The execution of a 26-year-old Iranian woman who was sentenced to death for killing a man who allegedly tried to rape her has apparently been postponed for ten days.
Reyhaneh Jabbari was arrested in 2007 for the killing of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former employee of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence. Jabbari, who was 19 at the time, maintains he drugged her and tried to rape her.
She admits stabbing him in the back with a small pocket knife, but says another man in the house killed him – a claim which has never been properly investigated.
Her family had said she was due to be executed on Tuesday. Amnesty International say they have been told by sources that she was granted a last minute stay of execution.
Iranian authorities however say she was never on the list of people to be hung that day.
Her case has drawn international outcry including from the UN Office for Human Rights http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=47581#.VCpvCq5gud4
Facebook pages and a twitter account have been set up to support Jabbari.
https://www.facebook.com/SaveReyhaneh
https://www.facebook.com/SaveReihaneh?frefphoto
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SaveReyhanehJabbari&src=typd
Amnesty has called for a full review into her case and for Iranian authorities to confirm that she won’t be hanged in a week and a half’s time. http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/Iran-must-halt-imminent-execution-of-26-year-old-woman-2014-09-29
If Jabbari is hanged, she would be the 600th person to suffer the death penalty since Iranian President Rouhani took office in August last year.
