CNN.Com:
By Ashley Fantz, CNN
June 3, 2013 — Updated 1411 GMT (2211 HKT)
File: A woman demonstrates against stoning and execution on August 13, 2010 outside Berlin’s landmark the Brandenburg Gate.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- A judicial panel has reinserted a stoning provision into a draft law, Human Rights Watch says
- The group says Iranian authorities are holding at least 10 people who face stoning
- The U.S. State Department cites unconfirmed reports of bodies of four women apparently stoned
- Officials in Iran have denied the reports
(CNN) — Stoning remains the way Iranians — overwhelmingly women — are punished for committing adultery, Human Rights Watch said Monday. The international group blasted a judicial council in Iraq, made up of 12 religious jurists, for inserting a stoning provision into a draft law where it had been previously removed.
Last November, security agents with the country’s judiciary moved the bodies of four women who had been stoned to the Tehran medical examiner’s office, according to reports on the Melli-Mazhabi site, which opposed Iran’s government, the U.S. State Department says. CNN cannot confirm the reports.
According to the State Department’s report, the unconfirmed accounts say the women’s bodies had facial wounds that indicated torture, beatings and stoning.
