"A brief history of grassroots struggles to end stoning”

Kar, who has worked extensively as an anti-stoning activist, details the history of women’s struggles to remove stoning from the law. She explains that even though laws cannot be incongruent with religious doctrine, shortly after the revolution many religious scholars began to write opinions on the basis of “Ijtihad” (a practice of religious jurisprudence referring to independent reasoning) to attempt to convince the anti-reform power centers, that it is possible to reform Islamic law without inflicting any harm to religious doctrine. Anti-stoning activists used both human rights as well as religious language to achieve several goals: publicize the reality of the punishment within the international community, encourage international pressure on the Iranian government, publicize and dissect known cases of stoning, and pressure the Iranian government to admit that stoning was not only happening but must be stopped. Kar explains that although stoning is seen as an Islamic punishment by the Guardian Council, the Expediency Council could theoretically outlaw it on the basis that it damages the Islamic Republic and is not in the best interest of the regime. She also explains the necessary legislative and political procedures that would have to happen in order to outlaw stoning within the context of Iran. [in Persian]