Germany urges Iran to release journalists

The Irish Times, GERMANY HAS called for the immediate release of two reporters caught up in the turmoil of an Iranian woman due to be stoned to death for adultery.

At the weekend the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani (43), appeared before Iranian television cameras – of her own free will, she insisted – to announce she was pressing charges against the German reporters for bringing “disgrace” on her country.

Ms Ashtiani was due to be stoned to death following her imprisonment in 2006 for assisting in the killing of her husband by her lover.

More than 100 German business and political leaders, including many cabinet ministers, yesterday published a 15-page appeal in the Bild am Sonntag tabloid, which employed the two imprisoned journalists.

The men interviewed the woman’s son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, and have been in prison since October 10th. Tehran says the two German men entered the country on tourist visas and did not obtain the necessary accreditation for journalists.

Mr Ghaderzadeh was arrested and also imprisoned after speaking to the two journalists but was released last month on bail.

“I don’t think that my mother is innocent, she is certainly guilty,” he told the German journalists, “but after losing our father we don’t want to lose our mother, too.”

The German petition is the second associated with the Ashtiani case: many leading politicians and actors – including Robert Redford, Robert De Niro and Isabelle Huppert – have called for the release of Ms Ashtiani, who has already spent five years in prison.

Her sentence to hanging for involvement in the murder was commuted to life last year. She could, however, be stoned for adultery.

Last month she confessed to involvement in the killing during a television interview and even participated in a television re-enactment of the crime.

She was released from prison for a few hours to attend the weekend press conference, to which only selected foreign journalists were admitted. Ms Ashtiani reiterated she was complicit in the killing and dismissed as “rumours” the claims by campaigners for her freedom that she had been tortured in prison.

“I am appearing of my own free will before the cameras to speak to the world,” she said. She added that she wanted to speak to counter the many who had “taken advantage of her case” to claim she has been tortured, “which is a lie”.

Diplomatic sources in Tehran told German media that the press conference “posed many questions” and appeared to have been staged. One unnamed diplomat pointed out that Ms Ashtiani used language and phrases identical to those in Iranian government statements to describe the reporters.

Deputy editor of Bild am Sonntag Michael Backhaus said he found the entire press conference peculiar.

“It’s odd that a woman who has been condemned to death in Iran is allowed to leave prison for a few hours to tell western media that she wants to denounce the journalists who want to report on her case,” he said.