Retrial for girl due to hang for killing rapist.
By Martin Croucher
Published: 07 January 2007
A 19-year-old girl sentenced to death by hanging in Iran last year is to be retried on Wednesday after a Canadian singer launched an international campaign to save her.
Nazanin Fatehi was sentenced to death a year ago, on 3 January 2006, after admitting having stabbed to death one of three men who tried to rape her and a 16-year-old relative. She was 17 at the time.
The pop singer and former Miss Canada Nazanin Afshin-Jam learnt of her case and has since become the figurehead of the campaign to have her freed. "The injustice of the story horrified me," said Ms Afshin-Jam, the runner-up to the 2003 Miss World title who left Iran when she was two. "I couldn't believe that a victim of attempted rape was being charged as a criminal."
According to the Iranian daily newspaper Etemaad, Ms Fatehi and her niece were in a park in Karaj, just outside of Tehran, with their boyfriends when they were approached by three men. The boys fled after the men pushed the girls to the floor. Ms Fatehi then drew a knife and stabbed one man in the arm and another in the chest, killing him.
If she had allowed the men to rape her and her niece, the girls would have been subjected to 100 lashes under Iranian laws on chastity. If they had been married at the time they were raped they would likely have been found guilty of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning.
Ms Afshin-Jam, said: "Nazanin didn't have an option, she didn't have a voice so I was going to try and be that voice for her."
Since she took up the case last year, 232,492 signatures have been delivered to the Iranian government, and a trust fund set up which has enabled Ms Fatehi to have access to one of the best lawyers in the country. The young woman's sentence was stayed in June last year and a retrial ordered. The first stage of this was held last August, and the case continues on Wednesday. If it upholds the first verdict, it will need to be approved formally by Iran's Supreme Court.
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Published: 07 January 2007
A 19-year-old girl sentenced to death by hanging in Iran last year is to be retried on Wednesday after a Canadian singer launched an international campaign to save her.
Nazanin Fatehi was sentenced to death a year ago, on 3 January 2006, after admitting having stabbed to death one of three men who tried to rape her and a 16-year-old relative. She was 17 at the time.
The pop singer and former Miss Canada Nazanin Afshin-Jam learnt of her case and has since become the figurehead of the campaign to have her freed. "The injustice of the story horrified me," said Ms Afshin-Jam, the runner-up to the 2003 Miss World title who left Iran when she was two. "I couldn't believe that a victim of attempted rape was being charged as a criminal."
According to the Iranian daily newspaper Etemaad, Ms Fatehi and her niece were in a park in Karaj, just outside of Tehran, with their boyfriends when they were approached by three men. The boys fled after the men pushed the girls to the floor. Ms Fatehi then drew a knife and stabbed one man in the arm and another in the chest, killing him.
If she had allowed the men to rape her and her niece, the girls would have been subjected to 100 lashes under Iranian laws on chastity. If they had been married at the time they were raped they would likely have been found guilty of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning.
Ms Afshin-Jam, said: "Nazanin didn't have an option, she didn't have a voice so I was going to try and be that voice for her."
Since she took up the case last year, 232,492 signatures have been delivered to the Iranian government, and a trust fund set up which has enabled Ms Fatehi to have access to one of the best lawyers in the country. The young woman's sentence was stayed in June last year and a retrial ordered. The first stage of this was held last August, and the case continues on Wednesday. If it upholds the first verdict, it will need to be approved formally by Iran's Supreme Court.
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posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 1:58 PM
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