Mohammad Mostafaei, the lawyer who was defending Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani and many others including more than 100 political prisoners is accused of threatening Iran's national security by the regime's intelligence ministry, presumably by creating bad publicity for the country with the Sakineh story. Mostafei however is not the one who is keeping the Sakineh story in the news. The Sakineh story was about to run out of its newsworthiness until the regime's intelligence ministry tried to arrest Mostafaei. That then became new news. Then they took his wife and brother-in-law as hostages to get him back, this again became new news. Then they arrested his father-in-law, again this meant the Sakineh story was still news worthy. They then continued to incarcerate Mostafei's wife even on their daughter's seventh birthday. Keeping an innocent mother away from her daughter even on her seventh birthday once again stirred emotions and it became new news. Yesterday they made Sakineh to confess on TV against herself and her lawyer which once again hit the international headlines.
If the Islamic judiciary in Iran sees the Sakineh publicity as a threat against national security, then it only has itself to blame. In order not to appear to give in to international pressure, the regime is digging a hole for itself that is even distancing its own allies like the Brazilian president De Silva. It is the regime itself that by insisting to keep a barbaric law like stoning in its penal code is showing its true outdated medieval nature to the world public opinion, not a lawyer who is only doing his duty, defending his clients.
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