Updated: Malta joins EU call to Iran to stop Ashtiani execution

The Maltese government has joined calls by EU High Representative Catherine Ashton to halt the execution of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani and to convert her sentence.

Mohammadi-Ashtiani has been at risk of execution by stoning for adultery, Ashton said – “a particularly cruel method of execution which amounts to unacceptable torture. “

The EU joined many other countries and organisations in condemning this sentence as a clear violation of Iran's international obligations under the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights.

“While the Iranian authorities have given assurances that Ashtiani would not be killed by stoning, she has since faced charges for alleged complicity in the murder of her husband and may be executed by hanging. Neither sentence is acceptable,” Ashton said.

Catherine Ashton added that she was also concerned that Ashtiani was not given a fair trial, not least in view of the detention of her lawyer, Javid Houtan Kian, and her son who has campaigned for her release.”

Alternattiva Demokratika chairperson Michael Briguglio earlier today today wrote to foreign minister and deputy prime minister Tonio Borg to exert the “utmost diplomatic pressure” on Iran to prevent the execution of Sakineh Ashtiani.

Ashtiani was sentenced for stoning for adultery, but is now to be hanged for murder instead, according to a human rights group.

The German-based International Committee Against Stoning said Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is to be executed today. “The authorities in Tehran have given the go-ahead to Tabriz prison for the execution of Iran stoning case,” the group says on its website. “It has been reported that she is to be executed this Wednesday, November 3.”

Ashtiani’s case has provoked a worldwide outcry with leading political and religious figures condemning her original sentence as medieval and barbaric.

Brazil, a close ally of Iran, has offered to give the 43-year-old mother of two asylum.

In September, officials said Ashtiani’s adultery conviction was under review, but she still faced a charge of being complicit in her husband’s murder.

Iranian television had previously aired an interview with a woman it said was Ashtiani admitting to a relationship with a man who then killed her husband.

The International Committee Against Stoning called the TV show “toxic propaganda”.

The case has worsened relations between Iran and the West, already strained by a dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

According to Amnesty International, Iran is second only to China in the number of executions it carries out. It put to death at least 346 people in 2008.