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The New York times reported on Wednesday that the Iranian government confirmed Tuesday that a man was executed by stoning last week for committing adultery, and said that 20 more men would be executed in the coming days on morality violations. A judiciary spokesman, Alireza Jamshidi, told reporters on Tuesday that a death sentence by stoning had been carried out last week near the city of Takestan, west of Tehran, despite an order by the chief of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, not to permit such executions. “The verdict was final, and so it was carried out for the man but not for the woman,” the ISNA news agency quoted Mr. Jamshidi as saying. He said the 20 additional executions were for such things as “rape, insulting religious sanctities and laws, and homosexuality.” Most executions in Iran are hangings, often in public and at the scenes of the alleged crimes. The police arrested about 1,000 people in May during a so-called morality crackdown. Mr. Jamshidi said 15 more men were being tried on similar charges and could receive death sentences. The daily newspaper Etemad Melli reported Monday that Jaffar Kiani, 47, who had been convicted of adultery, was executed by stoning on Thursday in the cemetery of a small village near Takestan. “Villagers said the sentence was carried out by the local judge and authorities,” the newspaper reported. Mr. Kiani and his partner, Mokarameh Ebrahimi, 43, who has two children, were scheduled to die on June 21, but the execution was put off by Ayatollah Shahroudi.
Under the punishment of stoning, a male convict is buried up to his waist with his hands tied behind his back, while a female offender is buried up to her neck with her hands also buried. The spectators who are the regime’s officials attending the public execution start throwing stones and rocks at the convict, who is theoretically released if he is able to free himself.

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The United Press International reported that Sweden Wednesday protested against the stoning to the death of an Iranian national for alleged adultery, the Swedish Foreign Ministry said. The Iranian ambassador to Stockholm was summoned to the foreign ministry where State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Frank Belfrage conveyed a protest over the stoning of Jafar Keyiani last Thursday in the town of Takestan, north-western Iran, the ministry said. The statement said that Portugal, current holder of the European Union presidency, had protested against the execution to Iranian officials in Tehran. Belfrage reiterated Sweden's opposition to the death penalty and underlined that the EU presidency had urged Iran to spare the life of Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, a mother of three, who was Keyiani's alleged partner and who also risks stoning.
The stoning brings to at least 110 the number of executions carried out in the Islamic republic so far this year. At least 177 people were executed in 2006, according to Amnesty International. Capital offences in Iran include murder, rape, armed robbery, apostasy, blasphemy, serious drug trafficking, repeated sodomy, adultery or prostitution, treason and espionage.


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Norway summoned the Iranian ambassador in Oslo on Tuesday to protest against the "barbaric" stoning to death of a man convicted of adultery in northwestern Iran, Associated France Press reported on Tuesday."I am outraged that the stoning has been carried out and condemn in the strongest possible terms this death sentence," Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a statement. "It is a fundamentally inhumane and barbaric punishment." The summons follows Tuesday's confirmation by Iranian authorities that Jafar Kiani had "recently" been executed in the village of Aghche Kand near Takestan, in Qazvin province. It was the first time in five years that Iran has confirmed a stoning to death took place. At Tuesday's meeting, Iranian ambassador Abdol Reza Faraji Rad told Norwegian foreign affairs state secretary Liv Monica Stubholt that the sentence of Kiani's co-accused, Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, who is also facing death by stoning, would not be carried out. "He told us that the Iranian judiciary said to him that the sentence of the woman would not be carried out," ministry spokesman Frode Overland Andersen told AFP. "When we asked him whether he meant the sentence would be postponed or that it would be stopped, he could not confirm." Rights activists seeking to stop the practice said Kiani had been arrested 11 years ago while living with Ebrahimi. Both were reportedly married to others at the time. Ebrahimi is still awaiting her sentence in prison in Qazvin city, where she is detained with her two children. "Norway will work with other countries to strongly invite the Iranian authorities to prevent the stoning (of Ebrahimi) from being carried out," Gahr Stoere said Tuesday.

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A man was hanged in public in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz.The man identified as 22-year-old Navid Parham was hanged in a Shiraz street, the government-owned news agency Fars reported on Monday. He was accused of murder.

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Three men were hanged in public on Saturday, in the north-western Iranian province of East Azerbaijan, state media reported.The unnamed men were hanged in public in the provincial capital Tabriz, the government-owned news agency Fars said. They were accused of murder.

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The international human rights organization Amnesty International announced on Friday that human rights violations were continuing “unabated” in Iran.In an announcement posted on its website, Amnesty said it was “greatly concerned” by “continuing human rights violations in Iran, including new arrests of human rights defenders and the high rate of executions”.Sixteen people were arrested on 9 July -- 18 Tir in the Iranian calendar -- the eighth anniversary of student demonstrations in 1999 which were violently suppressed by security forces, Amnesty said. It added that trade unionists were also being targeted.“Women's rights activists also continue to face reprisals for their activities demanding an end to laws which discriminate against women. At least three more women have recently been sentenced for participating in a June 2006 demonstration calling for reform of Iran's discriminatory legislation”. “Iran continues to have one of the highest rates of executions in the world. Amnesty International has recorded at least 120 executions since the beginning of 2007, suggesting that by the end of this year the total number of executions could exceed the total of 177 executions that Amnesty International recorded in 2006. “Two recent victims of the Iranian authorities' use of the death penalty were child offenders, whose alleged crimes were committed before the age of 18, and a third was a man who was stoned to death. The two child offenders -- Mohammad Mousavi and Sa'id Qanbar Zahi -- were executed in April and May respectively, in direct contravention of international law, which requires that no-one should be executed for crimes committed while under the age of 18”, it added.

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The International Transport Workers' Federation has appealed for the release of an Iranian union leader who reportedly was kidnapped earlier this week in Tehran. Associated Press reported on Thursday that Mansour Osanloo, leader of a bus workers union, "is still in custody somewhere by agents unknown," federation spokesman Sam Dawson said Thursday. The Associated Press was unable to contact any member of his family in Tehran for information on the case. Osanloo, 47, president of the Sandikaye Kargarane Sherkate Vahed (Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company), was accosted by several men as he stepped off a bus Tuesday evening, the federation said, quoting information from its Iranian affiliate. "Given the past history of Osanloo's treatment by the security forces there is strong reason to believe that some part of the Iranian authorities was responsible for this attack, but the local police station, to which his family turned, refused to confirm or deny that the police were involved," the federation said in a statement. "We demand an immediate and unconditional release of Mansour Osanloo," said David Cockroft, the federation's general secretary. "ITF affiliates and the global trade union leaders who met him at the recent ITUC General Council meeting in Brussels, and the International Labor Organization will all protest against this blatant violation of human and trade union rights and will take whatever action is necessary to secure the immediate release of Mansour Osanloo." The federation said Osanloo was released in August last year after seven months in detention. He was arrested again on Nov. 19 and released a month later, and was briefly detained on May 1 this year, the federation said. Amnesty International said Osanloo was released in August after posting bail equivalent to $163,000 while awaiting trial on unknown charges.

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Sky News reported on Tuesday that police in Iran are reported to have taken 14 squirrels into custody - because they are suspected of spying. The rodents were found near the Iranian border allegedly equipped with eavesdropping devices. The reports have come from the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). When asked about the confiscation of the spy squirrels, the national police chief said: "I have heard about it, but I do not have precise information."The IRNA said that the squirrels were kitted out by foreign intelligence services - but they were captured two weeks ago by police officers.A Foreign Office source told Sky News: "The story is nuts."