led to these paths by social forces and a feeling of responsibility for and co-existence with women who are disenfranchised, downtrodden, unemployed, poor, low-wage workers, honorable teachers, nurses, and office employees. What link can you claim with them, other than--in the most honest and best case scenario--a sense of empathy? But is this enough to justify suddenly jumping in the fray and grabbing the opportunity?

Have you spent a penny from your massive wealth on a women’s movement which has cast aside all aristocracy and class-based snobbery? Has any from your family, friends, or acquaintances experienced, even for a few hours, the danger of activism, forming organizations, collecting signatures for petitions, negotiations, arrest, twenty-four hour interrogations, jail, constant social insecurity, distress, job insecurity, etc.? During the last 28 years, 10 of which I have been following closely, has your lifestyle and activities even had a needle’s point of connection—never mind a lively and meaningful one—with the independent women’s movement in Iran? All of the answers to these questions are negative. I have occasionally watched you, your friends, and supporters on satellite television expressing your views. I, like all other activists who are part of this movement, noticed the pretentiousness, the deep chasm, and all of the resources that are unjustly available to aristocratic women on that side, and these factors have made us completely lose hope in you (And of course I want to emphasize that I do not speak here about the aware and clear-headed women on that side who know their place and who carry out political and cultural activities).

But you, empress, under the influence of or in collaboration with those around you, jump in the middle and opportunistically and ostentatiously issue statements, as if we are with your camp. And with your actions you place us, an independent movement that does not rely on any foreign support or on you, under suspicion and leave us to the hands of the interrogators and don’t give a damn when they say: “here is the proof that you get money and orders from abroad, your work does not reflect the needs and desires of women, so there!” Yes, these are all the familiar indicators of your being divorced from social reality and the will of people, being irresponsible and unpopular, and your opportunism in trying to reach your previous paradise."

I think that there is a popular misconception about the defence of human rights as a glamorously international pursuit; a misconception exploited by conservative nationalists and middle-class liberals alike. As Forghani makes clear in her letter, the struggle for an end to human rights abuses is far from glamorous and in her case is not for a 'minority' or 'ethnic group' - that those on the far right like to tell us are being privileged over a now mythic 'indigenous peoples', the white working-class - but for the familiar and local people in Iran - her mother, brother, neighbour, as well as the poor village girl in a distant province. Her fight is against abuses that come in many guises: class, racial, economic, sexual, territorial. Recently, when watching (too late at night) the documentary film on the building of Israel's apartheid wall, Mohammed Alatar's The Iron Wall, the one thing that struck and wounded me the most was the level of abuse the West Bank Palestinians were made to suffer on an hourly, daily basis. Abuse is shamefully banal and when we abuse we all become ugly thugs, no matter our professed belief system or our superficial markings of piety or liberalism. Young settler girls who have been taught to throw stones and insults at Arab children walking to school, have themselves been abused by being subjected to the hatred of their parents. Abuse is local and if the individual wants to fight it they do not need to board a plane with a fat salary from an international NGO, they have to confront their own abusive behaviour and that of those around them.
Elly

Summary only...